A woman with blood on her arms, a marble throne behind her. A mirror hanging in the middle of the room, illusory, with some dreadful shape etched into the glass. Iason, retching onto a hedge before scurrying after a black-clad man.
A figure on the gallows, swinging on a rope in an empty square.
Mislia again: a man with dark hair and angular features, a tattoo on his chest, flowers blooming in his hair as if by magic.
“He’ll do as you say,” said a voice. The man with the flowers in his hair winced. “Won’t you, Bazyli?”
Iason, scarred, alone in a room with a broken mirror.
Sophie in the doorway of that room, dressed in boy’s clothes, hair short and eyes too big in a pale face. “Why are you crying?”
Iason kneeling in a garden, head bowed, with uniformed men holding him down. A Starian man with long, reddish-gold hair in a braid, one hand curled around the pommel of a sword, the other gently holding Sophie’s shoulder.
The black-eyed mage from before, with the flowers, standing next to the Starian king. “Don’t let her watch, Bazyli,” Iason was saying.
One last shift, and there was a ship again, Iason watching a man cut Sophie’s arm before he threw her to the sharks.
A shape in those waters, moving silently toward them.
Levi gently thought of memories of his own: Swimming under a starry sky, the moon bright, dolphins chattering and chasing him. His sirens greeting him with their wreaths of seaweed and bone. Angel, tied on a rock to be devoured, then teasing him, climbing onto Levi’s back with the chains hanging empty. A sandbar and a tooth on a leather thong, and the quiet sobs of the man Levi had abandoned, clutching a useless piece of leather in his hand and calling out,Tempest, my love, why did you leave me here? What have I done?
“You had a lover,” Iason said, startling Levi out of the memory. “A mortal.”
“I’ve had many,” Levi said, as his dragon form tumbled about in the waters, the man forgotten, his sobs replaced by the cries of distant gulls.
“But you loved that one.”
He supposed he had, not that it mattered. “For a time.”
There he was, standing far inland with Ares and Azaiah, Azaiah’s smooth features impassive, his spring-green eyes as cold as ice. Nyx, bloody and trembling in silent rage as an ocean of sand drowned what was left of his empire.
Levi as a dragon, swimming down deep where fire spilled from vents on the ocean floor, using all his might to pull islands of rock up to the surface. Islands born from creation and desire, reshaping the world.
Iason swore softly, staggering. “You—you reallyarea god.”
“Yes. Is this helping?” Levi asked. He wasn’t sure he’d ever shared so much of himself before. Even with his siblings.
“I don’t know.”
Levi on the deck of Arwyn’s ship, watching him with Declan. Azaiah and Nyx, together in Azaiah’s long-prowed boat. Ares sleeping in their tomb, eyes flying open and blazing white like a flame.
“Brother,” Ares said, in their voice like cannon fire. They smiled. “It’s been some time.” A shadowy, slight figure was barely visible in the light from the torches behind them, flickering patterns dancing on the walls of the tomb.
Astra on his onyx throne, chin propped on an elbow, smiling as he watched a figure dance. He clapped when it was over. “Encore, and this time, do it with your shirt off!”
“Who are these people?”
“Not people,” Levi said, as the images faded. “My siblings.”
The scent of ozone grew thicker, and Levi could feel the power Iason had drawn from him, magic sparking like electricity. “Iason. You’ve taken enough.”
“But that’s not an answer! I see memories, but how are those supposed to help?” Iason’s voice was a frustrated growl. “I want to know how to give it back. How do I give itback?”
Levi saw Avarice in his skeletal form, leaning forward on his throne of trash, Declan kneeling before him and offering a coin. Azaiah and Nyx, hands clasped, standing beneath the branches of a barren tree in the snow. Iason plotting vengeance through tears when a trapdoor fell. Sophie crying in her room. Sophie dying in the water. Astra screaming in pain as something crushed his horns. A shriek of wild laughter. Ares weeping tears of blood that turned the desert sand to crimson glass.
Iason yelling at a woman about betrayal and threatening her son if she didn’t help his sister. His desperation was almost as strong, then, as when he’d taken Levi’s power for Sophie. A spell net catching fire, the scent of flowers in a garden. Nyx kneeling at Azaiah’s feet. Declan kissing Avarice’s skeletal face.
Leviathan in dragon form, roaring up from the waters, barreling toward Iason with teeth bared.
