Chapter 9
THE WAVES REACH UP, SWALLOWING me whole.
I’m dragged down, through salt and lather, a thousand roiling bubbles. The water invades, its stinging chill setting fire to my throat and chest. A great swell slaps me sideways, and I’m spinning.
My body seizes, caught in the memory of a bygone time.
My mother’s nimble hands, forcing my head under, the blood drawn from her arms as my nails bite deep.
I choke, flailing in an attempt to reach the surface, but the current forces me into further depths.
Light wanes, squeezed into the smallest pinhole as shadows coax me into surrender. My limbs twitch. The world darkens.
Something snags my hair, yanking me in some unknown direction. I kick feebly, but my legs are so heavy, caught in my water-logged dress. Past, or present? Reality, or memory?
My head breaks the surface, my ears aflood with the shatter of waves and brute winds.
The sea releases my stiff, frozen limbs, my dress sagging around my limp frame as Eurus hefts me into the air.
His open palm slams my back. Water gushes from my throat, and I vomit as he grips me from behind, wings flapping to hold us aloft.
“Stupid mortal,” the East Wind growls. “Do you have a death wish?” He shakes me like a doll. “You could have hit the rocks.”
I hack so forcefully I’m certain I’ll crack a rib. I gasp, shudder, gasp again. Alive, alive, alive.
“Will you cooperate,” he spits, “or shall I leave you to the sea?”
My teeth chatter, a sharp clack clack that drives knives into my skull. If I fail to respond, will he abandon me to the water? The thought is terrifying enough that I grip him tighter, arms winding around his neck, face pressed to his damp shoulder. The rough weave of his cloak is oddly grounding.
“D-d-d-don’t l-l-l-leave…” I shudder and bury into his wide chest. “D-d-d-don’t—”
The East Wind sighs, yet says nothing more as we veer toward his island that stands alone.
The cold has consumed me: breath, blood, bones. No matter the blankets piled high, no matter the height of the flickering fire, my body will not warm. The chill has fully infiltrated my mind.
It is dark. Night, that pillow of star-studded velvet, cushions the sharp rocks of the island beyond the open window of the tower.
Curled in bed beneath layers of wool, my muscles twitch incessantly.
The manor adds another log onto the fire.
When my teeth continue their chattering, the window snaps shut, glass rattling from the force.
“Thank you,” I whisper earnestly.
Following our arrival at the manor, the East Wind had deposited me on the bed.
“Fire,” he’d barked, and the fireplace had exploded with heat and light.
A small mountain of blankets materialized at the foot of the cot.
He’d heaped them over my frigid form, ordered me to stay put—as if I actually had the energy to wander—then departed.
I’m not sure how many hours have passed.
I drift in that peculiar realm between waking and dreaming.
I am six years old and twenty-two. I am drowning, panicked, soaring, saved.
Sometimes I startle awake, drenched in a cold sweat.
In these moments, another blanket appears on my bed, a reminder that the manor is here, with me.
The creak of the door alerts me. I peer at the East Wind through heavy eyelids, shivering, always shivering. Candlelight and shadows pock the walls.
He strides to the window, having failed to notice my watchful regard.
There he stands, a cloaked pillar in the gloom.
For whatever reason, I find it difficult to look elsewhere.
Firelight limns his wings, each black scale absorbing the glow until they smolder like hundreds of diminutive suns.
Their coloring is not true black, I realize.
In certain angles, there is orange, violet, sage.
He still wears his cloak, though it appears to be dry now.
Why not remove it, unless he has something to hide?
The more pertinent question is: Why do I care?
He is my captor, with the power to crush all that I hold dear.
And yet, the East Wind saved my life. I’m not sure what to make of it.
Granted, this god has need of me. Or rather, the poisons.
It is not a true kindness, my rescue, but I am grateful all the same.
“Are you well rested?” Eurus suddenly asks.
The grating of his voice spikes my pulse, and he turns in a fluid motion. He knew I was awake. Did he feel my eyes on his torso, the flared tips of his wings?
I swallow painfully. Sound is muffled, as though I am still underwater. “I th-th-thought you’d l-left.”
Eurus approaches my bedside. I stare into the darkness beneath his hood, trying to trace the shape of his countenance.
Moments before dropping into the sea, I’d exposed a portion of his face, the rise of a discolored cheek.
“Your lips are blue.” Then he reaches toward me, one large, pale hand exposed as the sleeve of his cloak pulls back.
