Chapter 17
CHAPTER 17
L eaving Laela and Sorex was bittersweet. Leofric pulled them both into a fierce embrace as Cosmo readied their horses. His mind was a tumult; joy at clearing the air with Cosmo mixed with sadness as he kissed the crown of Laela’s head. Something between them was ending, something safe and comfortable. Leofric had not realized how much he’d hidden behind Laela, in the wake of Hamalcar’s death. It was time, as she said, for both of them to begin to move past their loss.
“You mind your mother, and help her when she needs it,” he told Sorex. “I will return this way, if all goes well upon my mission.”
“I will,” said Sorex solemnly. He threw his arms around Leofric’s middle and gave him a hug, and that was that.
Back upon the road, Leofric had been nervous that things would be strained between himself and Cosmo, after the last few nights they’d shared in Cosmo’s bed. Nothing between them had transpired but soft kisses and teasing whispers, but it felt as though something had changed deep within the earth. Leofric no longer knew precisely where he stood.
But that first night, when Leofric settled into his bedroll, Cosmo sat alert beside him, carding a hand through Leofric’s hair, stroking his head until Leofric drifted off to sleep. When he woke, Cosmo was plastered against his chest, snoring contentedly. After that, they settled into a routine that felt comfortable as they traveled the path west. Even in summer, the nights in the desert were cold, but with Cosmo’s natural heat beside him Leofric found it easy to sleep. It was strange, not since he’d traveled in the legion with his brother at his back had he found sleep so easily.
A few short leagues from the base of Mount Hiru, a small but busy city had sprung up like a mushroom after a good rain. The mountain was at the juncture of three kingdoms, and so it was an advantageous place for trade. It could be a dangerous place; the bad blood between Sokol and órnio was hard to ignore, even when gold was at stake. Perhaps especially then. However, Leofric had promised to get a message to Prince Alexios when they reached the town, so they stopped at the center of town and hired a rider.
Then, there was nothing to do but climb the bloody thing. Mount Hiru was steep, and unforgiving. Leofric could hardly imagine what the place would be like come winter. The wind whipped around the stones at night, and Leofric was grateful he and Cosmo were united, in preparation for the ascent. When he and Cosmo made camp each night, Leofric felt like Mount Hiru was watching them, drinking in the light of the sun, intruding in his thoughts. It seemed to drink Cosmo’s light, too.
By now Leofric had gotten used to falling asleep with Cosmo tucked into his side. It seemed like they’d worked together to pull down the barrier between them, and Leofric felt so well rested each morning he wondered how he could have gone his entire life without this.
Unfortunately, as their journey brought them through Mount Hiru’s foothills, Cosmo withdrew. He stayed awake late into the night, staring into the fire until it died, and only then would seek out his bed, when he was certain Leofric would already be asleep. Sometimes he was, sometimes he wasn’t—but it was clear that Cosmo wanted him to be, so he could make his bed with space between them. There were a few nights when Cosmo did not come to bed at all. After several days of this, each morning when Leofric woke, he would brace himself to face an empty campsite, and wonder how successful he’d be at tracking a fleeing demigod through the wilderness.
But Cosmo, to his credit, never fled. He was restless, though, and jumpy. He seemed fragile, brittle, and delicate in a way that Leofric had yet to experience, like if he approached Cosmo too suddenly, he’d shatter into a million pieces.
“What?”
Leofric, now, was the one startled. “Apologies, what?”
“You have been staring at me like that for days,” Cosmo snapped.
“Like what?”
“Like—like you think I’m losing my mind, or I’m about to break any second.”
Leofric let a breath hiss out through his nose, trying to remain calm. “Well,” he said carefully. “Are you?”
The look Cosmo gave him was one of pure loathing. Leofric had seen his vulnerability, and that was unforgiveable. The sun threatened to set, the change in the light sneaking up on them as they stared at each other across the fire. Cosmo set his jaw, the ruddy glow of fading sunlight illuminating his freckled skin. In that moment, Leofric understood something that until now had eluded him. Cosmo might look like a man. He might talk like a man. He might have a man’s needs, a man’s hungers.
But he was not a man.
He was something else, something wild and unknowable and powerful—even without the lion’s share of his grace churning inside him. Staring at Cosmo just then felt like staring at a venomous serpent from the sands of Sokol. If you stumbled across one, it would bob and weave its head. It would flare its hood. It would hiss, showing its fangs.
These displays said, quite plainly, back off. Now. I mean it.
However, Leofric hadn’t before faced a snake with whom he’d shared a bed. It didn’t seem like the usual rules applied. In fact, they never did, with Cosmo. Leofric weighed his options, much as he would have done facing any normal foe. The options here were much the same as they would be then: advance, feint, or retreat.
It calmed Leofric, to view confrontation in those terms. They were a touchstone of familiarity in the uncertain chaos that swirled between himself and Cosmo. After considering his possible choices, Leofric decided upon a feint.
He shrugged. “Forget I said anything,” he said in a neutral, airy voice. “Apologies, again, for staring.”
Cosmo’s animosity flickered and vanished, to be replaced with confusion. Leofric felt a kernel of satisfaction knowing he’d thrown him off.
Then, Leofric made a very stupid mistake. A mistake that could be fatal when confronting a dangerous, cornered, and fearful animal.
He turned his back.
Cosmo would never know what exactly came over him in that moment. Even decades later, when he looked back upon this night. He had no idea what he hoped to solve, no idea what he was trying to prove.
