“It doesn’t work that way. There’s no such thing as infinite good luck. All luck is finite, and there’s only so much I can do with it. I—” He cut himself off and growled.
Shey cocked his head to the side. “What?”
“I need to explain.” He shoved to his feet and scurried around the meadow, snatching up small rocks and sticks. After he’d gathered a handful, he hurried over to where Haru, Adrian, and Shey were sitting and held out his bounty for all of them to see.
“Now, imagine that this is all the luck in the world—good and bad. It’s a spectrum ranging from fucking-good-luck and you’re-better-off-dead-bad-luck, but anyway, this is all the luck,” he began. When they all nodded, he gave everyone four pieces of luck to hold in their hands, while he continued to hold the rest.
Tyche dropped to sit with his legs crossed in front of them and drew in a deep breath. “A person or animal is born with a set amount of luck. I always imagine it as a glass jar filled with luck. It is not distributed evenly. Some people are born with more bad luck than good luck, and vice versa.”
“Ha! I knew it!” Adrian cackled. He grinned at Haru. “I always thought that Caelan was a rather lucky person. Tyche just proved that it could be true.”
“Can a person burn through all their luck before they die?” Haru inquired.
Tyche’s expression scrunched up as he thought about it. “I’ve never seen it happen, but I guess it could. Humans and dragons are born with a large amount, and a lot would have to happen for a person to burn through all their luck.”
“But you can give a person good or bad luck? You did it with me,” Shey countered.
“No, I didn’t,” Tyche said sharply, his eyes snapping to Shey. “I can’t create luck. Minor gods don’t create. We can’t. We’re not powerful enough to create something from nothing. That’s the realm of the major gods alone. Our magic can only affect what already exists, and only within our wheelhouse. As we were escaping, I tapped into your existing luck and forced up a bit of good luck if some was available, or I used your opponent’s bad luck. The other option—though exhausting—is to steal a bit ofluck that’s floating around out there.” As he spoke, Tyche waved a hand in the air beside him.
Adrian’s head jerked up, and he stared into the empty air above Tyche’s head as if he expected to see…something. What the hell would luck even look like? “There’s luck not attached to people? And you can see it?”
For the first time, Tyche chuckled and smiled. Adrian shifted his gaze to the man and caught his breath. Tyche was adorable when he relaxed, but it was easy to miss since he was something of a grumpy rain cloud. His sharp features smoothed out, and his emerald-green eyes twinkled in the sunlight.
“Luck is everywhere. It sort of floats with its own energy. Some good luck there.” Tyche waved to a spot above his left shoulder. “And there’s some nasty bad luck over there.” He pointed to a spot behind Shey. They all looked, but there was nothing to see other than a redheaded woodpecker moving along the bark of a maple tree. All the same, Shey planted his hands and heels to the ground and moved closer to Tyche.
“I can snatch up that luck and force it into a situation if the person doesn’t have the right luck readily available, but that takes more energy and magic to do.”
“What do you mean ‘readily available’?” Adrian asked.
Tyche’s brow furrowed for a second, and he dropped all the sticks he held to position his hands as if he were holding a large container. “Remember, I said to imagine all beings having their luck held in a glass jar? Your luck is all mixed in there. If I want to force you to use some of your luck, I have to take from what’s resting near the top. I can’t reach all the way down to the bottom to pluck out a piece of good luck.” Tyche lowered his hands and dropped his eyes to the ground. His voice was soft as he spoke, “I tried that once as a young god. It was bad.” His entire body shuddered violently.
What happened when you shoved your hand into a full jar? Everything overflowed and spilled out. In this case, a wild mix of good and bad luck clashing at once. Adrian shuddered as well and pushed those dark images away. The person must have suffered a horrible death.
“Do you, as a god, have luck? Do all the gods have luck?” Haru inquired, thankfully changing the subject.
Tyche brightened, seeming to recover from the old memory. “Yes, every living creature has luck. Even gods.”
Shey leaned forward, resting his elbow on his bent knee while lowering his head to catch Tyche’s eye. “So, in the prison, I heard you rattling something. And another time, you mentioned that you used to travel as a fortune-teller. What does seeing the future have to do with luck?”
Tyche’s smile returned, and it had become something surprisingly soft. He dug into the pocket of his grubby green cargo pants. After he withdrew his hand, he opened it to reveal a set of six small sticks that had been filed flat on two sides and had symbols carved into the ends.
“Are those bones?” Haru spoke up.
“What?” Adrian gasped, jerking away.
“Chicken bones, actually. I lost all my stuff during my capture. I made these from chicken wings or tiny chicken legs they served for a meal.” Tyche glanced at Shey. “Really, the worst seasoning on chicken ever. Disgusting. If I could go back and curse anyone at that prison with bad luck, it would be the person in charge of preparing the meals.”
Shey plucked one stick from Tyche’s palm and scrutinized it. “What are these symbols? I’ve never seen writing like this.”
“They’re symbols for luck, ranging from very good to very bad. I infused the bones with a little of my magic so that they react to a person’s luck or the luck hanging in the air. Theyhelp me focus and clearly read the luck surrounding a person, especially those with a specific goal.”
“You threw the bones for me, didn’t you?” Shey pointed the white stick he held at Tyche.
“Of course I did, and they said that you had very good luck, which meant that you had an excellent chance of getting the hell out of there. That’s why I made friends with you and clung to you like a baby monkey to its mother.” Shey laughed, and Tyche plucked the bone from his fingers. “And don’t touch my bones. You’ll screw up their accuracy with your messy storm god magic.” Tyche took a moment to rub his fingers all over the bone Shey had held before putting it with the others.
The laughter left Shey’s voice, and he became more solemn. “You also threw the bones for Yesuntei after they took her the final time.”
“To see her chances of not losing control. It all came back bad. Really bad.”