I recoil so quickly my shoulder slams into the bedpost. The East Wind falls motionless. Finally, he lowers his hand.
“I said I wouldn’t hurt you,” he says, tone softening. “You need to get warm.”
“Then b-build the f-f-fire higher. Or ask the manor to g-g-give me m-more blankets.”
Another wool blanket plops onto the pile. I blink. “Thank y-you,” I whisper.
“Stubborn woman,” Eurus growls. “Enough of this.” Dragging me forward, he gathers me against his chest. The cold has so thoroughly stiffened my muscles that my attempts to shove him away prove futile.
The threads of his cloak scratch my cheek, yet, in surrender, I am thawed, slowly, fingertips to toes.
The sea clings to him, but a darker scent emerges as well, a mellow musk that is not unpleasant.
Over time, my heartbeat slows. My eyelids lower, and I am floating, wavering. Tossed and dragged under.
I gasp, my eyes snapping open. Where is the air?
Something brushes along the curl of my spine, languid, hot to the touch. “The sea is far,” Eurus murmurs, with a gentleness I did not think he was capable of. “It cannot touch you.”
Releasing a shuddering breath, I sag fully against him. “I feel it on m-my skin,” I whisper hoarsely.
“And whose fault is that? Had you not fought me, you would not have slipped from my grasp.”
If my throat were not so completely ravaged from swallowing salt water, I might laugh for how warped his perspective is. “In what world would a woman taken against her w-w-will not fight her captor?”
He is quiet, but it is the sort of quiet offered to contemplation, space granted to allow thoughts to settle into their decided forms.
Carefully, the East Wind asks, “You said your mother tried to drown you when you were a child. Why?”
What does it matter? I wonder. “My father w-was a fisherman,” I whisper.
“That’s how he and my m-m-mother met. Each week, she purchased fish from him at the market.
According to Nan, my mother never cared for children, but my father loved m-me, and I do believe a part of her loved me, too, when he was alive.
” I frown, unable to guard against the melancholy settling like a fog over my heart.
“A storm capsized his boat. My mother was d-devastated. I can only imagine the difficulties in raising a daughter alone. One day, she cracked. Dragged me down to the beach and sh-shoved me under.” I shudder.
“In return for sacrificing me, my mother hoped the Master of Sea m-might return the husband she’d lost.”
Of course, death is not kind. One cannot call back someone who is already gone. It hurts, knowing I was not enough to love, but I was enough to sacrifice.
“She sounds nearly as bad as my father,” Eurus comments.
And what had Eurus’ father done to him? “Why didn’t you kill my lady wh-when you had the chance?” I whisper drowsily. Sleep, that peaceful rest, beckons.
“Because she needs you. And I figured it would hurt her more, knowing I have taken you from her. Knowing you are mine.”
My face warms. I turn it into his shoulder so he cannot see how that word—mine—flusters me.
“Rest, bird.” The East Wind disentangles himself. “If you have need of something, the manor will see to it.”
He slips out into the hall as silently as he arrived. I study the closed door long after he has gone.
The next morning, I’m woken by an intense bout of coughing. My still-bruised sternum twinges from the force of my hacking. Beneath the blankets, I shiver, my sweat-slickened skin feverish to the touch.
Sunlight pours through the window. It is well past dawn, I realize in shock. I never sleep so late. Then again, my slumber was fitful. Too hot, too cold. I doubt I got more than a few hours’ rest.
As I sip from the glass of water on my nightstand, the East Wind stomps into the tower, a rough breeze trailing his entrance. “Why are you not up?” Legs braced, arms crossed over his chest. His displeasure is plain.
I stare at him from beneath the stack of blankets, feeling too poorly to react to his anger. “I’m not feeling well.” The words are garbled, my throat painfully scratchy, as if stuffed with fistfuls of sand.
“That can’t be. You received enough rest.” He heads for the window. Admittedly, it is a lovely day, with blue skies and nary a cloud. Perfect weather for gardening. “Get up,” he says. “We have work to do.”
He means I have work to do. “I can’t.”
“What do you mean, you can’t? I told you the poisons must be completed before we travel to the City of Gods.”
“I’m s-sick!”
“And?”
Oh, dear. He hasn’t the slightest clue what it means to feel unwell. I imagine immortality comes with certain benefits. “Have you ever suffered from illness before?”
“I am a god,” he states, as though the answer were obvious.
That settles things. “When mortals become ill,” I explain, my lips cracking painfully, “our bodies need food and rest to r-recover. If we push ourselves, we may make ourselves sicker.”