Chapter 20
20
A HARD brEATH PUNCHES OUT OF me. I do not recall moving, but suddenly I’m stumbling across the threshold, into brightness and a hot, coarse wind. The din of my surroundings can’t touch me, for I am distant, I am elsewhere, I am deep, deep in my mind. My heart trills fearfully. Too late .
My last image of Father swirls before me like a smoke plume. The broken pieces of his heart, which I shattered with my cruel words. How small he looked, how shrunken beneath the blankets of his bed. With my back against a wall, I lashed out. I wanted to wound him as he had wounded me. And now—
The dusty road crunches beneath my slippers, and I halt, swaying. Notus catches my arm with a murmured, “Steady.”
Tearing free of the South Wind’s grip, I rush blindly in the direction I believe leads to the city entrance. My legs propel me down the road, into the thick of the market. The crowds have multiplied since this morning. I weave around trundling carts and bypass beggars in rags. Notus and I traveled this way before, yet for whatever reason, nothing looks familiar.
“Sarai.” The South Wind’s shadow stretches over me as he catches up. “What’s wrong? Talk to me.”
When the swarm of marketgoers blocks the road ahead, I dart down a side street to circumvent the blockage, Amir’s crumpled message wilting in my sweaty palm. As long as I continue moving, I will not be burdened by the fear of what if .
“Sarai.” Notus grabs my arm.
“Don’t touch me!” I snarl.
The South Wind retreats a step, palms lifted, confusion passing over his expression.
Only now do I recognize my posture: feet planted, braced as though to come to blows. We’ve stopped in the middle of the road, the crowd granting us a wide berth. Notus is not my enemy. We have moved past that, I think.
“I’m sorry, I—” My throat thickens, and I swallow down the shame that rises. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled at you.” Get it together. But I have nothing to ground me, no anchor but my own spiraling thoughts.
“I want to help you,” he murmurs, “but I can’t if you don’t let me in.” Then he says, quietly and with feeling, “Let me in, Sarai.”
A farmer dragging two goats behind him jostles my back. I stumble forward, nearer to Notus, the rock around which this current parts. Here is what I know. The South Wind is my betrothed in name only, but what we have mended and built anew is perhaps the truest thing in my life. He is here, I think. That in itself is enough.
Wordlessly, I pass over the message. My hand shakes.
He reads swiftly. A heartbeat later, Notus lowers the note.
“My father—”
He nods, though coolly, refusing to meet my gaze. “This way.”
It turns out, I was traveling in the wrong direction. We backtrack as quickly as possible, but midday in Mirash, the road has overflowed its banks, the space between bodies so narrow one could not squeeze even a sheet of parchment between them. Eventually, movement grinds to a halt.
“What’s happening?” I ask. “Why aren’t we moving?” My attempts to put space between myself and those around me result in an elbow to my spine.
“I’m not sure,” Notus says.
People crane their necks in curiosity, including a young boy draped in filthy rags. “What’s happening, Mama?”
“Hush, child.” She shushes him, yet gathers him close.
A scream splits the air.
All at once, the crowd fractures, heaving itself in the opposite direction, away from the entrance. I brace against the tide, Notus sheltering my back. One scream becomes three, becomes seven, becomes ten. Someone’s boot crushes my toes. A man goes down and is trampled. Then I smell it: smoke on the wind.
“Darkwalkers,” Notus says.
A cold wave of despair sloshes through me. Darkwalkers are widespread through Ammara, but I’d hoped we wouldn’t have to face them, today of all days. It will take hours to return to Ishmah. Time is running out.
Notus turns to me. “Head for the entrance,” he says. “Wait for me at the sailer. I need to send a message to Eurus, but I’ll take care of this and be there as soon as I can.”
I fight the urge to toss myself into his arms. He is a god, I remind myself. He can take care of himself. “Stay safe,” I whisper.
He dips his chin. “You, too.”
The South Wind flings himself skyward, propelled by a gust of air beneath his boots. When he vanishes behind the buildings, I race toward the entrance, dodging those fleeing to the best of my ability. Eventually, I pass beneath the archway, where Ammara expands in golden pleats. There is his sailer. Its twin sails flutter in a surprisingly strong breeze.
I pace before it, struggling to catch my breath. I think of Father. I think of Amir and Tuleen. I should be at his bedside, but I am far, as I have always been. Try as I might, I’ve never been able to close the distance between us.
The sun boils overhead and presses red onto my tightening skin. I’m not sure how much time has passed. An hour? Two? My eyes hunt the sky. No sign of the South Wind. Over time, the screams peter out. Still, I pace.
When a blurred figure passes beneath the archway, I squint into the distance. “Thank the gods,” I gasp, and race toward the South Wind. “I was beginning to think something happened to you.”
Notus limps past me without acknowledgment. I hurry to catch up, slipping and sliding through sand. “Are you all right?” I ask.
