Chapter 32
32
“S ARAI . T HANK YOU FOR JOINING us on such short notice.”
Prince Balior waltzes across the study toward where Tuleen and Amir have been shoved into a corner, bound, gagged, faces bruised and swollen. This high in the palace, we are among the clouds, the roiling smoke, a sky blistered black. Dense, particle-dusted air pours through the open window, but Prince Balior appears unconcerned as gray streaks across the room. I cough against the searing sensation in my throat. At his back: ash and flame.
Despite the dread weakening my knees, I force myself to straighten. No hesitation. No fear. “Have you lost all sense? What good is this kingdom if you burn it to the ground?” I point toward Ammara’s king and queen. “Is this how you intend to treat people under your new regime? Disgraceful.”
His upper lip curls. “Your attempts to shame me will not work. Be grateful these two are still alive. The woman in particular was quite vicious.” He gestures to a gouge near his eye that weeps blood.
A deep sense of pride wells in my chest. Tuleen is a fighter. “Let them go. They’ve done you no harm.”
“Do you think me a fool?” He runs fingers through his hair. “No, I think I’ll keep them here for the time being.”
I lunge toward my family, but a shadowy tendril slithers along the ground, wraps around my ankle, and hauls me backward. My spine hits the wall. I drop with a heavy oof . The shadow recoils, returning to the prince’s outstretched palm, where it fades.
“Princess Sarai.” One step forward, and a gloom pools beneath his boots, as though he steps in puddles of ink. “Unfortunately, your manners seem to have deteriorated in the time we’ve been apart. Let me explain. You are hereby my guest for what will now unfold. You move if and when I tell you to.”
It’s not real . But the screams are too piercing to mistake, and the whites of my brother’s eyes, Tuleen’s eyes, roll with desperation and fear.
Warily, I push to my feet. Prince Balior is no god, but he wields the power of one—a gift from the beast he set free.
“What do you want?” I demand.
He tsks. “I admit,” he says, “I did not believe you would escape the labyrinth alive. But that is neither here nor there. I welcome a larger audience. I am nothing if not accommodating.”
I examine the prince carefully. He appears larger than when we last met. His black eyes seem to absorb light rather than reflect it. His teeth catch his lower lip: dazzling white. His cheeks swell like ripened apples, their rounded tops brushed a healthy pink.
“You’ve done what you came here to do,” I say roughly. “It is done. Leave Ammara to its people. Let us rebuild. It was never yours to take.”
Prince Balior regards me as one would a particularly senseless child. “I don’t care for Ammara. I never did. What use would I have for a realm in slow decline? Your basins run dry. Your crops wither. I have no reason to stay. On the contrary, Sarai, I’m waiting .”
For who? But I already know.
The smallest of smiles curves his mouth. “Notus is a sensible person. He would not wish the family of his love to be needlessly killed.” That smile widens. “Leverage, my dear.”
I understand then what I have done. My presence, a boon to Prince Balior’s plan. Three hostages as opposed to two. I feel ill, woozy from the choking smoke. My vision blurs, and I crouch low to the ground, seeking the untainted air.
“You won’t touch a hair on his head,” I hiss. “I won’t let you.”
Casually, he slides his hands into the pockets of his trousers. “Who is there to stop me?”
I glance around in desperation. Amir struggles to stand, but the prince kicks him hard in the abdomen, and he falls, a guttural scream muffled against the fabric stuffing his mouth. Tuleen sits quietly, expression blank. I haven’t the slightest idea where Notus is or what state he’s in. I have no means of defending myself, or my family. But I have faced adversity before. Who am I? A survivor through and through.
I whirl, snatching a candlestick from a nearby table, and fling it as hard as I can at Prince Balior’s face. Shadow explodes from his palm, knocking both me and the candlestick aside simultaneously.
Slowly, he advances on me, his features frozen with inhuman rage. I scramble backward until my spine hits the wall.
His ebon power grasps hold of my body and slams me once, twice, thrice against the stone. Pain ruptures at the back of my skull, and I see stars. A muted scream cuts through the ringing in my ears. Tuleen, or Amir?
