Chapter 43
43
“Y OU ’ RE SURE OF THIS ?” H ARPER asks, watching as I store the last of my belongings.
It’s not much. A handful of clothes and two pairs of shoes—slippers for service, boots for work. My journal, my most beloved possession, every word of heartbreak, self-consciousness, fear. The small woven basket containing my mother’s poultices. Lastly, the Text, its pages worn thin. There is still much I can learn from its teachings.
“I am sure.” My pack, which sits at the foot of my cot, is only half full. The sight saddens me. Ten years I’ve lived here, yet there is so little that is truly mine.
“Aren’t you afraid?”
I turn to Harper. Arms crossed, she perches on the windowsill, the green wellspring of Carterhaugh framed at her back. I have misunderstood her. I recognize that now.
“Yes, I’m afraid.” The thought of stepping beyond Thornbrook’s gates, never to return, kicks my pulse into a mad dash. “But the fear reminds me I still have miles to go on this journey.”
“To Kilkare?”
My mouth quirks, and I rest a palm over my sternum. “In here.” Perhaps this journey will help me come to terms with my abandonment. The pain of losing my mother might always linger, but that doesn’t mean I cannot grow from it. It doesn’t mean I am in any way at fault.
Harper frowns dubiously—an expression I know well. “I always knew there was something strange about you.”
I bite back a smile. It wouldn’t be a proper farewell without Harper’s uninvited snark.
“I’ll write you,” I say, securing my bag once the Text is nestled safely inside. “And you’re always welcome to stay with me once I find permanent housing.”
She hesitates, then seems to come to a decision. “It will not be the same with you gone.”
“Harper,” I tease, seeking to lighten the mood. “Are you implying you’ll miss me?”
The woman sniffs. “I am saying no such thing.”
Through the open window, I catch sight of Mother Mabel crossing the outer grounds toward the church. With her hands tucked into the voluminous sleeves of her robe, she glides ghostlike across the grass. Harper, who notices where my attention has gone, asks, “What does Mother Mabel think of your departure?”
My heart has not healed from her betrayal. It rests in pieces, the shards grinding painfully between breaths. It hurts. All those lies. All those dreams that never came true.
I’ve considered telling Harper the truth about Mother Mabel, but despite the abbess’ questionable behavior, she dearly loves Thornbrook. She cares for her charges. She sacrifices for our faith. She bleeds. Thornbrook needs Mother Mabel the way a plant needs sunlight.
“She is disappointed,” I admit. “She had high hopes for me.”
Wide blue eyes search mine. “Did you break your vows?”
Did I? Or was I merely following my heart?
Sorrow weighs upon my back, but I clear my throat, take a steadying breath. I haven’t even walked out the door and I already want to dive beneath my blanket, curl into a ball, and await the next sunrise. The Harper I know now is not the Harper I knew then. Whatever I confess will not pass beyond these walls. “I did.”
She nods, her expression solemn. I would like to think I see understanding there.
Grabbing my pack, I swing it over my shoulder and face Harper. Somehow, despite living as enemies for a decade, we are parting as friends. “I suppose this is goodbye.”
We stare at each other awkwardly, Harper in her white alb and diaconal red stole, me in my plain gray dress. It feels odd without the cincture at my waist, but I will grow used to it, in time.
I’m not sure who moves first, but we embrace. She feels small in my arms. Not weak. Never weak.
“Take care of yourself,” she whispers.
I remember Harper’s first words to me: Move, cow. But it is our last exchange I intend to carry with me.
As I reach the threshold, Harper asks, “Don’t you want your lantern?”
Against my better judgment, I glance at the lantern hanging in my window. The sight unnerves me. I’ve lit it nightly these past weeks, unable to temper the urge. I do not know why.
“Keep it,” I say, and quickly depart.
After stopping by the kitchen for bread and cheese, I head for the herbarium. A few apples, a handful of carrots, and I’ll be on my way. As I yank carrots from the soil, however, the back of my neck prickles. My hand, wrapped around the tufted greens, twitches for my dagger.
I’m up, spinning toward the shed, when I spot a figure hopping over the wall, vanishing from view.
Abandoning my pack, I dash through the raised beds and crash through the side gate leading to the outer grounds. Long, desperate strides carry me to the gatehouse. The porter opens the gate, and I dive through, catching sight of a man’s emerald cloak before Carterhaugh swallows his retreating form.
He will not escape me this time.
Dirt and pebbles fling from my bootheels as I navigate the winding trail downhill, racing over treacherous roots and moistened ground. He is a phantom, a flicker of light and shade. His long-legged stride sends him vaulting through the bottlebrush ferns.
“Wait!” Another leap over a fallen tree. I must see his face. I must learn his name. I must ask him why.
Yet he is simply too fast. Feet like quicksilver, a gait buoyed by the wind itself. My leaden legs pound the earth, and my chest burns, and still the distance between us grows.
But I do not stop running. Carterhaugh splits open before me, its canopy punched through by sunlight splashing the moss-eaten ground. I burst into a small clearing, chest heaving, sweat fusing the fabric of my dress to my skin. And there the man stands, aglow in dew and sun, hands in his trouser pockets as he watches me stumble, then slow.
