“Of course. I loved them. They were very good parents.” Her smile trembled. “Even if it’s getting harder to remember what they looked like.”
Before Levi could think of what to say to that, Iason had returned with news. “Someone was attacked,” he said. “He was trying to join the resistance, but a group of loyalist mages found him. That’s why I told you to be careful, Sophie.”
“But I wasn’t—” Sophie looked at Iason, at Argo, then sighed. “I know. I will be. I promise.”
“Is he dead?” Levi asked. Sophie winced, and Iason scowled. Levi had, it seemed, said something wrong. “Is that not how I should ask?”
“He’s alive, healing, and there are others—he was trying to find the way to the camp so he could report back. Lazaros is preparing a small group to go and help them find their way here.” Iason sounded as if he’d rather eat sand than talk about this. Levi wondered if that was due to concern for Sophie—that she’d do something foolish like run off and join the scouting party—or if it was simply his discomfort with the rebellion itself.
Which—ah. Levi clicked, which made Argo perk up, fins rising and head popping out of the bucket to look at him. “Now I see,” he told Iason. “Youwerethe others. The ones who are hurting people, not the ones who are being hurt.”
Sophie glared at him,but Iason simply looked away, jaw tight, and nodded. “Yes. I was.”
“Iason’s different now,” Sophie said. “He’s doing a lot better.” She made it sound like he was a man recovering from a broken leg, not a former assassin for the deposed Mislian ruler.
“That doesn’t change what he was, girl,” Levi said, though there was no censure in his voice. “Paths already sailed cannot be altered.”
“But we make new ones. New paths. That’s what we’re doing, all of us.” She was clearly new to her dominance, and it felt as if someone was trying to harpoon his draconic form with a toothpick. “Even you, Levi. You’re being a person for a while—that’s new, right?”
“I told you, just because I look like a man doesn’t mean that I am one. Human political maneuvering holds no interest for me, and shouldn’t. I’m not meant to meddle in such temporary states of affairs.”
Iason gave a sudden, sharp laugh. “Is that what we are, to the gods? Temporary states of affairs?”
“To me, yes. What would you prefer?” Levi grabbed Iason’s chin, ignoring the way the man snarled and kicked sand at him. “That we never let you have free will? That we play with you like toys?”
“Don’t you?”
“No. My sibling Death takes you when it is your time, but when that time is, is not his decision. My storms sink your ships, but it was your choice to sail my waters. War presently sleeps, but they were formed by your petty disagreements that ended in arrow-fire, and it is not their fault some of you want what others have. Humanity turned my brother from Desire into Avarice.”
Iason smiled. “So we do temper you. Tame you.”
Levi leaned close, staring into Iason’s pale eyes. He could see the faint glimmer of the illusory magic Iason was using, but he preferred Iason’s true features to the bland disguise he’d chosen to show everyone else. Electricity sparked between them, and thunder shivered in Levi’s voice when he spoke. “Say that again.”
“You think I won’t? You can’t throw your godhood at me like a dominant one minute, then chastise me for not respecting you the next.”
“I can do whatever I want,” Levi said.
Iason’s smile was sharp, pointed. “I know one thing you can’t do.”
Levi hissed and grabbed Iason by the back of the neck, threatening to drag him off to the ocean. “You’d do well not to remind me of that.”
“Or what? You’ll put me back in the poison tree? Let go of me.”
Levi was about to make a storm so the irritating wizard could be hit by a lightning bolt, when they heard a cough and a hurried, “Excuse me, I—ah.”
“They’re just like this,” Sophie said in a voice wise beyond her years.
Levi let Iason go, but they were both still brimming with tension as they turned to face Lazaros, who was looking from one of them to the other with wide black eyes. “I wanted to let you know that we have a house for you. The three of you. I thought you might like the extra space.”
“We don’t need special treatment.” Iason was clearly trying to temper his dominance, which, Levi noticed, was having a strange effect on Lazaros.
Levi narrowed his eyes. He wasn’t sure he liked that—and yet, did it matter? Iason was a human dominant, and Lazaros was a human submissive. They responded to each other, much like coral unfolding from a touch or flowers turning to the sun. It was human biology; there was barely a reason he should have evennoticed.
“Oh, it’s not that,” Lazaros said quickly. He waved a hand toward the beach. “We have some more people coming, and they’re going to need tents. The tents are near the healers, for one thing, and there may be wounded. And it’s… well, the tents are meant for one, maybe two people. Not a family. Definitely not a dragon.”
“What? There’s no— We don’t have a dragon. What dragon?” Sophie smiled brightly. “Just us three.”
“The, ah, dragon in the bucket, there?” Lazaros grinned. “That’s a water dragon, aye? Is it injured?”