I slump in the shadow’s grip. The agony is so great my stomach lurches. My head feels as though it has burst. A trickle of wetness dampens my hair—blood.
When I manage to open my eyes, I am met by Prince Balior’s handsome features less than a hand’s width away. “Please believe me when I say I do not wish to harm you,” he whispers, cool breath skimming across my mouth, “but should you continue your refusal to cooperate, I will have no choice.”
He releases me. My limbs fold, and I slump against the wall, whimpering at the pain pressing into the backs of my eyes, digging down into my neck. With effort, I manage to shift my attention toward Amir and Tuleen’s huddled forms. My brother’s gag is tied so tightly it cuts white lines at the corners of his mouth.
“Or perhaps I should punish your family instead?” the prince continues, veering toward Ammara’s monarchs. “Will that make you reconsider?” He lashes toward my brother. Blackness swarms Amir’s face. He lurches wildly from side to side, arms and legs bound, unable to claw free.
“Stop, please!” I fall forward, crawling toward Prince Balior. My arms tremble beneath my weight, my surroundings fading in and out. “I’ll cooperate, I will, just… please, don’t hurt them.”
The prince considers my plea, perhaps weighing its desperation. He shapes a fist with his hand, and the shadow vanishes. Amir collapses on the ground, gasping for air, his eyes wild. My chest tightens. If I had not been so consumed by my resentment toward Notus, would I have identified the prince’s insidious intentions? If I cannot kill him, what am I to do?
“I’m glad to hear of your change of heart, Princess Sarai.” He peers down at me pityingly. “All I need is an audience with the South Wind. I can’t risk him killing the beast I’ve unleashed and ruining my plans. You understand, I’m sure.”
“And what are these plans?” Aside from spreading darkness across the mortal realms.
“Unfortunately, I can’t tell you.”
Arrogant fool. “You’ve been deceived,” I say, voice unwavering. “You are a tool to this beast, nothing more. You’ve granted it what it desires—freedom—and now it has no use for you.”
I watch the words hit with satisfaction. There is a subtle twisting of his features. “The beast requires my protection until it is of sound mind, its transformation complete. Without my protection, it is vulnerable.”
“And when it has regained full use of its faculties?” I press, watching those shallowest cracks run deep. “Who is to say it will not call back the power it has gifted you?”
He raises a hand, a dark look in his eyes, but the door blasts open, hurled clear across the room to slam into the bookshelves with an explosive crunch of wood. Heavy tomes collapse onto the desk, toppling the piece of furniture. Tuleen gasps through her gag as Prince Balior yanks me against his chest, a shadowy tendril banded across my waist.
The South Wind ducks into the smoke-heavy room. An immense wind shrieks and howls, tightening into a swirling vortex of smoke, ash, and debris. A moment later, the wind dies. In silence, Notus takes everything in at a glance. Ammara’s monarchs, bound and gagged. Me, restrained against Prince Balior’s chest. Notus’ robe hangs off his frame, naught but scraps. Blood and ash powder his skin, his hair. They are empty, his eyes. Completely devoid of emotion.
“I will make this simple,” Notus growls in a voice so riddled with rage I hardly recognize it. “Release Sarai and her family, and I will make your death a swift one.”
But the prince only grins. “Welcome, Notus. So glad you could make it.” He gestures toward the study, now a mess of broken wood and parchment, soot coating every available surface. “Though I’d hoped our meeting would take place under more, shall we say, agreeable circumstances.”
Notus steps closer. “Release Sarai, now.”
The prince tilts his head in contemplation. He glances between Notus, Amir, Tuleen, and myself. Then he sighs gustily. “Well, you do drive a hard bargain.” The prince is all smiles. “Very well.” He gestures toward the South Wind’s waist. “In exchange for your betrothed’s freedom, I will take your sword. And your life.”
