triumph. They walked back towards the Stepsons’ barracks, following the
creekbed, all pink and gold in sunrise, content and even playful, his chuckle
and her occasional laugh startling sleepy squirrels and flushing birds from
their nests. .
He’d been morose, but she’d cured it, convincing him that life might take a
better turn, if he’d just let it. They’d spoken of her father, called
Stormbringer in lieu of name, and arcane matters of their joint preoccupation:
whether humanity had inherent value, whether gods could die or merely lie,
whether Vashanka was hiding out somewhere, petulant in godhead, only waiting for
generous sacrificers and heartfelt prayers to coax him back among his Rankan
people – or, twelfth plane powers forfend, really ‘dead’.
He’d spoken openly to her of his affliction, reminding her that those who loved
him died by violence and those he loved were bound to spurn him, and what that
could mean in the case of his Stepsons, and herself, if Vashanka’s power did not
return to mitigate his curse. He’d told her of his plea to Enlil, an ancient
deity of universal scope, and that he awaited godsign.
She’d been relieved at that, afraid, she admitted, that the lord of dreams might
tempt him from her side. For when Askelon the dream lord had come to take
Tempus’s sister off to his metaphysical kingdom of delights, he’d offered the
brother the boon of mortality. Now that she’d just found him, Jihan had added
throatily, she could not bear it if he chose to die.
And she’d spent that evening proving to Tempus that it might be well to stay