“What if I stay here for ten years?” Lyssena asked, and Erevos answered by baring his impressive rows of sharp teeth. He had already decided she would remain here forever.
Not ten years, not a hundred, not a thousand.
Forever.
Erevos intended to keep his songbird at his side for eternity.
“I have known you for twenty years,” he said, and after remaining still for a long moment, he finally took a step toward her. “I was never bored knowing you.”
Now they stood face to face.
It amused him that she only reached beneath his chest, that he had to bend his head in order to look into her eyes, eyes that searched him so openly.
“Twenty?”
“Since the day you learned to pray.”
When Lyssena celebrated her third year in the human realm, her parents brought her to the temple where their people prayed each day without fail. She could not yet speak as they did, but she already knew fragments of the prayers.
That day, in the fifth month of the year, when the blooms opened brightest, and the air carried the heavy sweetness of nectar, Lyssena prayed to the god with no name.
Perhaps she did not understand that she was forbidden from doing so. Or perhaps she already understood mischief.
At the end of her prayer, after her parents had bowed their heads, Lyssena leaned closer to the altar and whispered that the god with no name should try honey.
And he did.
Erevos tried honey from a honeycomb he found in the far meadow near her village, tearing it open and letting the golden substance spill slowly over his tongue. He did not like the taste. It was bitter, thick, and clinging, coating his tongue in a way that lingered longer than it should have.
Unsatisfied, he went farther to other villages, to distant cities, to countries and continents across the world.
He sought out every variety of honey he could find—pale and translucent, dark as amber, nearly black and slow as sap—and tasted each one.
They were all the same.
So he returned to the little human.
He found her sitting in the soft grass outside her family’s dwelling, legs folded beneath her, eating the very same honeyhe had tried—but spread generously over warm bread, the crust still dusted with flour. It glistened in the light as she lifted it to her mouth, and when she bit into it, her small face brightened as though she were tasting something delicious.
Erevos was a curious demon, and he could not understand why she would enjoy something he found bitter. Yet she did.
And that alone made it worthy of further study—at first. His curiosity grew stronger as he tried to understand not only why Lyssena enjoyed honey but also the reason for her bravery.
No human has ever spoken to him. No human has ever mentioned his name.
From that day onward, he watched Lyssena grow. He watched her limbs lengthen and her voice steady. He watched the softness of childhood become awareness. He listened as her prayers deepened, no longer mere imitation of her parents’ words, but richer and warmer.
Her devotion changed as she grew. It became stronger.Sweeter.
She never prayed to him again after that first forbidden whisper until the day he revealed himself to her.
And when she finally did, lifting her voice to the god with no name once more, he was already there.
He had always been there.
Lyssena was quieter than usual when they began the walk back home.
She kept her gaze fixed ahead, focusing on a single direction, placing one foot in front of the other as though the act of walking required all of her attention.