Notus’ hand drifts toward the hilt. The weapon hangs protectively in its leather sheath. “You’re mad if you think I would hand this over to you,” he growls. “Last time. Step away from Sarai, if you value your life.”
Prince Balior laughs and laughs and laughs. “You want me to step away? The solution is simple: your sword.”
“I’ve already given you my answer,” Notus grits out.
“I don’t think you understand just how truly dire the situation is,” Prince Balior replies. The shadow encasing my body migrates up my chest, higher, to wrap lovingly around my neck. Deliberately, the substance tightens. I grasp hold of its slithering shape, yank at it to no avail as the noose draws taut. Dark spots overwhelm the sickly light. I wheeze, my strength waning.
There is a roar, a crash of sound. The noose vanishes, and I drop, a throb of pain shooting through my skull as I hit the floor. Scimitar raised, the South Wind hacks at Prince Balior, who tosses up a shield. The blade skitters off its wisped surface. Notus regroups, hurtling a thin shard of air at the prince, who dives toward the floor.
He hits the ground and rolls. A heartbeat later, he’s on his feet, drawing forth a protective dome. Wind makes impact with a sharp crack. Shadow bursts from Prince Balior, a many-armed creature of darkness, lashing its multiple tentacles toward Notus. It grips his wrists, legs, waist, chest. He snarls, attempting to free himself. Wind daggers its way through two of the arms. They dissolve and immediately reform.
The men vanish behind the increasingly thickening smoke. I use the opportunity to crawl toward Amir and Tuleen, their ash-coated faces white with fear above their gags. I’ve nearly reached Tuleen’s side when a ball of shadow shatters the bookshelves. Her eyes widen, and she frantically shakes her head. Something wraps my waist from behind and yanks me backward. I slam into Prince Balior’s chest.
“Enough of this,” he snaps, and a long steel dagger materializes inside the darkness pooling in his outstretched palm.
I stare at the dagger. My brother leans against the wall, his arms positioned at awkward angles, one of his shoulders having been wrenched from its socket in his attempts to unknot his bonds. Tuleen, meanwhile, glares at Prince Balior with utter loathing. Whatever fear sent her cowering against the ground, it has hardened, become something obdurate, uncompromising.
“Where did you get that blade?” Notus asks. He stares at the hilt in mystification: cut gemstones, tarnished steel.
“I conjured it from the realm of the gods.” He slips the edge beneath my jaw, pressing it to the pulse point in my neck. I flinch from the metal’s icy kiss. “Now you see how serious I am. With a god-touched weapon, I can kill you myself if I have to, but I am giving you the opportunity to end your existence on your own terms. Refuse me, and your precious love dies.”
I clench my teeth, fighting tears. The agony carving open the back of my skull has become unbearable. I feel close to passing out. “Why are you doing this?” I hiss to the prince. “Why not leave Ammara as you came? Return to Um Salim and let us rebuild what was lost.”
“I do intend to rebuild, Sarai.” He grazes the wound on the back of my head. I recoil with a soft cry. “But the land will be different now that the beast has been freed. With the power granted to me, I can rule Um Salim and extend our borders, share our prosperity with smaller developing nations. I can ensure our realm will never bow to a greater force.”
“You fool.” The South Wind’s voice is pure thunder. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? The beast will rain fire over your realm, and all others beyond it.”
Prince Balior gazes at him blandly. “I’m not concerned with your opinion of me, Notus. I’m aware of what the beast is capable of. I’m aware of the revenge it seeks. And I can’t risk you driving your god-touched sword into its heart once it returns to its humanoid state.”
Because Prince Balior’s power is dependent on the beast’s life, I realize. Though not a god itself, the beast is descended from a divine bull. Vulnerable to god-touched weapons.
As the prince drags the dagger point along my collarbone, he says, “We can do this the easy way, or the hard way. Your life, or Sarai’s. Choose.”
The South Wind is frozen. A muffled cry bursts from Amir’s mouth. He crawls forward on his knees, but a whip of shadow unfurls, snapping his head sideways. The sight surges through me. My struggles grow more violent. The prince spits out an oath. The tips of his fingers dip deep into the place where my neck and shoulder meet, forcing me still. I’m panting, wild-eyed with despair.