My tired heart begins to thunder with renewed energy. Beneath his knee-length cloak, the stranger wears a gray tunic and simple brown trousers. He is the loveliest man I have ever laid eyes on. An impossible beauty, warm as flushed spring.
His eyes are green.
I’m staring. It’s rude, I know, but I can’t help myself. I remember my journal entries. I remember the sleepless nights, a gaze like cut gemstones flashing behind my eyes.
Today, I am bold.
“You’ve been following me,” I say, chin lifted. “Why?”
Something passes behind his expression, vanishing between one breath and the next. “Do you know who I am?” he asks. The man’s voice possesses a timbre I was not expecting. Its smooth, melodious resonance reminds me of birdsong. “No.” I step closer, afraid he’ll bolt like a buck through the brush. “Should I?”
His throat dips. Sadness, or guilt? “I suppose not.”
There’s something about him. I can’t put my finger on it. Is it possible I recognize him from the market? Kilkare is Carterhaugh’s largest town, and many travel from their small settlements to acquire goods.
“Have we met before?” I blurt.
He studies me for an uncomfortably long moment. I may as well stand naked before him, cloth and skin stripped away, unable to withstand the intensity of his scrutiny. “You remind me of a woman I once knew.”
My stomach sinks. Then he isn’t the green-eyed man from my journal. The foolishness I feel is nearly as acute as the disappointment, but I am intrigued by him regardless. “What was she like?” Another step nearer. It’s not my business. He is a stranger and I am a woman alone in the woods.
That pretty mouth quirks, and his eyes momentarily catch the light. “Marvelous.”
“How so?”
The man rocks back on his heels. His curling hair shifts with the motion. “Where to begin? She taught me about forgiveness. She taught me to listen when I would rather speak. She understood, perhaps better than anyone, that life is a journey. But mostly, she taught me to open my heart and embrace a depth of love I had not experienced in centuries.”
I blink at the unexpected statement. “Centuries?” A bit of laughter slips out. “Surely you mean years. Unless you are somehow immortal?”
For whatever reason, he appears ridiculously pleased by my question. Then his face alters, and all those bright points dim. “You share the same laugh.”
The man’s voice is nice, I decide. Not too rough or deep. “Is that why you’re following me?” I whisper. “Because I remind you of this woman?”
“I apologize if I frightened you. It was not my intention.”
“You didn’t frighten me.” That he would think so saddens me for reasons I cannot name.
His gaze falls to my empty hands, and he says, “I noticed you carried a pack before. Are you traveling?”
“Moving, actually.”
He blinks in puzzlement. “I do not understand. The abbey is moving elsewhere?”
“Not the abbey. Me. I am leaving Thornbrook.”
Beneath the dappled light, the man shifts nearer, partial shade muddying his eyes. “Do you turn from your faith?”
The notion seizes me like a physical ailment. “No.” The Father is a permanent fixture in my life. Always will be. But faith is not a mold I must pour myself into. It takes the shape of one’s heart. “I’m interested in exploring what faith looks like beyond the walls of an abbey.” Mother Mabel claims I’m making a small-minded mistake. It turns out she knows little of me and my capabilities.
“Are you frightened?”
Odd, that this stranger would ask me a question so personal, but I respond to him the same way I replied to Harper. “Very much so.”
His expression softens. “It takes courage to walk a new path. Should you continue on this road, I think you will find yourself in a better place.”
His confidence grounds me, oddly enough. I offer him a small smile as silence takes root. I’m not sure what to say. I cannot explain this pull to shift nearer to him.
“Well then,” says the man. “I don’t want to keep you.” Our eyes lock and hold.
My pulse spikes, for I do not want to leave. I know him. I must. For what other reason would I feel this compulsion to remain in his presence? But the truth is I know nothing about him. We are just two people crossing paths, our journeys having briefly converged.
“Right.” I force myself to retreat a step, nearer to the clearing’s edge, though it pains me to do so. “Good luck to you.”
He swallows, appearing as if he might speak, yet eventually nods in farewell. I feel nauseated turning my back on him, but I must return to Thornbrook for my supplies.
“Brielle.”
I pause mid-turn. The man stares at me with tears in his eyes, and an answering lump wells in my throat. I do not understand this sadness, this profound grief. “How do you know my name?”
“It doesn’t matter.” The words are choked, frail things. “Here.” Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out a crystal sphere, a perfectly encapsulated dawn. “For those dark nights when you need it.”
As though caught in a trance, I take the orb in hand.
I know this object. I know its contrasting sensations—cool glass, warm heartbeat—and how the curve perfectly fits the well of my palm. I know its unspoiled rosy kiss. I know the chime it makes upon hitting rock, like a nail flicked against a windowpane. I know its reassuring weight in my pocket. And I know that, until this moment, I did not realize I had missed its presence.
My eyes lift to the man standing before me. He is beautiful. The curve of his cheek splays into the sharp, stubbled jaw, then dips to the darker skin of his neck where the sun has baked it. That crinkling gaze and laughing mouth.
“Zephyrus,” I whisper, for it could be no one else.
