Page 76 of Storm Front

The figure stood over him, smiling, but it wasn’t Azaiah. Or it was, but it was Azaiah without the mercy, without the compassion, cold and pitiless.

Death removed his cowl. “Oh, yes, say that again.”

“Azaiah.” Glaive grunted as Death kicked him in the side, tipping him to the grass. Then Death pushed him onto his back and placed a foot on Glaive’s belly, regarding him like a maid discarding a dead mouse.

“That is no more my name than Nyx is yours, my butcher.” Death’s voice held none of Azaiah’s warmth, but it was familiar enough to make Glaive ache with longing. “You get what you summon. It’s the way of all things.”

“I didn’t summon you.” It came out as a snarl.

“But you have me. Or I have you. It’s strange. I should want to kill you—you’re only a soldier, after all, and what are soldiers meant for if not to die? But all I ever want to do is consume you.”

“Crawl back into the dark, and let Azaiah return,” Glaive said.

Death laughed. It was low, indulgent, and when he climbed over Glaive, he ground against Glaive’s half-hard cock. “Azaiah doesn’t deserve you,” Death said. “But I do.” He leaned down to kiss Glaive, and Glaive grabbed his hair and pulled at it, biting Death’s mouth as he drew away.

“Fuck you,” he hissed, and Death laughed again. He kissed Glaive once more and slid his hand under Glaive’s trousers, stroking his cock. “How many times do I have to see you before it’s enough, before Azaiah comes back—”

Death tightened his grip, and Glaive gasped. “Enough whimpering. I know what you need.”

“You don’t.”

Death’s smile was too sharp. “I know what youwant.” He flipped Glaive over, and Glaive cursed, bracing himself on his arms. Death dragged his trousers down to his knees, and Glaive gasped, inhaling rainwater, digging his fingers into the mud.

Death was right, of course. Glaivedidwant this. It was the closest he could get to what he yearned for, and part of him believed it was what he deserved. That he’d fucked up so monumentally that all he could hope for was this dark mirror of Azaiah.

“Did he weep when you slew him on my altar?” Death whispered in Glaive’s ear, and Glaive bit his own arm as Death entered him, pushing his legs apart.

“No… altar,” Glaive gasped. Death yanked at his hair, making him hiss and curse.

“The world is my altar. This land will sink beneath my waters in the end, when all is done. You will be the last I sacrifice, and when my rain fills the hollows of your eyes…” Glaive felt him shudder. “How beautiful you’ll be, my butcher.”

“Azaiah won’t let it happen,” Glaive said, and Death drove into him harder, making him cry out. “I’ll draw him out of you.”

“And who will draw Nyx out ofyou?”

Glaive lowered his head as Death fucked him into the hillside, brutal and hard. He scratched Glaive’s back raw with his nails and laughed when Glaive cursed him and told him to gofaster, damn you, and when he drew out, clearly intending to come over Glaive as if Glaive were a fucking submissive, Glaive twisted round and grabbed him, kissing him roughly. He ground their cocks together, tugging at Death’s hair, and gasped into his mouth as he came. Death followed after, smiling, and shoved Glaive back as he stood. Glaive fell in the mud, panting, rain battering his skin as Death adjusted his cloak.

“Until you next call upon me, my butcher,” Death said, and Glaive swore again as Death turned and disappeared into the rain.

He sat there for a few minutes as the rain started to recede, then got to his feet. He fixed his clothes, which were filthy with mud, and examined the hillside. Half the grass had gone patchy and brown. If Red came down for the body, he’d have questions Glaive wasn’t inclined to answer. So instead, Glaive picked up the broken form of the man he’d been tasked to kill and carried him up.

Red was only halfway done with the grave when he got there, but despite the dirt staining his clothes, there wasn’t as much mud in the grave as Glaive expected.

“The worst of the rain must’ve missed me,” Red said, avoiding looking at the body Glaive dropped on the ground. “Thank you for bringing him up. I wonder how the folks in that village will feel. If they’ll think it was worth it.”

Glaive shrugged, heading for the packs Red had hung from a tree branch. “No, lad. It never is.”

* * *

The ship was anchored off the coast of Mislia, somehow impervious to the constant storm that bracketed the coast. The ship wasn’t theMaelstrom,which would have been appropriate, considering the weather. It was Starian in origin though the flag it flew was not. It was his brother’s favorite: the crimson skull with the crown of rust, the flowers for eyes, the paste-jewel teeth.

His brother’s true face, just as Azaiah’s was etched on the coins he kept with him. Still two, since Nyx—

No. He wasn’t thinking about Nyx. That would bring the rain, and the loss of himself, and he could not afford either at the moment. Pallas was long gone, her temple fallen, and none had replaced her. Azaiah had taken Somnus across the river when the Lord of Dreams could no longer serve his function without sending dreams of sorrow and heartache to all. His replacement, a small, lost child named Astra, had grown into a brat of a man with a penchant for annoying the same brother Azaiah was here to visit.

The ship’s crew were a strange mishmash of people from all over Iperios—the name being the only thing that had survived of Nyx’s empire. There was no emperor, and the palace still rested under the sands of Arktos. Arktos, where Azaiah’s sibling Ares slept in a crypt, having taken the form of a sword to be close to their beloved, Atreus Akti, the warrior who’d refused Ares’s passionate offer to be their companion.

The Arkoudai ruled the desert now, having left the lush fields of Katoikos at Atreus’s order, with Atreus never knowing who he’d been, before: a little boy with a kind smile who crossed the river with a wistful “Take care of Uncle Nyx,”and ended up leading an army back to the land that would have been his.

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