“That’s fine,” Azaiah said dreamily, as Nyx’s hand started sliding down his stomach. “I once bared my neck for the sacrificial knife here. I will bare more than that for you, my beloved, my Nyx.”
Nyx paused, going still as he’d been as Glaive, then pulled back again. His face was wet with tears and rain, mud streaking one cheek, but he looked—wonderful. Beautiful. Like home. “You… did what, here?”
“Oh.” Azaiah glanced around. “Yes. This is where I died and took up the scythe. It’s not my tree now, though,” he added. “It’s yours.”
“I also forgot how weird you are.” Then Nyx smiled, and Azaiah kissed him again with all the longing he’d felt for centuries, until they were both gasping and clinging to each other as the rain fell gently around them, like a caress.
“I— Fuck.” Nyx drew in another breath and stepped back, running a hand through his hair. “I want you so badly. But I— We should probably—”
“Yes,” Azaiah said, nodding, fixing his clothes. “We should.” The rain gentled and finally faded, and Azaiah stepped away from the tree. “The village I was born in, it was somewhere nearby. I don’t remember exactly, and the buildings have long since rotted. But I remember this tree. We called it the World Tree, though I don’t know why. It was dead, and it always had been. It was the only one that didn’t grow leaves in the spring, or flowers in the summer. Birds wouldn’t land on it or build their nests in the branches.”
“I finally find you after eight hundred years, and instead of fucking against the tree, you’re giving me nature lessons.” Nyx smiled again. “I don’t know why I’m surprised.”
“There is a reason, beloved, I promise you,” Azaiah said, but he smiled, too. “When I was brought here for the sacrifice, the altar was beneath the tree. When I was given to the Harvester, the tree grew a single flower at the top. A red blossom—for me, I think, a sign of my sacrifice. But the years passed, and no one remembered that anymore. The altar is gone, though I think there are some stones—there, do you see them?”
“I don’t want to,” Nyx said, glancing away, and Azaiah remembered the circle of stones, the man bound on an altar in the rain. “I don’t like to think about it.”
“I was honored, Nyx. To be chosen to save my village. I had no notion I would be given the task of being not a flower for the Harvester’s brooch but the one to carry the scythe. And I have done it, with compassion and love, for a very long time. Longer than the last three of my predecessors, though I didn’t learn that until recently.”
Arwyn had told him, “You know, most of you only stick around for a few hundred years. Your job isn’t really that fun.”
“Why did you bring me here?” Nyx asked. He shoved his hands into his pockets. “I can’t imagine it was to fuck you.”
“Well, no.” Azaiah studied him. He looked like Nyx, of course, but there was a shadow of Glaive, too, as there would always be—just as Azaiah would always be Death. The problem was when they let what theydidovershadow who theywere. “I brought you here because, if you still want to be my companion, this is where it will happen. When I became Death, that flower bloomed for me—but when I fell in love with you, it becameyours.It’s how I knew to go to you tonight, my soldier. The flower, there… when I visited before, it was alone, the branches bare even though the other trees were lush and full. That flower, my soldier, was all that separated you from being Glaive forever, and me from letting my sorrow and my grief take control of me.”
“So it wasn’t… Thatwasyou? The person I would see, when I killed trying to find you?”
“It was me in the same way it was you doing the killing. Selves we never wanted to be. When I heard the dancer, the pretty one with the metal in his face—”
“He’s notthatpretty,” Nyx said under his breath.
“I thought he looked a bit like you.”
“I’m not pretty at all. You’re the pretty one. But go on.”
His dominance was familiar and made heat wash through Azaiah, made him wish maybe theyhadfucked against the tree. But they would have time for that, soon enough. A lot of time. An eternity.
“I think you are the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen,” Azaiah said. “Your beauty is more than how you look, Nyx.”
“I wasn’t that pretty insideorout, Azaiah, and you know it. I’ve done horrible things. I’ve—”
“Yes, but that is why we are here. We must change, Nyx. We must put an end to Death and Glaive, and, oh, start a new game. Nyx and Azaiah again.”
“Not real sure we ever finished the last one, and you know what? I’m done with games.” Nyx crossed his arms over his chest, chin tilted, looking more like the military commander Azaiah fell in love with than the dead-eyed mercenary who called to his darker self. “I want a report, and I want a plan.”
Azaiah ducked his head and smiled. “Yes. All right. If you want to be my companion, we will make our bond here. Then I will take you to my home on the river’s shore and show you the stars, as I promised to do long ago, in a palace that sleeps now beneath the sands.”
“Of course I want it. I always have.” Nyx stepped forward. “Do I kneel? How do I do this?”
Azaiah was momentarily worried that he wouldn’t know—and if he didn’t, was that some sign that all of this had been for naught? But then it was there, the knowledge that whatever they chose would be fine, as long as they chose it together. “You won’t kneel. You will help me find leaves and moss, and we will make an altar. Then you will do as I once did, and lay yourself upon it willingly.”
“You’re going to kill me,” Nyx said, though he didn’t sound too worried. “I suppose that’s fitting.”
“No, my soldier. I am going to kill Glaive. He will die on this altar, and Nyx will walk at my side through time. It will hurt for only a moment, I swear it. I will give you part of myself, my mark, and your service to my sibling and the darker part of me will be over.”
Nyx glanced around. “We don’t need an altar. I’ve killed enough men without them. If you’re afraid I’ll flinch, just find some rope, and I’ll tell you how to do the knots. Why do you say this ismytree, anyway?”
“I saw the leaves, by the flower, there. There’s more, now—can you see them?” Azaiah pointed, delighted, as he saw more and more of them on the branches. “When it’s over, I think this will be… just a tree, same as any in the forest. But it was something once, to each of us. And I won’t tie you, Nyx. You must come to this willingly.”