Tears pour unhindered down his face. “You remember.”
How could I not? For there is our first encounter in Carterhaugh, the West Wind unconscious. His unwanted presence in my bedroom. My visit to Willow. Our kiss in the glen. With every unearthed recollection, heat gathers to a point inside me, and climbs up my throat, and collects behind my eyes. I let it come. There is relief in surrender, relief in knowing that I was not mad, that I have found him. Bringer of Spring.
“I missed you,” Zephyrus whispers.
I fall to my knees.
I’m crying so hard it cuts my breath. My hands lift, shielding my face. Things had gone so horribly wrong. The tithe. How could I have forgotten? That final battle. The Orchid King’s death. And fabled Meirlach, puncturing my chest like a bright, silver star.
The heel of my palm digs into my chest. Fresh anguish courses through me. It is both now and then, here and there. I am a body strewn across the ground. I am a woman bent double, on her knees. I am drenched in blood, and still.
Kneeling at my side, Zephyrus envelops me in his embrace. Even after all this time, he still smells of damp earth, sprigs of clover, honeysuckle. My tears are boundless. For long moments, we do not speak.
“How?” I whisper. “How is this possible? How are you here, alive? My soul rose from my body, and I s-saw the bargain. Your life in exchange for mine.”
“But the bargain was satisfied,” Zephyrus explains. “The tithe stripped me of my immortality. I am a god no longer.”
Shock hits, bleeding into a well of deep sadness. He could have been free. Now he is mortal, and powerless. “Tell me that’s not true.”
Quietly, he says, “I cannot.”
“Zephyrus—”
“Why, Brielle?” he murmurs. “Why would you sacrifice yourself for me?”
As if he doesn’t know.
“I didn’t have a choice.” A sharp cry cracks against my teeth, and I choke, hot tears blurring his form.
“You did have a choice! The sword was meant for me.”
“No!” I weep harder, folding into deeper blackness. “She would have killed you.” By the Father, I never want to experience that helplessness again.
“Brielle.” Leaning back, Zephyrus captures my hands, brings them to his tear-dampened mouth. “When I saw you step in front of that sword—” He breaks off, and the rough, tearing sounds of his grief shatter something in me.
“I would do it all over again,” I say. “I have no regrets.” Bringer of Spring, who so loved his winds. I squeeze his fingers tighter. “I know what power means to you.”
He appears slightly bemused. I realize I’ve only known Zephyrus as he was: a captive. But here kneels a free man, and I have never seen his shoulders so unburdened. “And what does it mean to me, darling?” he asks.
A warm breeze lifts the fine hairs falling around my face and coaxes Carterhaugh from its doze. Control, freedom—he’d clung to both for all he was worth. “It means everything.”
“Brielle.” Gentle is my name in his mouth. “I was an incredibly powerful immortal. I was a god . And I was alone.”
Fresh emotion rises as a knot in my throat. His wound is my wound, and if I could relieve him of it, I would. I understand, I do , but—“Better alone than dead.”
“I confess I do not share the sentiment.”
My mouth parts, and I stare at him, wide-eyed.
“When I saw you step in front of that sword,” Zephyrus says lowly, “my heart stopped. And I knew then what I had denied for weeks: that my search for freedom had become secondary to the search for home, and that home was you.”
It is the most profound relief to know our hearts are aligned. I haven’t the words to combat his claim, for he, too, is my home. “Why do you say the nicest things?” I wail. “It’s not right.”
I have never heard anything more devastating than his laughter, its warmth and adoration weakening my knees. “Would you prefer I lie?”
“Are you certain this is what you want?” I hiccup. “Your power—”
His mouth brushes mine, effectively silencing my protests. “Power means nothing to me. You, the woman I love with my whole heart, mean everything.”
Fresh tears stream down my face. “But—” He would not lie to me. This I know. “You’re sure?”
“I have never been more certain.” He cups my face, the pads of his thumbs catching the salted droplets. “I was alone in this world, and faithless, but you, with your stubborn belief and maddening conviction, drew light into my gray existence. The strength of your heart, the resilience of your spirit… My darling Brielle, I have never met another like you.”
I had not realized that Zephyrus saw me as strong. Nor had I realized how badly I wanted him to view me in such a manner. How can I stand against a man who makes me weak in the knees? How can I fight the pull of my heart? I cannot.
“Zephyrus,” I whisper. “I love you, too.”
I’m not certain who moves first. My arms twine around his neck. His band across my lower back, hauling me against him. His mouth, and mine. The deep, overwhelming kiss of the reunited. Our tongues flirt, and he draws mine past his teeth, licking deep. A groan rushes down my throat, rough with hunger.
In the end, I break away first, lifting a hand to his sun-warmed cheek. All my life, I have wondered what was missing. This, here, now. My heart is a bird, and look how readily it spreads its wings. “I choose you, Zephyrus of the West. I choose you every day.”
He presses his forehead to mine. “And I choose you, Brielle of Thornbrook, for as long as there is breath in my lungs.”
Carterhaugh is bright on this day. The West Wind is just a man, a wonderful, mortal man with a lifespan equal to mine. We have today, and tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.
Imagine all that we will see.