Leviathan did not know anything of love or permanence or loneliness, not then. All he knew were sailors on boats with harpoons and nets who thought they could trap the Tempest. The ships that dared to sail his waters no matter how violent he made the waves, no matter how many sailors he sent to their death in his depths. They were relentless, these humans, living their brief lives like their own small storms, heedless of the end that waited for each of them.
What would these humans not dare, to be immortal? What if this man, this man who called himmy sea-born love,had shackled himself to the rock precisely so Leviathan would rescue him? What if it was all a lie, this business about being left as a sacrifice? A trick, like the fish with their false lights, luring unsuspecting prey into sharp, biting teeth.
Leviathan was the Tempest. He was the primordial god, the Lord of Chaos, the alpha and the omega. He was not prey. He would not be lured by a mortal with a pretty face and a sweet smile and whispered words of love and devotion.
Leviathan waited until Angel was sleeping. Then he reached out and took the tooth in his fingers, pulling it off its cord without waking his erstwhile lover. He said nothing, merely left the small house and shifted into his draconic form, taking to the water without a backward glance.
Angel would wake, and wait, and cry, and pray, and wail, and eventually he would tear the house apart to build a raft that would carry him away from the small island. He would spend the rest of his mortal’s life span in central Staria, far from the coast, wearing a plain leather necklace, sometimes reaching up to touch a tooth that wasn’t there, and dreaming of the ocean, of the sound of the surf, of the god he’d once made bleed.
Angel would never see the ocean, or his dragon, again. But he died with the rhythm of waves in his ears and Leviathan’s name on his lips, fingers clasped around nothing, a promise left unfulfilled.
ChapterOne
In the dim hold of a Starian ship, Iason Ellas woke to the sound of someone picking the lock of his cell.
“You have to stop this,” he said as a young girl slipped through the door, pocketing a handful of hatpins. She was thirteen or so, small for her age and utterly unremarkable, with brown hair that hung too limp over a plain face. She was the kind of girl who disappeared in a room with more than two people, too ordinary to notice. The light of the single lamp in the corner cast long shadows over her worried face.
“Do you remember your name?” she asked.
Iason looked down. “Go away.”
“It’s just that you’ve been forgetting,” she said, inching forward. “Ever since they put you down here.”
“I said go away, Sophie.”
Sophie sat down on the dusty floor in front of him, crossing her legs. She was dressed in a sailor’s uniform, and she smelled like the salt air of the ocean. “You rememberme,at least.”
“You’re hardly forgettable.”
“Of course I am.” Sophie pulled out a bundle of cloth from under her shirt. “Aunt Amalie said I inherited so much of my father’s common bloodline that I was born invisible.”
“Your aunt,” Iason said, “is hardly a font of wisdom.” Though she had, at least, recognized Sophie’s ability to fade into the background. He sneered at the thought of the woman, and the web of scars over his face tugged at his nose and mouth.
“Well, no kidding.” Sophie lay the cloth down in front of her and unfolded it. A mess of herbs and dried flowers lay in a heap in the middle, bits of leaf and blossom curling in on themselves like dying spiders. “Can you tell me what this is?”
“Garbage.”
“Iason.”
He sighed. When he moved, the shackles around his ankles thudded against the rough wooden floor. He pulled a flower from the mess and twisted it in his fingers.
“Elderberry,” he said. “The berries and flowers can be beneficial if you cook them, but you can use the rest of the plant for a number of potent poisons. You’ll be discovered, though. It has a distinctive taste.”
“My fathers had elderberry wine in the cupboard when they were alive,” Sophie said. “I used to pour it during tea parties with my dolls when they were at sea. But that was ages ago,” she added, as though playing with dolls was somehow mortifying. “Where did you learn about elderberries?”
Iason frowned at the flower. “I don’t know.”
“Try to remember.” Sophie’s voice was soft.
Iason tried. He sifted through the broken, disparate glimpses of his past: His colleague, Alistair, rolling his eyes while Iason lectured him on wearing gloves while handling poisons. His mother not even looking his way as he left her manor in Mislia. His sister, Ophelia, lying in her sickbed while Iason conjured an illusion of a forest glade covered in snow.
The rest was empty.
“I don’t know.”
They said it was magic that had done it. Someone had cursed the Archmage of Mislia, and the curse seemed to target those who were associated with him, erasing all memories related to the Archmage. While some people seemed to only lose a few moments, it was as though someone had dragged Iason’s mind through a sieve, leaving it a scattered mess of detritus.
He must have been close to the Archmage, once. He could guess that the work he used to do wasn’t particularly pleasant. Even this—Sophie showing him herbs, trying to jog his memory—was damning. He knew too much about murder: the length of time it took for a person to die with specific toxins in their drink, the correct amount of pressure to place on a throat to crush it. So much of his knowledge was tied to death, and when he’d woken from a formless dream to find his mind shattered, death was all he had.
