Page 92 of Storm Front

“Azaiah, I’m afraid to close my eyes andblinkbecause I’m worried you’ll be gone. I couldn’tbemore willing. Whatever you’re going to do to me, it can’t be worse than the last eight hundred years of wanting you, of hoping for even a glance and getting nothing but that bastard—no offense—who wore your face instead.”

“He is me, just as Glaive is you. But we are more than that, as I said. Strip your shirt off, please. This might hurt a little. I’m sorry for that.”

“I deserve it. All of this, it was my fault, wasn’t it?”

“No,” Azaiah murmured, as Nyx stripped to the waist and obediently pressed his back to the tree. “But it doesn’t matter. Love has no faults, I don’t think. Or, if it does, it doesn’t matter because we love them anyway.”

Azaiah found the coins in his pocket and showed them to Nyx. “Do you know what these are?”

“I need to pay you? Thought being Death’s companion meant I got to ride on the boat for free.” The banter was a bit rusty, but that was all right. Azaiah appreciated it nonetheless.

“So you do know. They use them in Arktos, and I, ah. Well, it’s sort of my fault. But the figure on their coins isn’t me. These two are the only ones left with my real face. I’ll keep one, and you can keep the other.”

“Sure,” Nyx said. He looked… delicious, really, leaning against the tree, bare-chested and beautifully scarred. “That’s it? You tell me to take off my shirt and give me a coin?”

“No,” Azaiah said. He found something else in his pocket. A knife, simple and silver, with a black handle. A pure white ribbon was tied around the hilt.

“Right,” Nyx said. “You’re going to cut my throat?” He tilted his head up. “Matching scars, is that it?”

“No, no. You are no sacrifice. This is willing death, in a way, but you are not being given to me. You are choosing to walk with me. There is a difference.” Azaiah stood before him, and the sky went dark again, the clouds rumbling, but no rain fell this time, nothing but the promise of a storm. “You do want this, my Nyx? If you would rather sleep, I know it has been a long time—”

“Don’t make me say it again. It’s all I’ve wanted for—ever, really. Do it. Go on. I mean, yes. What should I say?”

Azaiah didn’t know. He shrugged one shoulder. “Words aren’t important. Say whatever you want. I love you, my soldier. Waiting for you was agony, far worse than the knife that brought me here, but I would do it again, for you.”

“I love you, too. And I know I don’t deserve you, but I want to,” Nyx said, eyes bright. “I used to like the person I was, when I was with you. I’d like to be Nyx again. Your Nyx. I don’t want to be Death’s glaive, or his butcher. Not anymore.”

“You are mine, and I am yours.” Azaiah kissed him. “When the time comes for me to cross the river, I will do so with you at my side. You will bear no mark but mine, not anymore.” He placed the tip of the dagger over Nyx’s heart and waited.

Nyx blinked, and then, without saying anything, he seemed to know what to do. He smiled and reached up to cover Azaiah’s hand with his own callused, scarred one. Then he nodded, and together, they sank the knife into his chest, piercing his heart.

Above them, the sky thundered and lightning flashed, and the tree shook as if battered by a storm. Azaiah and Nyx drove the blade in to the hilt, blood soaking the white ribbon and turning it crimson as the mercenary called Glaive died beneath the suddenly verdant branches of the tree. Azaiah saw something out of the corner of his eye and looked up, drawing the dagger out, and together, they watched the flower fall from the branch above and land on the wound left by the knife. Nyx hissed, and the flower was suddenly no longer there but imprinted like a tattoo in his skin.

The sky cleared, and Nyx reached up to press trembling fingers against the red flower forever marking him as Azaiah’s at last.

Azaiah slipped the ribbon from the dagger. It was no longer white silk stained red with blood, but red silk the same color as the flower above Nyx’s heart. Azaiah stared at it, then held it out to Nyx.

And then he knelt before the tree that was no longer his, no longer Nyx’s, only a tree like any other. As he did, he pulled his hair up to bare his throat as he had so long ago… but only for Nyx to tie the ribbon there, like a collar, hiding his scar.

When it was done, Azaiah heard the birds of the forest chittering and trilling, roosting for the first time in millennia in a tree no longer dead.

Nyx smiled at him. Azaiah smiled back. “Come, my beloved,” he said, rising to his feet, the silk ribbon smooth against his skin. “Let’s go home.”

PartFive

The World

ChapterNineteen

Home was a river.

Nyx had wondered, over the centuries, what the river of death looked like. He’d always pictured it as one of the old rivers that ran through the empire, framed by slopes of grass. But when Azaiah took his hand and they sank through the world and into the other side, Nyx found himself on a bank of black sand that sparkled like stardust. There were small stones at the edge of the water, which was dark as the night sky above, and it reflected millions of stars Nyx had never seen before. There were so many that Nyx could clearly see Azaiah beside him, the ribbon at his neck, his mouth upturned in a smile.

“It’s beautiful,” Nyx said, and he laughed. It startled him, but Azaiah was looking at him with something like relief, mixed with the affection that had always been in his gaze. “Can I… touch the river? Is it safe?”

“It’s safe,” Azaiah said. “But it may try to lead you beyond. Don’t follow it yet, beloved.” He pointed to the distance, where the water seemed to drift through a hazy curtain. “We have other ways to cross, and those who would cross with us.”

Nyx turned to where Azaiah was looking and drew back at the sight of a crowd of people. They didn’t look quite real—they were made of a soft, pale fire, shades of who they’d been in life, and they were standing in silence, watching the river flow. Azaiah gestured, and a long rowboat appeared before them, a lantern hanging off the stern. He stepped into the water and climbed into the boat, then held out a hand to Nyx.

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