He had not expected her smile.
Not now, not after all that had been born of the gods here, and their conversations on gods in the past. Instead he had braced for her anger, fresh as a new storm – well he remembers it, the way it struck like tinder from her words and darkened her eyes to aubergine.
But this song of her words, the curve of her lips – he wonders how much is the medication, the effect of root and herb.
To her next remark he says nothing; what is there to say? If he were still a god, this would not have happened to her. If he were still a god, whatever had caused this would be bleeding and sorry, paying twice over for each mark upon her golden skin.
If he were still a god he would not be here at all – and oh, would that be better?
But the demands of his Anthousai are never satisfied; tell me, she says and his gaze is lingering on her dagger when her own eyes open. The healers – or somebody – had done as best they could to clean it, but there is still blood between the links of chain, rust-dark against dim silver. This alone is enough for him to forget the dying aches of his own wounds, fresh scabs that will leave more pale scars.
Yet he smiles at her guesses, turning back to her with a slow shake of his head.
“You could say I was careless – too careless, and too curious. I grew bored of the path I was set upon, and cast aside my divinity that I might explore other paths. But it was the Rift that stripped me of the last of my godhood, and turned my small remnant of ichor to blood.” He had not thought it a bitter thing then – he had thought it very fine, to be mortal. It made everything new, everything holy the way all fleeting things were holy. What was beauty, if it did not eventually crumble to dust?
Oh, but some things fled too soon. That is where the fear came in – the hunger for more, ever more, one more drink before the cup (such a rich vintage, like nothing else) is taken for good.
She looks at him and sees beauty, and he looks at her and feels his heart beat too quickly, wondering how close she had come to being gone, spilled out like an empty glass.
It pains him, then, to talk of being a god – for it reminds him only of how helpless he now is, how far from power.
Are you a wicked god?
Lysander’s smile turns sly, a fox in the shadow of a tangle of briars.
“And what does it mean, to be wicked? I acted as instructed by my nature. I always thought it more the territory of men.” He pauses, licks his lips, remembers the taste of blood – his own, and a monster’s, and the thought of more. “Maybe I am more wicked now than I ever was before.”
A flurry of motion; like the sun she rises, heedless of the clouds. The first thing that rises to his lips then is a rebuke – it is too much, it is too soon, and Isra the unicorn would command her to lie down. But Lysander steps back to give her room as she struggles to her feet like a foal, and only the rain beats a warning against the bark of their shelter.
Softly he reaches for her, silently passes his lips over her scar, breathes gently (so careful not to touch) over the sharp and broken angle of her wing, at last bringing the soft skin of his nose to rest against her cheek.
“It leaves us free,” he breathes, and it sounds too hopeful, too young, to come from lips as old and dark as his. “We can be anything we want, or only what we are.” A pause; he smiles against her skin, even as he makes his voice stern as cedar-roots, and hard as antlers. “But first you must rest, or you will never be anything at all except a girl who cannot walk, and cannot fly, forever hounded by a boy who is not a god.”
I can play the fool you need
make me make it up to you
@
