Page 56 of Tempest

By the time Iason pulled himself together enough to look up from his hands, he and Nyx were alone in the kitchen. Nyx was heating water in the small kettle on the stove, and Iason watched him as he moved around the room, a divine being older than Mislia going through the steps of something so human.

“Funny thing about magic,” Nyx said, as he washed out the teapot. “I never had any, but I’ve seen enough over the years to know that much of it is ritual. Before we knew things like how the body worked or weather patterns and animal migrations, we couched them in ritual. There used to be a way to prepare tea that was supposed to align the elements at war in your body. Entire villages would carve symbols into the hillside to draw rain into the valley. People would dress themselves in certain colors or patterns to give them luck or courage. Perhaps there wasn’t real magic involved, but the rituals gave people a sense of control.”

Iason shot Nyx a wry look. “I gave up on maintaining any control over my life some time ago.”

Nyx lifted the kettle barely a second after it started whistling. “Tea helps. There are many rituals surrounding grief, you know. But this is the one I return to. Making tea. Cleaning the floors. Washing the windows. The little things people do to make room for loss.” He poured the water into the pot, added some tea leaves, and brought the pot and the cups to the table. When he sat down, the chair beneath him groaned, and his scarred hands looked out of place as he gently moved the cups.

“Who did you lose?” he asked, and Iason felt as though the earth had dropped from under his feet, leaving him drifting in the empty air. He hadn’t expected this. He’d expected Nyx to ask about Levi—or about the Archmage, his life as a killer. This question left Iason stunned, vulnerable in a way he’d only been with Sophie and Levi.

“My sister,” he said. “Myself.”

Nyx clasped his hands on the table. “Tell me about them.”

Iason looked down. After a short silence, Nyx poured him a cup of tea, easing it into his grip, and Iason inhaled the fragrant steam.

When he spoke, it was faltering. He told Nyx about a girl who spent most of her time in bed, of her brother who picked flowers for her and told her their names and properties, of worn picture books and promises to travel beyond Mislia when she was better. He spoke of an ordinary boy who didn’t much care for his overbearing mother but was fond of thunderstorms and books, and who wanted desperately to be a mage so he could earn enough money to live with his sister, just the two of them, by themselves. They drew pictures of their dream home: a tree house with a dozen windows, full of the birds Ophelia liked to draw while lying in her bed by the window. She could draw birds so well they looked as if they could fly off the page.

Then the boy tried to summon a demon and nearly destroyed the summoning circle, and the Archmage took him and killed him in a thousand little ways. He killed him slowly, just like the tumor that grew in Ophelia, and by the time Ophelia tried to save him, the boy who’d picked flowers on the hillside and dreamed of tree houses and birds was already dead.

“Thank you for telling me about them,” Nyx said. “You never had the chance to grieve him, did you? The boy you were?”

“I became the thing that killed him,” Iason said, and Nyx was quiet for a minute, waiting for his breathing to slow.

When Iason was able to listen, Nyx said, “That can happen, when you are tortured long enough. You become something else. You think you need cruelty to survive, because it’s all you know. But do you really think that’s all you’ve become? Is that what you are, now?”

Iason drained his cup. Nyx refilled it. He reached across the table, and his callused, scarred hands covered Iason’s—which were also marked by a lifetime of pain, of grinding poisons and working with knives, stripping thorns from stems, caring little for the body that fulfilled the Archmage’s will. “I know I’m not the same as I was.”

“How didhedie?” Nyx asked. “The killer.” Iason met his gaze, compassionate,knowing, one killer to another—but something else, too. Something that had moved beyond the killer.

“It was a teenage girl who killed him, I think,” Iason said, and barked out a laugh. He told Nyx about Sophie and her relentless empathy, like a child bringing home venomous snakes to keep as pets. Her death in the ocean; what Iason did to bring her back. Levi charging in, dripping with salt water and outrage. Fishing on the beach. Making a poison tree, a corridor in the ocean, a reef.

“I never thought I wanted children,” Iason said. “I didn’t want a lover, or a companion, or any of what I have now. But I would like to be here for Sophie. I want to enroll her in school—I want to see what she becomes. The Archmage’s assassin wouldn’t have cared. Not for Sophie or Levi. Not even for myself.”

“You have to let the killer go,” Nyx said, hands still clasped around Iason’s. “You can’t atone with that hanging over you. And if you do form a bond with Levi, and you bring the killer with you, you truly will spend lifetimes grappling with regret and self-loathing.”

“How do I let go?” Iason felt breathless.

“You’re wearing him, in a way. Like a cloak, or something to shield you from what comes next. All change involves loss, even when it’s a good change. But if you aren’t the man you were, you can’t treat yourself the way you’d treat him. You have to let yourself become something else. I know that’s terrifying. I know. It happened to me not too long ago.”

“And you just… forget it?” Iason searched Nyx’s face. “Everything you’ve done? It doesn’t matter anymore?”

“I haven’t forgotten it. Have you forgotten the boy you were?” Nyx squeezed Iason’s hands. “Let the killer go. Grieve him. Become something new. The earth in which we grow has been enriched by the loss of what we used to be.”

“And that makes it easier? Living as you do?”

Nyx smiled. “Yes. Time is different, now. I am different—more present. But I can’t make your decision for you. I just… saw some of myself in you, and the gods we love don’t always remember—or never knew, I suppose, in Levi’s case—what it is to be mortal.” He leaned back, letting his hands slip from Iason’s. “I would like to meet this daughter of yours, though. I destroyed an empire for mine, but I think it takes more strength to do what you did and cast aside the man you were, to save her.”

“Maybe another time,” Iason said. “She’s had an exhausting few weeks.”

“And you haven’t?” Nyx’s eyes twinkled. He stood from the table. “Here, show me how you clean up, and I’ll help. No doubt your dragon will return soon enough, to ensure I haven’t charmed you with my soldier’s wiles.”

Iason rolled his eyes and helped Nyx pick up the remains of their tea. He paused, looking at the man who claimed to have destroyed an empire and yet seemed so at peace with his place as Death’s gentle companion. “Thank you. For speaking to me. For listening.”

Nyx gave Iason another comforting smile, then turned back to the human, mundane ritual of tidying up.

ChapterTen

While Nyx and Iason spoke in the house, Azaiah and Levi walked in the surf. Azaiah even took off his boots, smiling in delight at the water that rushed over his feet, wriggling his toes in the sand. “I forgot how much I like the shore. I’m usually on my boat. People don’t often die in the shallows.”

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