47. Davyn
Forty-Seven
Davyn
“Why did you call me ?ngull?” Azzie asked when we parted ways with Zeke.
It was what popped into my head. “It means angel, which doesn’t translate the same now as it used to. Like a winged warrior, you’re strong, capable of great things, and you deliver both justice and mercy. It seemed fitting.”
She gave a terse nod. “Okay.”
What did that mean?
“I’d like to take a step back from the surprise training for a little while.” The icy control in her voice didn’t hide the trace of sadness. “Not forever, but until further notice.”
I hated the idea of giving up training, but that wasn’t what she’d asked, and it was a reasonable request. “We’ll do that. You let me know.”
“I will. For now, I’m going to sleep this off.” She gave me a weak smile.
“Good idea.” I watched her head into her room, and close herself off from the world.
That was four weeks ago. Four weeks since Finn made a deal with Lugh and Tania to make sure we were trapped in that place. Since everything changed while still staying the same. In that time I’d done too much thinking, not enough fighting, and joined Kirby, Starkad, and their allies in fighting Loki.
And come away with a secret I needed to share, but wasn’t sure I could without losing Azzie.
However, I hadn’t figured out how to recover that ease and familiarity I’d had with Azzie since we met.
I found her outside practicing in the clearing behind our houses. I’d offered to join her many times over the past few weeks, for sparring or practice.
Her answer was always a friendly but distant no thank you .
She hadn’t spoken to Zeke at all since we got back, as far as I knew. I’d seen him a few times as well, and exchanged hellos , but the conversations always ended quickly.
I stopped to watch her now, rather than interrupt. If I didn’t ask to join her, I could enjoy her skill and beauty a bit longer, but she and I did need to talk. At some point, I’d want the full story of what happened, but for now I had enough information to understand why no one was acting the same as before the test.
The sun glinted off her hair, and when she moved in certain ways, it was as if flame radiated from her. What I used to think was a trick of the light. I’d ignored the magic that flowed from her when she lost herself in her practice, and that was what I saw now.
As she chopped at a nearby tree trunk, she knocked chunks off, despite working with a wooden practice blade. She moved with glory and grace. Stunning .
What would I do if I lost her?
I wouldn’t. Instead, I would do whatever it took, whatever she needed, to keep her safe.
“Are you just going to stand there and watch me?” She asked without breaking stride.
“Unless you’re going to spar with me or ask me to leave.”
She let out a huffing laugh, and dropped her sword arm, the tip of the wooden blade resting against the ground. “How much of what happened in there was real?”
“As in, what you did in the final fight, or the things that happened before that?” It had taken me a while to admit it, but I was jealous of a me who didn’t exist. A man who looked and sounded and acted like me, who had my name and past, but who was worshiping my angel on a regular basis.
She hadn’t faced me yet. “As in all of it.”
I’d tried to warn her before we went in. It was easy enough to say it’s all fake , but a trap like that had to be built on reality in order to work. The events may not have happened, but so many of the details were either real or possible, that one couldn’t draw a distinct line and say this could never actually be .
“Just say it.” A hint of Azzie’s attitude leaked into her words. A glimpse of who she usually was.
“Say what?” I suspected I knew the answer, but it was the kind of thing people didn’t like to hear.
She turned to me and rolled her eyes. “You know.”
I did. “I told you so.” That didn’t feel as good as it should.
“Feel better?” She asked.
This wasn’t really about me. “Do you?”
“No.”
I didn’t think so. “The entire thing was made to be a test of your skill. A test like that exists to push you to your limits and see what you’re truly capable of. Anything that happened in there is possible for you. For all of us.” Including Zeke throwing fireballs. That worried me.
That didn’t mean all of it would happen, just that it could. For instance, she and I would never have a physical relationship.
“Why don’t we fuck?” Her question was plucked directly from my thoughts. “You and I? Why haven’t we ever…?”
“It’s not who we are to each other.” If things were different… How desperately I wanted the fantasies of spending hours worshiping her body to be real.
She twisted her mouth. “Why not?”
I don’t want you to end up like Gudrun . I couldn’t say that aloud. Azzie wouldn’t understand. I couldn’t explain if I love you, I ignore what you can and can’t do, and if you do that, I’ll lose you .
“Because the people you fuck are temporary in your life.” I hid my wince as the words passed my lips, but I couldn’t ignore the hurt that splashed across her face.
“Not Zeke.” Azzie’s voice was soft.
She’d stayed with him so far, but it wouldn’t last. It couldn’t last.
I kept my mouth shut.
“We’re— He and I— Promises have been made.”
This wasn’t how I wanted this conversation to go. It ached that she was pulling away from me, and this would make the gap between us worse. “I’m not saying it to be cruel, and it’s not any sort of accusation. The last few years with you… You’re my pack. I won’t give that up. Won’t give you up.”
One corner of her mouth tugged up. Her sword vanished. She wasn’t wearing her knives, and she didn’t sheath the blade or so much as twitch in her current position, but her practice weapon was gone. She didn’t look surprised.
It seemed she’d learned some things in the last couple of weeks.
Azzie hugged me. The embrace was quick and she pulled away before I could return the gesture, muttering, me too .
I wanted her that close again, for longer. When we met more than three years ago, we’d adapted to each other quickly, and now there was a chasm between us that I didn’t know how to process. A problem I couldn’t fight into submission.
“What I did in there, what Zeke did, we should be able to do that still,” Azzie said. “But I’ve been trying and I can’t.”
“Your sword vanished. I assume you’re responsible for that.”
Azzie licked her lips. “Yes, and I’m starting to get a sense of how that works. I can’t heal though. Not the way I did in there. The axe from Loki is gone.”
“That’s probably not a bad thing.” I tried to keep my tone light. When it came to the weapon, I was more concerned she’d ever been attuned to it enough to grasp it from nowhere, than I was that it was gone now. “How do you know you’re not healing the way you were?” Did I truly want to know the answer to that question?
“I don’t go easy when I train.”
She never had.
“We’ll figure this out. It’s what we do.” How was I supposed to do that? Help her get stronger and at the same time keep her from fights and situations that were a threat?
Azzie sank into a nearby rock, and pulled one knee to her chest while she used the other on the ground to stabilize herself. “I don’t know what to do. When I let the cards fall where they will, the people around me get hurt and killed. Actively pursuing my fate isn’t any better.”
I’d never really considered how hard it would be on a person to know from the moment they were old enough to understand that they were destined for more. Possibly for godhood. She never deserved that.
She handled it better than most would, though.
“You keep doing the best you can,” I said. “You help people. You improve yourself. You be you.”
“You make it sound easy.”
“It’s not.” Life wasn’t easy. “If it were simple, you wouldn’t grow.”
“You’ll be here, though. Won’t you?” In that moment she looked meeker and more vulnerable than I’d ever seen her. “I don’t want to do it alone.”
I wouldn’t let that happen. “I’ll be here. Always.”