Chapter 8
THE AIR IS brEATHLESSLY COLD. Curled against the East Wind’s chest, I listen to the steady whump whump of his wings, the ebon glitter of his scales reflecting the light.
He holds me as though I am weightless, one arm slotted beneath my bent knees, the other bracing my lower back.
The strength of him cannot be denied. His body has been honed, cut, carved out.
Despite this, I’m held gently. Somehow, these two realities do not blend together, one sharp, the other dull.
We abandoned his island of isolation hours before, crossing the sea westward. Below, she waits. She thrashes and she howls. This god is no safe harbor, but I cling to him.
“Have y-you visited Kilkare before?” I ask, pitching my voice over the wind.
We dip lower. My stomach surges into my mouth, and I dig my fingers deeper into his shoulders until the sensation ebbs. He tries yet fails to shrug away my touch. “No.”
The terseness of his reply exposes a discomfort I do not understand. Not that I expected in-depth conversation, though it would certainly make the journey more pleasant.
On and on and on we fly. My hamstrings twinge from the discomfort of holding myself in place, but I dare not stretch my legs for fear of slipping. I’m beginning to wonder if we will stop for a break when Eurus says, “We’re past the sea.”
He’s right. The cliffs sketching Marles’ eastern border are at last behind us. I’m relieved to leave the water behind.
Peering through my lashes, I search for shape and definition within his cowl.
The glimpses I’ve been granted thus far are crumbs.
I’ve an odd hunger for more. “Why do you live the w-way you do? I can understand the need for solitude, but y-you live on an island that is nearly impossible to reach. It makes me think you are avoiding s-s-something.”
“I avoid nothing,” he all but snarls, but his arms remain secure around me. “I like my space and my freedom. I do not care to give that up.”
I frown, for I said nothing about sacrificing one for the other. “Is that wh-why you keep your face hidden?” I ask. “Because you do not w-want anyone to know you?”
His wings thrust us forward, fast, faster. Yellow-green streaks below—the forest and fields. My eyes sting from the rapidity of our pace.
After a time, Eurus slows. “The hood is a necessary precaution,” he explains. “Some things the world is not meant to see. Some truths too brutal. Some wounds too deep.”
We stop for the night in Aburgan, a region in western Marles known for its production of fine oil. The inn roosts atop a hill, cast in amber light from the setting sun. Its surrounding fields are plentiful, the air tinged with the musk of pressed olives.
The East Wind checks us in, to the wariness of the innkeeper.
Separate accommodations, thankfully. After wolfing down a delicious roast in the commons, I return to my room to wash away the day’s salt and sweat.
I try the door: locked. The window: locked.
It seems Eurus has covered all locking mechanisms with a layer of impenetrable air, preventing my escape. He is wise to have done so.
I succumb to exhaustion, falling into a dreamless sleep, and wake well rested. After breakfast, Eurus offers a brisk “Let’s go” before ushering me out the door. Scooping me into his arms, he launches skyward, and we’re off.
Before long, Marles’ rolling pastures begin to diminish, the land patched with dried grasses, bare rock.
The sun boils down. My eyes find the horizon, that seam of earth and sky.
In the distance, the air wavers over red stone, a glaze of heat.
Cracked earth transforms into expansive hills of sand.
It is unlike anything I have ever witnessed.
A land completely devoid of water and life.
As though sensing my wonder, the East Wind murmurs, “Ammara.”
“Excuse me?”
“We have passed beyond the boundaries of Marles and now travel over the realm of Ammara.” A slight tilt of his wings steers us northwest. Our combined shadows ripple below.
“It’s…” But the words disintegrate. They are too trivial to properly venerate this unending plain. I am eclipsed in its greatness. “Have y-you visited?”
“On occasion.”
Gradually, Eurus descends closer to the sand. I marvel at its palette of hues: red and ochre, yellow and tawny and gold. Now that we’ve left the higher altitude of Marles, sweat springs beneath my arms and at the backs of my knees.
“I was traveling back from Ammara when I was captured,” he replies, in subtle surrender to my thirst for knowledge.
And just like that, all the desert’s brightness dulls, as if coated in a fine layer of dust. “Oh.” I remember the day of his capture.
Lady Clarisse had returned to the estate with a manic grin crimping her mouth as two men carried the hooded stranger through the back door.
