“Yes, I noticed the storm,” Lucien snaps, with risky insolence. “What would you like to propose?”
Lucien’s too off balance to steer a conversation, each movement too clumsy. Or Kazia is too focused. His contemplation is quiet.
“That can wait until morning,” Kazia says eventually. “Like you said. There’s time.” He unfolds his arms and slips past Lucien. Within arm’s reach, if Lucien dared move.
Kazia disappears into his bedroom. He returns moments later with a bottle in the crook of his arm and a glass glittering in each hand. He stoops to set each on the hearth, and the firelight illuminates the bottle’s contents a brilliant pink. Zalvin, probably. Lucien’s only had it once.
A plush, dark rug stretches in front of the hearth. Kazia drops onto it, his back to Lucien. He opens the bottle and pours two fingers of liquor into each glass. The floral scent tickles Lucien from across the room. Definitely zalvin.
Kazia sets the bottle aside and waits.
No orders. Not even an insult. His back is to Lucien, and the firelight glows even brighter in his hair than in the bottle, and Lucien has barely heard the last three peals of thunder.
It’s a calculated invitation. Vulnerability sharpened to cut bone-deep. Lucien’s fingers itch to unbraid Kazia’s hair and rub the tension from his neck.
He wonders what Kazia’s hair smells like.
“For fuck’s sake,” Lucien mutters, and sits beside Kazia. Several feet away, without touching.
Kazia wouldn’t have turned his back if he knew the collar was broken. He wouldn’t have said this either: “I never thanked you.”
For treating his injuries. For keeping his secret. Lucien almost protests that anyone would have—but every moment he’sspent with Kazia is proof that isn’t true. Kazia is surrounded by people who hurt him, and other people he doesn’t allow to help him. Salarin seems like a good woman. She would be horrified if she knew.
That may be why Kazia can’t allow her to know.
“You shouldn’t thank me,” Lucien says. “I’m presumptuous and overbearing. I developed a strong sense of propriety so I could ignore it whenever the fuck I want.”
“Overbearingandself-aware.” Kazia lifts a glass to his lips. Inhales. “Sometimes I don’t mind that as much as I should.”
Lucien picks up the second glass. Kazia probably hasn’t poisoned it. Light flashes, and thunder bites its heels. The liquor trembles until Lucien stills his hand.
Kazia’s gaze is as relentless as the rain. “It’s my turn to be nosy and overbearing.”
Yet Kazia simply sits, watching, waiting. Occasionally sipping his zalvin. He won’t ask, Lucien senses. Lucien could deflect with a lie. He could stay silent. But he knows too much of Kazia already. Sharing a piece of his own soul is only fair.
And it’s not like his sorrow is a secret.
Lucien takes a sip of zalvin. The glass is cool against his lips, and the liquor burns sweet. “My family died in a storm. Their little farm was swept away. Grandma lived upstairs—that was Ma’s mother. Da’s sister lived across the road with her family, and their cottage was swept away too. I had three cousins.”
Firelight reflects in the glass he holds, as if a bare flame dances above his palm. Sitting beside the fire soothes his magic. Perhaps Kazia did that on purpose. A month ago, Lucien never would have suspected that.
His grief is old and comfortable. It’s worn soft places in his soul where it can rest without hurting. But Lucien hasn’t told the story in a while.
“I wasn’t there,” Lucien says. “I was celebrating a friend’s birthday in the city, and when the storm hit, we stayed the night. We drank the tavern dry as the rain washed the hillside farms away.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Kazia says quietly.
Guilt drove Lucien to the battlefield. Fury stoked his magic from a spark to an inferno. But burning Draskorans to a crisp never changed the truth: Lucien has always been helpless against the storm.
“I know,” Lucien says now. “Took me a while to admit it to myself, but if I’d been there, I would have just drowned too. It was the middle of Aramy, the land as dry as it would get. We don’t get that kind of storm in Greenhaven. Not that time of year.”
“The middle of Aramy,” Kazia repeats. He picks up his glass again. Sets it down. “Lucien, what year was this storm?”
“You’re a clever one.” Lucien downs the rest of his zalvin, and the alcohol’s burn matches the embers of his soul. “Nearly eleven years ago, now. It was the first volley of the Long Summer War.”
“Dire magic,” Kazia whispers, so quiet Lucien barely hears him beneath the crackling fire. The rushing rain. “A Dire magic storm killed your family.”
Lucien looks up to find all the color drained from Kazia’s face.