Whatever the cause, he took three steps forward, palms outstretched. With a wordless grunt of frustration, he snapped his arms and gave Leofric’s back a sharp, hard shove. Leofric stumbled, and Cosmo felt a savage pleasure in watching his knee connect with a stone on the forest floor. That pleasure was short lived as Leofric surged back to his feet, pivoting on his heel. His face was a mask of incredulous fury, his hand upon the hilt of his sword, falling there like it was instinct. Cosmo took a step back.
“What on earth is the matter with you?” Leofric seethed.
“Oh, what,” said Cosmo contemptuously. He knew Leofric would suffer no worse than a bruised knee. “Did you scuff your precious armor?”
“No—it’s—you’re—” he blustered, speechless with anger. His face reddened and his neatly braided hair threatened to come undone as he gestured wildly.
“What?” Asked Cosmo, goading. He crossed his arms over his chest, adopted a cocksure smile, and waited. “What am I?”
“You are a fucking child, ” Leofric spat. “I can’t believe that the fate of the natural world rests, even a little bit, on you.”
And then, all at once, Cosmo felt like a child. He was thirteen again, gut punched by a memory he’d tried his best to forget. He was at the foot of this same mountain, covered in scratches and bruises from days of travel through the woods alone, half a league behind his father and Kryos. He’d wanted so desperately to be taken along, not left home with Cedras and Auro. Cedras would be buried in his studies and Auro was so little. He was so boring. They both were! Kryos and father were having an adventure, and Cosmo wasn’t about to be left out of something so grand.
Their father had only just begun to share his grace, to give them the power over the seasons. Cosmo still had yet to master it, had yet to even be able to use his grace with any true purpose. But it was dark. He was lost. And it was just so cold. The gap between himself and the others widened by the hour.
It hadn’t even been a conscious thought. He’d just been so cold that the sun had come bursting through the clouds, high and hot and powerful, warming Cosmo’s face even through the canopy of the trees. The problem, unfortunately, was that it was just going on midnight.
Terras, Cosmo’s father, had stormed back through the forest to retrieve his errant son, his fury terrible enough to shake the mountain behind them. Kryos had looked on from their father’s elbow, and Cosmo had never hated him more than he did in that moment: the smug look, the disdain sauced with pity, and the preening that he was the good son. The obedient son. The true heir their father had always wanted.
When Cosmo returned to the present, he lunged across the space between himself and Leofric, absent even the decision to do so, blind with anger and grief. His body made the choice while his mind was lost in a winter’s night four hundred years gone. While Cosmo undeniably had the power of the gods on his side, Leofric had training, and poise, and the levelheadedness of a soldier. He also outweighed Cosmo by at least thirty pounds of hard muscle. Before Cosmo’s blow could land, Leofric had side-stepped the assault, seized his wrist, and twisted his arm behind his back. Cosmo flapped his other arm, uselessly, trying to reach up behind him, to find some part of Leofric to scratch or hit.
“I’ll grant you the first one,” Leofric said, and his voice was so calm it only served to make Cosmo even angrier. “You can use your grace if you like, to hurt me. But you will not get the drop on me again. You will not frighten me.”
Cosmo thrashed in Leofric’s grip, unwilling to burn him in true anger, but he did finally manage to throw an elbow back into his stomach. It connected with a clang and pain lanced up Cosmo’s arm. He cursed himself—he’d completely forgotten the armor that to Leofric was like a second skin.
With a shove that was almost careless, Leofric sent Cosmo sprawling on the ground. He whirled with a snarl, staring up at Leofric who had the fucking gall to appear almost bored.
“Are you finished?” Leofric asked him.
Blood pounded in Cosmo’s ears as he scrambled to his feet. His grace hummed dangerously below his skin. If he touched Leofric now, he would burn him. And badly. Their tussle had turned them about, and just when Cosmo had decided burning Leofric might be worth it, his eyes landed on the mountain.
His rage curdled, and died. He realized he was losing himself, again. The self he’d rebuilt so carefully in the centuries since he’d been cursed. Their approach to Mount Hiru had torn that down, obliterated it, transforming Cosmo back into the frightened, erratic person he’d been in the months leading up to Ozias’s death. He hated that person.
But he wasn’t certain he actually liked the rebuilt version of himself, either—the person who cared nothing for anyone but himself, and the current night’s pleasures and diversions. He’d liked the person he was becoming, since deciding to help Auro break the curse. With a massive effort, he let his anger dissipate in the light of the setting sun. Scowling, furious with himself, he lowered his hands to his sides, clenched tight into fists. Hoping Leofric would understand, because he found himself unable to speak the words. He stomped across the distance between them and let his forehead collide with Leofric’s breastplate with a defeated thunk. He stayed perfectly still for several seconds. Breathing, waiting.
Sure as the sunrise that would come tomorrow, Leofric’s arms wrapped around Cosmo’s tense, rigid body. One large hand cupped the back of his skull, protective and steady. “Yes,” said Cosmo, his words muffled. “I’m finished.”
Leofric rocked them in a soothing rhythm, and after a few moments, Cosmo released a long, shuddering breath, looping his arms around Leofric’s waist. He felt a soft kiss connect with the top of his head. “We should get some rest,” said Leofric, all gentleness now. “Tomorrow, the mountain.”
“Yes,” said Cosmo, squirming deeper into Leofric’s embrace. “Tomorrow, the mountain.”