I didn’t know then that she had captured a god.
I thought he was just another immortal, same as all the rest.
Eager to redirect the conversation—for this is, indeed, a conversation—I say, “What business did y-you have in Ammara?”
The East Wind angles upward, and a powerful flap of his scaled wings sends us soaring ever higher. “If I answer,” he growls lowly, “will you stop asking questions?”
I nod.
“I was visiting my brother, Notus.”
I stare at him. “You have a brother?”
“I have three.”
Of course. That oil painting I stumbled across in his study portrayed four men, yet only one with wings.
Could they be the Anemoi that her ladyship mentioned?
Might his siblings also possess power over the wind?
And if what he says is true, then Eurus is not the only deity occupying the mortal realms. “What is Ammara l-like?”
“Dry.”
The urge to roll my eyes is strong. Somehow, I temper it. “Well, it is a desert.”
“What I mean,” he says, “is that Ammara has been fighting a drought for more than two decades. The annual floodwaters have ceased. Crops are in decline. The people suffer.”
Unsurprisingly, there is little compassion from him. He is simply stating the facts. “For someone who hates to venture f-from his island, you seem to know a lot about Ammara’s state of affairs.”
“I should, considering I was the one who took Ammara’s rains.”
I startle in his arms. “You s-stole the rains from Ammara?”
“I stole nothing,” he clips out, arms tightening at my back. “It was a fair trade. Their king was desperate, and I needed those rains to strengthen the protections around my island. He could give me that, and in exchange, I granted him his heart’s desire.”
The storm, I realize. Eurus stole Ammara’s rains to feed the massive storm enveloping his manor.
“You’re saying you d-d-doomed an entire realm to suffering because you needed more water?
” It is absurd. It is sickening. “Those are life-giving rains. Y-you stole them.” And likely took advantage of a poor mortal king.
The man’s desperation must have been immense, to willingly condemn his kingdom.
I wonder what Eurus provided him in return.
He scoffs. “Not water. Power. And you would not understand.”
Oh, I understand. It is clear the East Wind lacks any consideration for others, any compassion at all. He values influence above all else.
The reminder that I am but one more pawn on his board fatigues me.
I rest for a time, though I am never able to relax fully in this god’s embrace.
When I open my eyes, the desert has been replaced with a vast tract of forest. We bank hard, veering toward a clearing on the outskirts of a small town.
Eurus cups the back of my head as his wings flare out, slowing our descent.
He touches down with all the care of a seamstress threading the eye of a needle.
The relief of returning to solid ground cannot be understated. I love the solidity of the earth. I love the bedrock and soil, the plains and mountains, valleys and hills. Change is slow with feet on the ground.
Eurus jerks his chin, and I follow at his heels, eyes wide as we venture down a busy market street.
It is not the shops I notice first, but the people.
They are dressed in browns and whites and greens—shades of the earth.
They clad their bodies in sturdy cotton and lightweight linen.
There is no delicate silk or lacy frills, nothing extravagant about their manner of dress.
The bright click of heels has been replaced with heavy boot tread.
As for Kilkare itself, we have exchanged the corroded metal rooftops of Marles for thatched coverings, chimneys sprouting coils of smoke. The doors to the chapel lie open. A tuneful hymn drifts from the candlelit interior.
The East Wind ducks down a small side street, glancing left, right, left again. More than one civilian stares as he passes. Then again, a massive, winged figure would attract attention.
Halfway down the road, he again peers over his shoulder.
“Is someone following us?” I ask.
“No.”
By the Mother, he is not very convincing. “Then wh-what is it?”
His strides lengthen, forcing me into a trot. Ahead, a family halts at a market stall to purchase fruit. The East Wind advances without slowing, forcing the family to scatter or be trampled. My mouth pinches at his disregard for others. “There is someone here I would like to avoid at all costs.”
Interesting. Eurus does not seem like the sort of person to run from anything. “Who?”
“My brother.” A grimace coats his words in oily discontent. “But we’ll be gone before he learns of my visit.”
“Is this the same brother you v-visited in Ammara?”
“No.” He glances down an alleyway before pushing forward. “Unfortunately, the most obnoxious of my brothers lives here.”
Shortly after, we reach a shop with a powder blue door. A polished wooden sign hangs in the front window: Chamomile & Sage.