Page 42 of Tempest

“What?” Iason’s brows lowered. “No, that’s— I should light the stove with a match, not magic. I don’t want to end up like him. Fuck.” Iason put his cup on the counter. “But I am. I am like him. And if I keep using your magic—”

“I don’t have any magic,” Levi interrupted. “You’re the wizard. I’m a font of power you draw from. It isn’t the same.”

“Isn’t it?” Iason pushed away from the counter. “The only difference between me and Drakos is that I’m not in jail. I should be, for what I did for him. I don’t remember all of it, but I remember enough. And if you hadn’t stopped me, I might have—I might havebecomehim. Ranting, locked in a cell with half my memories and nothing but hate to keep me company. That’s who I was, before. On the way here.”

“That man wouldn’t have stolen power from a god to save a girl from drowning,” Levi pointed out. “That man would have left her to distract the sharks, and he would have swum to safety while they fed on her corpse.”

Iason winced. “You’re not the god of compassion, are you.”

“No,” Levi said. “Storms aren’t compassionate, Iason, they justare. But that’s not you. You cared enough to save Sophie. The man in that cell would have made use of her kindness if it helped him flee, but the moment she became a burden, he would have left her to her fate.”

Iason tipped his head back, staring up at the ceiling. In the silence, Levi listened to the sound of the sea beyond an open window, a constant, steady rhythm like a heartbeat. “I’m going to bed,” Iason finally said. “Tomorrow, I need to… figure something out. A way to fix this bond. I don’t care if your power and my magic consume me, but I won’t end up like that. Raving in a cage. Iwon’t.”

Iason’s dominance usually felt like a knife, sharp-edged and pointed, and while it didn’t affect Levi as it would a mortal, he could still tell when Iason used it. Now, though, it fell like a hammer, more of a cudgel than a precise strike, and he saw tension in every line of Iason’s body. “You need something, wizard. Some way to relax.”

Iason barked out a laugh. “Good luck with that, dragon.”

“A submissive? Would that help?” Levi wondered how easy one would be to find. He had no idea how humans worked that arrangement out, come to think of it. Did they simply… shout until one knelt? Lazaros was a submissive. He often glanced sidelong at Iason, as if he found Iason’s illusory form attractive. Perhaps he would want to kneel for Iason.

“No.” Iason didn’t elaborate, just grabbed both teacups and put them in the sink. He waved a hand at the stove, banking the fire with his magic, and for a moment, flames brightened his silvery-pale eyes. “I’m going to bed. Don’t perch on the window and stare at me this time.”

“Are you going to pleasure yourself?” Levi asked, following him. “It’s been some time since I’ve done that in this form. Perhaps I should watch and learn, if I—”

Iason closed the bedroom door in his face.

Levi could have broken it to pieces if he wanted—or he could have simply opened it, since he didn’t think Iason had locked it—but he didn’t. Humans were strange, and perhaps that hadn’t been the right time to ask the question, but no matter. Iason could do as he wanted, and Levi would do the same. But his interest in touching himself was lessened without Iason there, so he decided to do somethingelsehe rarely did in this form, and that was sleep.

So, while Iason brooded or slept or did whatever else in the bedroom, Levi opened the door to the small back patio—he wanted to hear the sea, feel the cool breeze and smell the salt—and lay down on his back, hands behind his head. The bed would be more comfortable, but he’d slept in rock crevasses, so this was fine. He closed his eyes and let himself drift the way he would in the sea, and then he was asleep.

Andthenhe was being accosted by a young man with long black hair, starlight for eyes, and curved shining horns flinging himself off a black-winged unicorn right at him.

“Levi,finally! Where have you been?”

Levi turned his head in time to avoid being smacked with a horn, gently pushing his little brother away. “Astra. I’ve been awake.”

“Obviously,” Astra drawled. “I— What are you doing?”

Levi was examining Astra’s horns, looking for cracks. “I had a vision of you. Someone hurt you, broke your horn. I’m glad it wasn’t real.”

“Yeah, about that,” Astra said, then scowled and batted at his hand. “Wait, what? Thanks for checking in, you asshole. Why would you have that vision and not try and find me? Also, where have you been? Arwyn said something about you being weird and naked, but, like, that’s always how you are.”

Levi was indeed naked in his dream. He was also a man and not a dragon, and he wondered whether he could ask his brother to change him, just for the relief of inhabiting his preferred form.

But it wouldn’t be real. This was the dream world—they were standing on a sandbar on a sunny day, with rainbow slides that twisted and curved from someplace high in the sky and ended in the water, which in the dream was the clear, warm turquoise of the southern sea, not the colder waters off Mislia. Astra had made the slides when he was younger, and while some of his other fanciful dreamscapes had changed over the years, these had stayed the same.

“Someone hurt you?” Levi growled. “Tell me who. I can’t take my dragon form to devour them, but I can still tear them apart as a man.”

“That’s— No, I’m fine. It was Pallas, but it’s all settled now—”

“Pallas?” Levi interrupted. His sister, the former god of art, had been corrupted for centuries. “How could she hurt you? You’re a god. Your forest is supposed to protect you.”

“Wow, you are really out of the loop.” The scene shifted around them, and they were in a grotto with waterfalls flowing improbably upward, some swirling in spirals, clouds drifting lazily overhead. “Look.” Astra held up a hand, smiling.

There was a mark on his palm. Levi grabbed his wrist, blinking—it could be hard to read, or understand symbols, in dreams if he wasn’t touching Astra—and saw the shape coalesce into a crescent moon with two stars. “You… have a tattoo? Hmm. Remember the time Arwyn got one? It faded as soon as he shifted forms.”

“What? No, I—it’s a mark, yes, but a companion bond. I have one. A companion.” Astra beamed. He looked happy, the starlight in his eyes sparkling even more than usual. “His name is Cillian.”

The second Astra said his companion’s name, fireworks exploded all around, the sparks then turning into doves. The doves cooed, and it sounded like they were saying “Cillian,”over and over, a symphony of the same name with—were those trumpets?

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