“All right. If you get robbed by a street thief, don’t blame me.”
Nyx relaxed some after she left, and he won the next hand. He thought for a long time before asking his question, and Azaiah found himself leaning forward, intrigued.
“Will you come back?” Nyx asked at last. “To speak with me again, I mean.”
The thunder shook the walls, rattling glasses and calling forth curses from the barkeep as a bottle slipped from a shelf and broke on the tile floor. Azaiah nodded. “Yes. Winter is a long game, if played correctly. I think ours might take some time. As it is, my visit here tonight, with you, must end now.”
The air was thick with humidity as Azaiah carefully put the marbles and the cards back in their black cloth bag and refolded the board. “Until we next meet for our game, my soldier. Seek me not through recklessness, but walk steadfast, and I will find you.”
“Great,” Nyx muttered, grabbing for the wine bottle again. He drank from it directly, no longer bothering with the glass. “Don’t kill anyone I like before then, how’s that? And I’m not your fucking anything.”
“I am no more a killer than a farmer reaping crops, Nyx.”
“Yeah? Anyone ever ask the crops how they feel about that?”
Charmed, Azaiah raised the hood of his cloak to hide his hair. “I suppose that is a point. Farewell, soldier. And if it eases your grief this night, know that your foster brother came to me without fear, and he loved you as well as you loved him.”
Nyx’s eyes went bright and hot, and he snarled something under his breath, reaching for the bottle again. Azaiah wasn’t sure if he meant to drink or throw it—and either way, it didn’t matter. The storm blew open the door to the small tavern, and Azaiah ducked outside, the impending storm wrapping around him like a cloak as he faded into the dark.
ChapterThree
The last time an imperial prince died, when Nyx was only a boy and the emperor’s brother passed from an illness, the empire went quiet for weeks. They didn’t have that luxury with Tyr. War was brewing in the mountains again, the most recently conquered regions straining against the yoke, and the soldiers who’d lined the path to Tyr’s grave had to exchange ceremonial armor for practical leathers.
“You’d think we’d have a proper commander this time.” Estrid, one of Tyr’s old squad, hunched her shoulders as she approached Nyx and Nadia. She had swirling tattoos on the shaved side of her head, and her ears bristled with silver and gold. “Now we’re stuck withhim.”
“He isn’t that bad.” Nadia twisted round to look over her shoulder, and Nyx followed her gaze. Lamont rocked on his skittish horse, looking like a boy dressed up in his father’s armor. An unkind thought, perhaps, but Lamont was nothing if not childish. He’d thrown a fit when Emperor Andor ordered him to the front lines, even though he was only there to say a few pretty words and ride home again.
“You can’t do this to me!” Lamont had shouted, his voice booming in the emperor’s private chambers. “I’m not some wild beast you can unleash on people, like him.” He’d gestured at Nyx, who stood in the corner.
The emperor didn’t bother correcting him about Nyx, since, of course, to Andor that’s all he was. “All beasts need someone to hold the leash, Lamont.”
Now, Lamont almost slipped off his saddle, and Estrid gave Nadia a pointed look. “I’m brimming with confidence.”
“We were all awkward when we started out,” Nadia said. Lamont started tipping to the other side. “Some more than others. I’m going to stop him before he breaks something.”
“Better you than us.” Estrid shook her head as Nadia jogged over to Lamont. He was red in the face when she got there, but when she bowed, one hand over her heart, he glanced at Nyx and back again and gave her a curt nod. She helped him off the horse. “She’s too nice for her own good. The three of you, really. You and Tyr are as bad as her.” She stopped, running a hand through her hair. “Fuck. I keep thinking he’s, you know. With you, somewhere.”
“I know. So do I.” It was a lie. Nyx could never forget that Tyr was gone. He felt Tyr’s absence in the silence between him and Nadia at camp, in the empty tent he made for himself at night, in the ache of his heart.
“I heard about the shroud.” Estrid’s voice lowered. “If you need to talk about it, you can always go to one of the witches in the palace. They helped my girl Mirine when her father died.” She looked at Mirine, an archer marching with her squad, and sighed. Their longing for one another had been the worst-kept secret in the army until Tyr, sick of pretending he wasn’t seeing her pine from across the campfire, ordered them to dig latrines together.
“They hate me now,” he’d whispered to Nyx, “but they’ll love me for it later.”
He’d been right. He’d always been right. If only Nyx had done something, had said something sooner, maybe they would have found some peace in each other, for a time.
Nyx looked away. Small creeks cut through the fields before them, with a village rising over the crest of a squat hill. It was the border of the newest region of the empire, where young people posing as bandits without any allegiance to king or country attacked military outposts, burning them to the ground. In the daylight, the area was quiet. It could easily have been the same farmland his parents came from. Still, he could see a crude watchtower at the edge of the village, and a bell rang in the distance, echoing over the hill. War was coming.
Tyr would have hated it. Fighting an army from over the mountains was one matter. Fighting his own people—even if they didn’t want to be his people in the first place—had always unsettled him.
“Nyx?” Estrid bumped his shoulder with hers. “You all right?”
“Mm. Yes. I’m fine.” He wondered if Death was waiting for him there, in the village. If one of those poor peasants would run him through with their mother’s sword and he would look up into spring-green eyes as Azaiah came to take him.
To bring him to Tyr.
“Do you believe in the gods?” he asked.
Estrid stared at him. “Uh. Maybe. I don’t know. My mom burns incense to Art, sometimes. I don’t really think about it. That’s more Nadia’s thing.” Estrid tilted her head. “Didn’t think it was your thing.”