“Fine.”
Fine is the word I myself have used when I am anything but. “You don’t look fine. You’re hurt.” I trail him to the sailer. “This won’t hinder your ability to get us back to Ishmah, will it?”
Notus slows, tossing a glare over his shoulder. He then turns and keeps walking.
I open my mouth, snap it shut. “That’s not what I meant.”
“I’m sure.”
His dismissal stings. I was worried for the South Wind, but he is immortal, flush with power. My father is dying. One cannot liken a fish to a bird. They are from completely separate worlds.
“Here.” I shove the waterskin into his hand. He takes a swig before passing it back. “Let’s go.” Leaping onto the vessel, I settle at the bow. The sails, however, hang limp.
I spin around. Notus leans against the hull, arms crossed, looking out at the distant dunes. “Did you hear me?”
He lifts his head, eyes slitted against the sun’s harsh glare. There is no distinction between iris and pupil, only roiling black, a fury so hostile I retreat a step. “Give me a damn minute, Sarai.”
I flinch, curl my arms across my stomach. “I’m sorry. You’re right, just… we’re running out of time, and—”
“I understand you’re frightened,” he growls, “but I’m trying to help you.”
There is that, yes. Notus is doing everything in his power to help me, but even gods have their limits. “I understand,” I tell him, “and I’m sorry. Take a moment if you need it. Let me know when you’re ready to return.”
But Notus asks, “Are you sure it’s your father’s health that calls you back to the capital, or is it something else I’m unaware of?”
“What?” I gape at him. “Didn’t you read the note?”
He scowls. “I did, but there’s more at stake than you’re telling me. The sooner you lay everything out on the table, the sooner we can return to Ishmah.”
Red douses my vision. If I was not certain Notus would disarm me, I would snatch his scimitar and fling it against the nearest palm. “My father is dying, Notus!”
“You want my cooperation? Then I need answers.” Fire brightens his ebon eyes. “Let’s start with the curse.”
Something fractures inside me, this many-faced image of myself. A roar of noise overwhelms me. Is it the wind, which has begun to lash with increasing ferocity, or my own thundering heart? I can’t leave Mirash without the South Wind’s cooperation. Neither can I stop myself from crumbling. I can only delay my inevitable collapse.
“I was born a sickly child.” I speak low and quickly. “According to the physician, I was not going to survive the night. Father went to Mount Syr to beg the Lord of the Mountain for my life. At first, Father believed him to be merciful. My life was saved, and I grew into a healthy baby.
“But that same year, drought decimated the realm, and the majority of the crops failed.” I move to stand at the bow. The blue, cloudless sky, and beneath, the bronzed earth. “Father suspected something was amiss. He returned to Mount Syr to question the Lord of the Mountain, who revealed parts of the bargain he did not originally disclose.” In my periphery, I watch Notus straighten, his attention fixed on my profile. “In exchange for my life, he claimed Ammara’s nourishing rains for himself.” Sweat trickles along my hairline. I dab it with the sleeve of my cloak. “That is my curse, my burden,” I say. “The suffering I have placed upon my people.”
For a time, the South Wind regards me, his face wiped clean of emotion. “That’s all?”
While I don’t want to deceive him, I see no other option. With so few days remaining, it seems pointless to inform him of my impending death. Perhaps it’s time to accept the hand I’ve been dealt. I do not want him to mourn me. “Yes.”
A particularly harsh gust snatches at my dress. Notus is trying his best to appear unaffected, but as time goes on, I see his cracks, just as I see mine.
“You understand how terrible this is,” I press. “If the rains do not return, my people will perish. The last of our crops will fail completely. Our army will weaken. Ammara will be left defenseless.” Any conqueror might waltz through Ishmah’s gates and lay claim to the realm without ever lifting a weapon. There will be none to stand against them, or the darkwalkers.
He lifts a hand to his eyes, shielding himself from this truth that shines brightest of all. Then it drops, fingers balled into a fist. “How long have you known this?” When I do not respond, he growls, “How long?”
“Always.” The word burns like a lit match in my throat. “I have always known. Father forbade me to speak of it.”
He shakes his head, jaw clenched as he stares at the wood grain beneath his feet. “I didn’t know.” The words are spoken so softly, I initially believe I imagined them. “King Halim requested my return to help fight the darkwalkers, but I didn’t realize a greater threat loomed.” Then he frowns. “Why do you believe there to be a connection between the curse and the labyrinth?”
This, at least, is no falsehood. “The symbol on the labyrinth door is the symbol of the Lord of the Mountain.”
His frown deepens, and the quiet stretches. “Have you warned your people of what’s to come?”
Guilt descends with punishing ferocity. “No.” Father and I fought over this. I wished to tell them. They deserved to know the drought was borne from dark forces. But King Halim wanted to keep the information private, between family. A curse threatening Ammara’s livelihood? There could be not even an inkling of weakness or doubt toward his reign.
