Iason’s jaw twitched, but he didn’t say anything. He just stepped closer, going tense, clearly preparing himself for Levi to put his hands on him.
Levi frowned. “It didn’t hurt you. When I touched you, or when you took my power. Why are you acting as if I’m going to bring you pain?”
“Maybe I don’t want a dragon in my head,” Iason snapped. The gentleness he’d shown with Sophie had vanished. “It’s a mess in there as it is.”
“Then I shouldn’t be able to do much damage. And I wouldn’t. You’re the one who hurtsme. Or it did when you took the life force for her.” He kept his voice low, but Iason still hissed ashhhat him, so apparently it wasn’t quiet enough.
Levi wasn’t used to explaining himself once, much less twice, so he simply stepped forward and put his hands on Iason’s chest. He saw it again, the current between them, bound by his own godhood and Iason’s latent magic. He closed his eyes. “Go on, then.”
Silence. The only thing Levi felt was Iason’s heart beneath his palm, the slight increase of his breathing. “I don’t know how,” Iason said, at length. “It was desperation, when I did it in the water.”
Levi opened his eyes. “Can you see it? My power.”
“Yes,” Iason said, his eyes moving beneath his own still-closed lids. He inhaled sharply. “There’s a lot of it.”
Obviously. It had been enough to bring a soul back so quickly Azaiah hadn’t even known about it. “Concentrate. You need to focus.” The wind picked up, and he gave a rough growl. “No. No storms. That isn’t power you’re allowed.”
“You feel like a storm,” Iason whispered. “I— That’s what you really are, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Think of my power like an ocean.”
“The—the water’s too rough.” Iason opened his eyes, and Levi saw twin flashes of lightning in each. “You stir it up too much.”
“Then calm it. Close your eyes. Think of the sea. Breathe, go on. Slowly.” Levi put one hand on Iason’s throat. “I’m not going to hurt you. Breathe in, hold, breathe out.” Levi closed his own eyes and fell into his power the way he would when he shifted forms, ignoring the ache of loss, though Iason made a sound of distress as Levi’s emotions tilted the flow of his power.
Levi imagined the sea, storm-tossed with high, peaked waves. He slowed his own breathing, careful and easy. “Do this. With me. Can you see my ocean, wizard?”
“Aye,” Iason whispered. Electricity sparked between them. “I can.”
Levi smiled. “Good. Use my power. Make the waves calm.”
It took some time, but after a few moments of steady breathing, Levi’s mental seascape began to calm, the waves smoothing out into barely a ripple on a tranquil surface. Levi felt the bond strengthen, the flow of Iason’s currents mingling with his own, the power he was sharing—willingly, this time. When Iason pulled at its source, smoothing it like roving spun into thread, it didn’t hurt. There wasn’t the strange rush of intense pleasure, either, but he felt tingles of it, like lightning breaking over his skin.
The air filled with the scent of ozone, and images assailed Levi all at once.
A young boy with neatly combed silvery-blond hair and wide eyes, trembling in the center of a circle scribed in chalk on the ground. Some sort of festival was going on, people everywhere—black-robed figures watching, and one particular figure was prominent in the memory, standing disproportionately tall. But they were only the vaguest shadow of a person, with features blurry as though someone had run a finger through a painted portrait of a man’s face before it was dry. He could make out long black hair in a braid and wide, pitch-black eyes, but the figure must be more than just a simple mage.
A woman stood next to the man, hands clasped over her mouth. She was trying not to cry.
All around the boy were indistinct figures; other children, perhaps, in similar circles. Every so often, one would exclaim in delight, and the little boy would shake harder.
The little boy was Iason. Obviously. And the blurred figure grew taller and more imposing, impossibly so, as time went on and Iason failed to summon anything but tears.
“Well,” a voice said, tinny, indistinct, but tinged with disapproval and dominance. “I suppose that’s that, then.”
“Iason, try harder,” the woman wailed. “You can do it. He can do it, please, Ar—”
The last of her words, a name, was unrecognizable.
The scene shifted to Iason all alone, weeping in a circle of meaningless runes.
“I didn’t summon a demon,” Iason said, now, as the memory fell away. “My mother. She was worried. I carried the lineage of a light mage, and she wanted to prove we were loyal.”
Another memory: Iason as a young man, handsome enough, with hair nearly brushing his shoulders. His face wasn’t scarred, and he was smiling at another young man who seemed a few years older. He was showing Iason a knife, and this other man’s eyes were black, a demon cat winding around his shoulders, purring.
Someone, not in view, spoke. Both young men stopped smiling, snapping to attention.
The memory faded, replaced by the deck of a boat, the same young man whistling and showing off how he could toss daggers into the air and catch them. Iason watched, smiling, holding a mug of ale.
