Utterly shocked, Axis finally stood up straight, staring at the horse.
“I do not understand why the bridge died,” the man said, and Axis slid his eyes back to him. He was lean but strong, with Axis’ own height and musculature and with coppery-coloured hair drawn back into a tail in the nape of his neck.
The way I used to wear it as BattleAxe, Axis thought involuntarily.
The man was naked, save for a snowy linen cloth bound about his hips, and the most beautiful — and most patently enchanted — sword that Axis had ever seen. Its hilt was in the shape of a lily, and Axis could see the glimpse of a mirrored blade as it disappeared into a jewelled scabbard. The scabbard hung from an equally heavily jewelled belt, balanced by a similarly jewelled purse at the man’s other hip.
Axis slid his eyes to the man’s face.
Plain, ordinary, deeply lined, somewhat tired … and utterly extraordinary. Alive and hungry with magic. Serene and quiet with tranquillity.
Dark violet eyes regarded him with humour, understanding, and …
“Love?” Axis said. “I do not deserve that, surely.”
His voice was very hard and bitter.
“It is yours to accept or not,” DragonStar said, “as you wish.”
Axis stared at his son, hating himself for hating what he saw. “What have you done with Caelum?”
DragonStar paused before he replied, but his voice was steady. “Caelum is dead.”
Axis’ only visible reaction was a tightening of his face and a terrible hardening of his eyes. “You led him to his death!”
“Caelum went willingly,” DragonStar replied, his voice very gentle. “As he had to.”
Axis stared, unable to tear his eyes from DragonStar’s face, although he longed desperately to look somewhere, anywhere, else. “I —” he began, then stopped, unable to bear the hatred in his voice, and unable to understand to whom, or what, he wanted to direct that hatred.
There was a movement behind him, and then Azhure was at his side, as she had been for so many years.
And as she had so many times previously, she saved him from this battle.
Azhure touched Axis’ arm fleetingly, yet managing to impart infinite comfort with that briefest of caresses, then she stepped straight past her husband to DragonStar.
She paused, then spoke. “Did Caelum see you like this? As … as you were meant to be?”
DragonStar nodded, and Azhure’s entire body jerked slightly.
Then she leaned forward and hugged her son.
He pulled her in tight against him, drawing as much love from her as she drew comfort from him.
Axis stared, not understanding, and not particularly wanting to.
Eventually Azhure pulled back and turned slightly so she could hold out a hand to her husband. Her eyes and cheeks were wet, but there was sadness in her face as well, and she continued to hold DragonStar tightly with her other hand.
“Axis? I —”
“What is this, Azhure?” His voice was harsh. “Caelum is dead. Dead! And —”
“Caelum knew he was going to die,” Azhure said. “He accepted it.”
Axis closed his mouth into a cold, hard line.
“And he accepted,” Azhure said, “as we should have done earlier, that Drago …” she glanced back at her son, “that DragonStar was born to be the true StarSon.”
Axis opened his mouth to say No! but found he could not voice the word. The man standing before him was clearly not the sullen Drago who’d moped about Sigholt for so many years, and he was just as clearly a man who wielded such great power that he … he … just might be …
Axis turned his head to one side, and was surprised to feel the wetness of tears on his own cheeks as the breeze brushed his face. “Oh gods,” he said, and sank down on the ground.
“Will you meet with your father in our apartment a little later?” Azhure asked DragonStar hurriedly. “For the time being, I think it would be best if he and I had some time alone…”
DragonStar nodded.
“Thank you,” Azhure murmured, then bent down to her husband. DragonStar vaulted back onto Belaguez’s back and rode down the trail into Sanctuary.
DragonStar chose to ride unnoticed into Sanctuary; no-one noted his entry, and thus no-one disturbed him in the three hours before Azhure sought him out.
“Your father waits for you,” she said, giving DragonStar directions to their apartment. She looked him over — DragonStar had discarded his linen hip-wrap for a pair of fawn breeches, brown boots and a white shirt, but he still wore the sword and jewelled purse at his belt.
“And?” DragonStar asked.
Azhure nodded very slightly. “And he is prepared to accept.”
DragonStar laughed softly. “Prepared to, but has not yet.” “It is a start.”
“Aye, it is that. Azhure … why have you accepted so easily? Even I denied it for long months.”
“Perhaps because I fought to keep you to a viable birthing age when you fought so hard to abort yourself. I have a mother’s belief in her offspring.”
DragonStar paled, both at her words and at the hardness in her voice. He began to say something, but Azhure stopped him with a hand on his chest.
“I had no right to speak thus to you, DragonStar. I have no right to speak harshly to any of my children. I was too absorbed in my magic and in Axis to be a good mother to any but Caelum.”
“Azhure —”
Azhure well understood why he would not call her “mother”.
“— it is never too late to be a friend to your children. I think that you and I will always be better friends than parent and child.”
Azhure smiled, and lowered her eyes a little.
“But,” DragonStar continued softly, relentlessly, “I think that Zenith needs you as a friend far more than I. There are many things that can be saved from this disaster, Azhure, and I do hope that Zenith will be among them.”
Azhure’s eyes jerked back to DragonStar’s face. “And I haven’t even seen her since I came to Sanctuary!”
“I did not know that,” DragonStar said, “but I am not surprised by it.”
And then he turned and walked out the door without another word, leaving his mother staring at his back and with a hand to her mouth in horrified mortification.
Axis was waiting for DragonStar in a small and somewhat unadorned chamber, so plain that DragonStar thought it almost out of character for Sanctuary. Perhaps Axis had spent hours here when he’d first arrived, throwing out all the comforts and fripperies and creating an environment austere enough for any retired war captain to feel at home in.
Axis had never been happy or content away from war, DragonStar thought, and wondered for the first time how frustrating life must have been for Axis once Gorgrael had been disposed of and Tencendorian life was relatively peaceful. No wonder he’d handed over power to Caelum: the endless Councils spent debating the finer details of trading negotiations must have bored his father witless.
Had it been any more challenging being a god? DragonStar wondered.
Axis was seated at a wooden table, or, rather, he was leaning back in a plain wooden chair, his legs crossed and resting on the tabletop, his arms folded across his chest.
On the table surface