“I won’t ask again,” Prince Balior says.
The South Wind considers his adversary. It matters not that he is a superior swordsman. The prince has the upper hand. “I will agree to the bargain,” Notus replies. “On one condition. I do not wish to die by my own scimitar, for it has been a friend to me these long centuries. I will trade my sword for your dagger, and with it I will take my life in exchange for hers.”
I stare at him, mouth agape.
Prince Balior is equally taken aback, judging by the silence that follows. But he is a man of greed. He wants what he wants. “I accept.”
“Notus, no .” My voice breaks.
He glances at me, eyes incredibly sad. My lungs twist onto themselves, rendering me breathless. Smoke lies as a dense veil between us. Why does it feel like he is already gone?
“Try anything,” Prince Balior warns, “and I will snap her neck.”
“Wait!” I renew my struggles. Prince Balior drives his fingers deeper into my shoulder, forcing me still, the shadow a subtle tightening around my waist. “This isn’t the answer. Notus, please , just… think about what you’re doing.” Higher and higher my panic mounts. There must be another way. A loophole. But I am powerless in this moment, little more than an animal pacing its cage. “It can’t be undone.”
He bows his head in surrender. “If the choice is between your life and mine,” he says, “then it is no choice at all. I would gladly give my life for yours, Sarai.”
As the South Wind offers his sword hilt first, the prince’s dagger floats through the air and into his outstretched palm. Notus stares at it, the dull shine of its blade, the sharpened point. He looks to me. I understand, then, the decision he has made. I clench my teeth, trembling, tears already sliding down my face. “Don’t go,” I whisper.
“Forgive me,” Notus says, and plunges the dagger into his heart.
There is a scream.
It is a shrill, splintered sound, drawn from the blackest depths of grief. On it goes, and on. I don’t realize I’m the one responsible until the strain in my throat forces it closed, cutting off the shriek.
Blood pours forth, sopping the South Wind’s robes. A hard exhalation punches out of him, wet and torn. His spine folds forward, like the toppling of a great stone tower. I lunge, catching him before he hits the ground.
Prince Balior peers down at the fallen god dispassionately. He then looks to Amir. “Tell Notus’ brother the beast is coming for him.” He oozes into shadow and is gone.
My heart feels like it will tear free of my chest as I lower Notus onto the floor, the rug already soaked with blood. He will leave me. He does not wish to go, but I must watch him vanish regardless.
A low curse briefly draws my attention from Notus. Tuleen shakes her arms free of the rope, having managed to pick the knot. After freeing Amir, she stumbles over to me, wrenching the gag from her mouth. “How can I help?”
Through his labored breathing, the South Wind stares at me. There is a glaze to his dark eyes, which have begun to lose focus.
“Find a healer… if you can,” I whisper. She flees the room, Amir in pursuit, likely to ensure his wife does not come to harm. And then we are alone, Notus and I. His form blurs behind a stinging haze of distortion as tears well, and fall. The air is sharp, edged. It hurts to breathe, and takes a monumental effort to lift my hands, rest them against the roughness of the South Wind’s ashen cheeks.
“Why?” I choke out. “Why would you do this?”
“Shh.” One large hand curls around mine, quelling the trembling that has spread outward from my core. “Do not despair.”
His eyelids flutter shut. The sight sends me forward with a sharp cry. “Notus!”
His eyes crack open, and I release a shaky exhalation. “I thought…” I can’t say it. I can’t make it real. “What should I do? How can we heal this?” I glance around. The smoke is quite thick now, making speaking, even breathing, difficult. I cough into my shoulder, swipe at my leaking eyes.
“You can’t,” he says quietly. “Death by a god-touched blade cannot be reversed.”
My heart, that diamond-encrusted organ, plummets to my feet and shatters into a thousand fragments. “No,” I whisper. “No, no, no, no… you’re immortal. You can pull through. It’s just a stupid blade.”
