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Before I can reply, he gets to his feet and sticks his asshole right in my face before hopping off the table.
“Dammit, I told you not to do that,” I say as Alyx slinks off into the darkness.
Sometimes, all it takes is someone you trust to knock the cobwebs from between your ears. I know I’ve made a mistake. I know I’ve overreacted.
I reach into my sleeve and feel around for the figurine, but to my alarm, it’s not there. I stand up and search the table and the floor. It must’ve fallen out by the bath.
I return to the pool and find Airos sitting in the water, reading from a scroll that floats in the air in front of him. I fight back a twinge of irritation and the urge to turn my heel and go back in the other direction. He sees me and smiles, and with a flick of his finger, the scroll rolls up and lands on the neat pile of robes sitting on the stone bench next to the bath.
“I haven’t run off with the map yet,” he says.
I grunt. “Have you seen, uh…” I don’t want to admit to him that I bought the figurine. I say nothing and casually walk the perimeter of the pool, glancing around for it.
Airos watches me, that damn smile still stretched across his too-perfect face. “Tyler was here a moment ago if you’re looking for him.”
I can’t help but shoot a glare at him, but quickly recover. “I know. I saw him.”
“Don’t fret. He was fully dressed and finished. And I’m quite modest.”
“That’s hard to believe,” I grumble.
The figurine is nowhere to be found.
“Ah, you must be looking for that carving,” he says. “I had a feeling that’s what it was. It was there, on the ground. Tyler picked it up.”
Damn.
“How much did you end up paying for it?” he asks. “Or did you nick it?”
“Of course I didn’t,” I reply.
He shrugs. “I would’ve. That bastard was trying to rip us off.”
I’m surprised and can’t help but smirk. “Tyler wouldn’t have liked that.”
“Listen, Kalistratos…”
Airos ascends the stone steps out of the bath. His robes do a good job of obscuring the shape of his body, and I’m surprised to see how muscular his bare physique is. His skin all across his chest, shoulders, and thighs is crisscrossedwith wicked scars—blade wounds and others I can’t place. What was he before he became a monk?
“There’s one more part of the story that I’d declined to mention. The three guardians protect the Chosen, but only one of us is destined to be his soul ward, bound by an unbreakable string of fate that crosses through time and all of the worlds of rebirth that are set into motion with the Great Phoenix’s fire. I believe I was always destined to meet Tyler and become a Guardian… But I know with absolute certainty that I’m not his ward.”
Steam lifts from his body as a wave of phoenix feathers ripples and disappears across his skin like a moving flame, drying him off. With a toss of his head, he wrings the last bit of water from his hair and slips into his robes. He flips the scroll in the air and catches it, then scoops up his gourd jug from the ground and takes a drink.
“Nothing like wine during a full moon,” he says.
“I can count on you to help me protect him when the danger comes to us?” I ask.
“You feel it too? There are strange forces at work. Something greater than a few angry frogs has their eye on us.”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe. But if this prophecy is true and we’re fated Guardians…then there must besomethingwe’re meant to guard against. So, what’s your answer?”
He takes another drink. “I’m Phoenikos,” Airos says andhis eyes flash like copper mirrors in the moonlight. “I may joke and I may tease, but I will never abandon my friends.”
“Friends?” I scoff.
“That’s right! Friends! Maybe you don’t think so, but if you’re worthy enough to travel by my side, then you must be a friend. Yes, you can count on me. In fact, you’re going to wish you could get rid of me.”
“Already do,” I say.
