“Yes, well.” Azaiah cleared his throat. “Death waits for no man, but I waited for him—and I would do it again. Speaking of which, I think it’s time for us to be on our way. There are many here who I think would see me, if we were still in Mislia when the sun rises. And they have long since grown tired of me. It had been some time since Nyx and I were in a war together.”
“A war?” Levi couldn’t remember hearing the revolution calledthatbefore. “It was that bad?”
“Well, nothing like the old battles of the empire. But it wasn’t quite Arwyn and Declan’s—mostly—bloodless revolution, either.” Azaiah looked troubled, which wasn’t a look Levi was familiar with on his lovely face. “It was over quickly, but there was a sense of… hmm. Glee, is the only word I can think to use.”
“It was a slave rebellion,” Levi said. “From what I’ve gathered.”
“Yes. But at one point I saw Nyx looking about, and when I asked, he said he was checking to see if Ares was there. They used to dance in arrow-fire, on the battlefields.” Azaiah’s voice was slightly wistful. As a being who truly did not judge others even a little, Azaiah missed his sibling’s presence, Levi knew—as chaotic as Ares was. “They weren’t there,” Azaiah added quickly. “But there was something in the air. Perhaps it is simply the way of things, for humans to be bloodthirsty when they overturn their oppressors. I never lived through war as a mortal, only as a god. But it felt very much like it used to, when I walked the battlefields with our sibling in the height of their power, watching them dance while the dying screamed for me to spare them or take them, in turn.”
Levi had heard nothing from Ares since they’d gone to sleep in their former lover’s tomb, but they’d spent time together long ago, when armies from places no one even remembered went to war until the seas ran red with blood, gunpowder thick in the air from the cannons, debris clogging the waters along with the dead and dying.
Levi was silent as they made their way up the beach toward the small house, Azaiah holding his boots in one hand to let himself feel the sand on his bare feet a bit longer. Ares had been asleep for so long, and yet Levi had never worried about it. Ares had slept before, hadn’t they? Surely they must have. But it was possible they didn’t realize how long they’d been apart from the world, just as Levi hadn’t realized how much time he’d spent curled up in his caves as a dragon.
If Levi was finally aware, if he was taking a companion… would Ares soon wake? And if so, what would happen? It reminded Levi of the fall of the Iperian empire, the last time they’d all stood together and watched the world come undone, only to be remade into something else.
“Azaiah,” he said. “Do you go there often? To Arktos.”
“I suppose so. My successor is there, and his wife and dominant, Elena, is… distantly related to Nyx, I suppose that’s the easiest explanation. Why?”
Levi closed his eyes. He could see, then, the shifting currents, the tides, waterways that were different but connected all the same. “The next time you’re there, go and check on them. Ares. You’ve always been close. Perhaps you’ll be permitted to see them, where others have been refused.”
“Have they tried?” Azaiah’s spring-green eyes went wide. “I didn’t know that.”
“Astra’s been visiting Ares in their dreams since he became a god, and I think Arwyn tried, to no avail, a few months ago. But if something is stirring…”
It might be the reason why all this is happening so fast. Why you felt our sibling’s influence in the fires of a revolution. Why we all have found companions in the span of a few mere mortal years, when some of us have gone the entirety of our existence without one. Why Avarice left his Well and Pallas finally crossed our brother’s river so a dancer could take her place.
One thing at a time, though. First, he had a wizard to deal with.
* * *
Nyx and Azaiah took their leave, with Azaiah promising to look in on Ares and Nyx exchanging a final quiet word and a warm handshake with Iason. Once they were gone, Levi turned to Iason, who looked as if he were going to say something serious. Probably ask what Azaiah had told Levi, recount the conversation he’d had with Nyx.
Levi realized he was really quite done with talking.
So he dropped the sarong from around his waist and stalked toward Iason, letting himself move like the inhuman, godly being he was. Iason’s eyes flashed with heat, and Levi knew he’d chosen correctly. He grabbed Iason by the back of the neck, staring down into his eyes. “Use my magic, wizard, and put up a sound ward around our bedroom.”
“Why?” Iason asked, challenging Levi despite the heavy press of Levi’s divine influence.
Levi pulled him close and kissed him hard. “Because I don’t think you want Sophie to hear the noises you’re going to be making when you’re under me.”
Iason said something against Levi’s mouth, but Levi ignored him, dragging him toward the stairs. Iason struggled a bit, then seemed to change tactics and simply let himself be pulled into the room, where Levi kicked the door closed. “Fine, but I want to know what your brother said about our bond—”
“We’re not talking about that.”
“What do you— Of course we are,” Iason snapped, not cowed in the least. “Stop roaring at me for two minutes, dragon, and—”
“You,” Levi said, surging forward and trapping Iason against the closed door, “are going to put up a ward. And you’re going tostopgiving me orders.”
Iason looked very close to responding withMake me,but he calmed, only a muscle jumping in his jaw belying his tension. Levi felt the pull on his power as Iason crafted the spell, which encased the room in a bubble of soundproof magic. “There.”
Levi nodded, once, and kissed Iason, pulling him close and turning to walk him toward the bed. “We can discuss my brother and his companion’s visit later. I’m tired of holding back, wizard, aren’t you?”
“No, because I’d rather not burn Mislia down so soon after they put out the fires from theirrevolution,” Iason snapped.
“That isn’t what I meant. I don’t mean your magic. I meanyou.” Levi smiled at him, showing too many teeth. “You as a person. A man. A dominant. It wasn’t about magic when you fucked me in the ocean.”
“Yes, it was,” Iason snapped, but his eyes were wide, and there was a flush on his skin that Levi didn’t think was purely from anger. “I’m not— I don’t regret it. Is that what you think?”