Yet I think of Haneen, the storyteller. I think of Roshar, my dearest friend, and Ibramin, teacher and father. I even think of Tuleen, whose friendship has only begun to blossom.
“I think you should tell them,” Notus says.
That poisoned core in me, that festering resentment, lashes out. “Why do you even care?”
His head snaps up. “Have you considered that Ammara is not just your home, but mine, too?”
“That’s not true.”
“Who are you to say what is true?” The fury with which he speaks sends me backward a step. A strong gust whips at my hair and rattles the scraggly date palms shivering at our backs, long shadows cast across the arid ground. “It was my home, once,” he growls. “And I was a fool to hope it might one day be again.”
It spears me with the swiftness of an arrow to the chest. It is deep, this emotion, old as earth and weathered by much strife. “I don’t understand,” I force out. “You never showed that you cared for it before.”
“Didn’t I?” He stares at me until I drop my eyes. “I fought to protect your people. I adopted your customs. I paid respect to your gods.”
He did. I suppose I never considered the ways one made a home. I’d always assumed it was something you were born into.
“When I was banished,” he explains, “I had no home. And maybe I wanted to believe I was deserving of one—deserving of you.”
My heartbeat stutters. “Me?” I whisper.
The South Wind gazes at me with an openness I have wished for in those hours before dawn. This powerful immortal, this undying god, is many things. Vulnerable, he is not. “Home is not a place, Sarai. Not for me.”
“I’m not your home,” I say, voice quavering. “I can’t be.”
I did not realize a brightness touched his eyes until it winks out, like a star extinguished. “Then we have nothing left to say to each other.”
Notus climbs aboard to take his place at the rudder. I settle against the bow, stomach curdling with something resembling shame. I don’t know whether to scream or cry, plead or fall mute.
In silence, we depart, launching across the dunes. I stare at my arrow bracelet, trace its delicate leaden curve as the winds strengthen, jostling the boat. Neither the heat nor the glare of midday can touch me. I imagine it is a cool, dark room I retreat into, drapes drawn, door barred. If I wrap myself in blankets thick enough, perhaps reality cannot touch me either.
Here is what Notus doesn’t understand. I once lived a life where I loved and lost two people I held dear. So I told myself I would live a life where I had no future. I would live a life where I would love no one, because if I didn’t love anyone, I wouldn’t lose anyone.
So that’s what I did. I closed my heart. I turned my back on I wish and I want . I belonged only to Ammara, not to the world, which owed me nothing. Maybe Notus does—did—see a home with me, as I saw a home with him.
As our vessel cuts through the great sandy valleys, the wind pitches into an eerie keen. My head snaps around. At Notus’ back, a great red mass gathers, stretching seam to seam across the sky.
“Red storm!” I scream.
The South Wind grits his teeth, fighting to remain on course. The wind is so powerful it yanks the sails taut with a loud snap. The sailer rattles. The air is deafening. Notus attempts to guide us into a trough between two dunes but is forced to redirect as the whirling cloud overtakes us and the sun goes dark.
We veer wildly, unable to maintain our course. When I glance up, I notice the sails have been shredded, the thousand grains of sand having sliced the canvas to strips. “Notus!” I point to the sails.
He nods with grim-faced resolve. “Grab the rudder!”
The stern slides out, pitching me into the mast. My shoulder makes impact, and I bite back a pained cry, yet manage to hook one arm around the post long enough for Notus to yank me against his chest and position my hands on the rudder. “Got it,” I say.
While he struggles to patch the holes in the sails, I use my weight to hold the rudder steady. It sounds as though the sky is shattering overhead. The most vicious of red storms can stretch for up to fifty miles. Our only hope is to claw free of it before we’re dashed to pieces, or worse—buried alive.
As we lean hard into a turn, another gale wrenches me sideways. I slam against the crates. One of the ropes snaps. Two boxes go flying, a third exploding against the hull. Wooden fragments pelt my face, and my stomach heaves as I’m flipped over, dragged backward over the vessel’s edge.
Something solid pins my shoulder against the sailer. My legs hang over the railing, toes skimming the surface of the sand. Through the hazed debris obscuring his face, Notus’ eyes burn into mine with unmistakable fear. He hauls me back into the sailer and directs me to the mast.
“Grab hold,” he growls.
Once I’ve anchored myself, he returns to the rudder. The air is so choked with particles I can’t see even a foot in front of me.
A burst of speed propels us toward the dune’s summit. As we fling ourselves off its crest, arrowing through debris, another battering gust snaps the vessel around. We spin. My hold on the mast breaks, and I’m falling. “Notus!”
The last thing I see is the South Wind’s eyes. Then he, too, is swallowed up.