“It is god-touched.”
“But you—you’re the South Wind. You can do anything ,” I whisper as the anguish hooks deeper. “I’ve seen it. You’re unstoppable, resilient—” My voice cracks, and I duck my head, my eyes so choked with tears the South Wind’s features have become a hot smear.
“It’s not fair,” I cry. “I just got you back, I—” I can’t lose you. Now that I will live, how am I supposed to accept this cost? My chest strains, and I press a fist against it, my face twisting as another broken sob bursts from my mouth. “Why do the people I love always leave me?”
“I’m not leaving you, Sarai.”
“Yes, you are.”
“No, I’m not, at least not willingly. Look at me.” He draws my chin upward, searching my gaze. “I’ll be right here. Always.” He touches two fingers against my heart. “Please listen to what I’m about to tell you.”
My fingers slide against his like the tightest weave, knotted into forever. “I’m not—”
“ Please . I don’t have much time.”
My teeth clamp in an attempt to dam the scream that hammers against my locked jaw. Helplessly, I nod.
“I have… regrets,” Notus begins, the words sluggish and muddled. “Had I known my home was with you, I would have stood against Fahim. I would never have left you behind. You are my heart in every sense of the word. The woman I imagined I’d spend my days with.”
“It’s all right,” I soothe, wiping away a tear that squeezes from the corner of his eye. “I forgive you. I understand why you left.”
“I was weak. I thought your brother knew best, thought I knew best. In leaving, I denied myself the person that was most precious to me. And now I’m leaving again,” he whispers as the strength fades from his voice. “My one worry is who will look after you, if you leave Ishmah. Who will shelter you, reassure you? Who will love you?”
I wipe at the tears that drip endlessly. The truth is, I worry about that, too. I worry about being alone. How far will I drift this time before I’m able to pull myself from that black nothingness, if I have the strength at all?
But I won’t burden Notus with these thoughts. So I tell him all will be well. I reassure him that I can look after myself. I have Amir, Tuleen, Roshar. I have our memories. “I know who I am,” I say. “I’m not afraid.”
Some of the apprehension eases from his face at hearing this. I did the right thing, I think.
“Never forget that you are strong.” His fingers slacken, sliding from the hilt of the dagger protruding from his chest. The emerald pommel dulls beneath a coating of ash. “You are Sarai Al-Khatib,” Notus chokes out, the words garbled, blood trickling from his mouth. “Do not let the world tell you otherwise.”
“I won’t,” I sob, head bowed. “I promise. Just… stay, for a little while longer.” All the stories I wish to tell him, the laughter we might share.
Blood slinks over our grasped hands, slips down into the cracks between. “Tell me of your childhood,” I urge. “Tell me of your favorite sound in the world. Tell me… tell me what it was like to visit Ammara for the first time.” These things, which I believed we’d have the leisure to discuss. This future that will never be.
His expression pinches as he draws forth the recollection. “Ammara was beautiful. I had never come across a land so vast, so effortlessly raw. There was power here, power beyond my wildest imagination, though it came from no god that I could see.”
His chest judders, and he shifts his head toward me.
“And then I saw you,” he whispers, “and I realized the beauty I’d beheld in the desert was a pale comparison to the brightness of your smile, the intelligence in your gaze. You speared the very heart of me, Sarai. You still do.”
I cry harder, face pressed into his shoulder. “Notus.” My fingers curve around his wrist, the unyielding bone my only anchor against the ebbing tide. As I have learned, life will go on. The sun will rise, the moon will cycle, yet I fear a world that lacks the South Wind’s steadfast nature. “What can I do?”
“You can live your life, Sarai. Be happy.” He brushes the side of my face. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted for you.”
“I don’t want to live it without you.”
“It will only be for a short while,” he whispers, eyelids sinking low. “We will meet again. If not in this life, then the next.”
“Notus.” I grip his hand tightly enough to bruise “You must stay awake.”
“Sarai,” he slurs. “I will dream of you.”
The South Wind is gone.