A S T E R I O N
in sunshine and in shadow*
The air is pungent, sickly-sweet, of rotten apples when they should be ripe. At their feet grass grows tall and goes to seed; blossoms flower and wilt. Asterion’s heart feels as bruised as the fruit when he notices these small signs, and thinks of his sister. The moment he realizes what bit of weapon the boy grasps, the events on the island make more sense. The jagged bit of dagger is a puzzle-piece now settled into dreadful place.
But without Florentine, there is no rewriting the past.
There is only his nephew, tangle-haired, elven-thin, clothed in wilderness. His eyes are arresting, as gold and wild as any monster or miracle the riftlands could birth. Gold glints like treasure still half-buried from his wings, his antlers. His hair seems spun of it, or caught mid-change. All of it sears the bay stallion’s heart.
They study one another. Asterion doesn’t draw his gaze from the feral boy’s even as the shard drops into the grass and a bit of his breath falls with it before catching in his throat. The unlucky stranger is forgotten and fled; there is only the two of them, sparse family, and the smell of bloom and rot. He can feel the boy’s magic trembling, unsteady, a frequency he can almost taste; the bay lets go some of his own and the air grows damp and slow, as after a rain, a calming balm like the silent depths of a lake.
“I have your name because I have your blood.” His voice is like his magic - soft-steady-deep, calm as a hand below a trembling bird. Asterion does not yet come nearer, but when the boy raises the bit of silver again, he presses it gently down. “I am Asterion, and your mother is my sister. You know me - you called me Uncle. Do you remember, Leonidas?”
@
