Chapter 28 #3
A few merchants carting goods into town glance up as we angle toward the estate.
From this height, it is clear how severely the structure has fallen into disrepair.
The roof sags around the chimney. A portion of the back wall has begun to crumble.
And the iron fence, which once shone proudly at the end of the long dirt road, has dulled beneath a thick coating of rust.
We land in the overgrown garden, amongst the vegetable beds and potted herbs. I touch a strand of Eurus’ windblown hair, brush it from his forehead.
“Thank you,” I say, “for returning me home.”
He glances at the back door, eyes watchful. “You’ll be all right?”
I smile and nod, because that is what is expected. Yes, I will be fine. It will hurt, our parting, but I will heal, in time. “And… you’ll be well?”
His lack of immediate response points to uncertainty. But then Eurus says, “Yes,” and I am forced to accept his answer, regardless of whether it is what I wish to hear.
I hesitate, fighting the urge to lunge, catch, hold tight. Maybe I am foolish to hope his suggestion that I stay in the manor meant something more.
“Take care of yourself, bird.”
“Wait.” I am desperate, I am bold, I am driven by impulse as I reach up, grasping his face, my hands twining in the strands of his hair. Tugging his head down, I crush my mouth to his.
My emotions burst their cage. I eat at his lips hungrily.
Eurus responds with equal fervor, plundering my mouth’s soft depths.
I fist the weave of his cloak, telling him with lips and teeth what my voice fails to express.
I love you and I need you and Don’t go. But he has his life, and I have mine, and our journey ends where it begins.
Gently, the East Wind pulls away. “Bird, I—” Except his attention locks onto something over my shoulder, and he stiffens.
I turn, squinting into the distance where the road vanishes over the hill. A line of what appear to be armed men top the rise, dressed in long, flowing robes the color of old blood, their dark hair and skin suggesting they hail from somewhere to the south. Ammara?
“What is this?” Eurus mutters. He scans the ten, twenty, thirty soldiers marching toward us, swords drawn, their curved edges aglint. At the front, leading the armed men, are Lady Clarisse and Prince Balior.
My mind has frozen. Did Lady Clarisse not receive my most recent letter? I told her the East Wind’s ax had been destroyed in the tournament. Is it possible the message was never delivered? Or that she didn’t care to read it?
Lady Clarisse waves in the distance. “Hello, Min,” she calls. “And you’ve brought company!”
“What is going on here?” Eurus demands. “Why does she stand with Prince Balior? Why do they approach as though prepared to do battle?”
I stare at him, wide-eyed, unable to speak.
“Tell me!” he roars.
But my words do not come. For woven through every rigid muscle of his face, there is understanding, just as there is heartbreak.
His eyes shutter, and he takes a step back. “You called them here,” he says, “to capture me.”
“No!” I choke out. “N-no, I mean, I told Lady Clarisse that I would be returning today, yes, b-but I did not th-think…” Each word is a stone rolling downhill, tumbling into the next, a great jumble of uselessness. “I s-sent her a note—”
“A note?” The scarring on his face contorts, rippling over bone. “What note?”
I feel close to vomiting, or passing out, or both.
What have I done? Something unforgivable.
“After you took m-me from St. Laurent,” I begin in a tremulous voice, “I found a way to send messages to Lady Clarisse. I wanted to return home. I was trying to r-reach her in hopes that she would s-s-save me.”
But I realize how utterly stupid that was. Lady Clarisse was never coming to save me. Why should she reward disobedience with a rescue? Why should she care? She doesn’t.
The East Wind continues to stare daggers at me. “That still doesn’t explain why she is here, with Prince Balior and his army.”
“No, you’re… you’re right.” I take a breath. “We made a deal. She p-promised to sell the estate to me if—”
“By the gods,” he mutters, scrubbing at his face. “You mean this entire time I was falling for you, you were planning to deliver me to that witch?”
I press a shaking hand to my queasy stomach. I’m going to be sick.
“You spoke of belonging,” he continues, eyes full of hurt, “and I was beginning to believe you might be right. That maybe we did belong together.” He shakes his head in disgust. “I’m such a fool.”
“No,” I whisper, reaching for him. “That’s n-not it—”
“You’re a liar, Min. Like everyone else.” He brushes my hand aside.
“If you would just listen to me—”
“Listen to you?” He straightens to his full height, and I flinch away from him.
“It’s clear that everything you’ve told me, everything you’ve done, has been to draw me back here so that woman could recapture me.
So no, I will not listen to you. I’ve already heard enough.
” He strides off toward the road, his wings half-extended.
I scurry after him as the soldiers march steadily nearer, a wreath of darkness coiling between Prince Balior’s hands.
“Eurus, you’re going the w-w-wrong way.”
“No. It’s time I end this. Time to kill the witch, once and for all.” His eyes cut to mine, and he sneers. “So sorry to ruin your grand plans.”
“I didn’t mean for this to h-happen!” I cry.
“You were corresponding with her the whole time!”
I open my mouth, snap it closed. “At first, yes. But after the second trial, I began to question wh-what I was doing. I grew to care for you. I told myself that I wouldn’t h-help her anymore.
That I wouldn’t betray you. But then I overheard you telling Demi I meant nothing to you, and I w-was hurt and angry, so I sent Lady Clarisse a message, informing her of when you would bring me h-h-home. ”
A wretched sob overtakes me, but I force out the rest. “Wh-when you told me why you said those things to Demi, I realized my error, and as soon as we returned to the p-p-palace after the tournament, I sent another note to her ladyship, claiming that your ax had been destroyed—”
“My ax?” It is frightening how the whites around his eyes thin, how the pupils enlarge, like two blots of ink. “What does she want with my ax?”
Perhaps he already knows. Perhaps nothing matters, in the end. “Immortality,” I whisper. “She intends to use your heart’s blood to create a potion of immortality. But to d-do that, she would have to k-k-k—” I falter.
“Kill me?” he asks with lethal quiet.
I can’t speak. I have already said too much.
“All this time, you’ve been plotting my death,” he spits, peering down his nose at me.
“No! That’s not it—”
“You betrayed me,” he growls, the words eaten by all the rage and hurt I myself have felt. “And that cannot be undone.”
He shoves past me up the garden path. Bolting after him, I scream, “What did you expect me to do? When we first met, you treated me like a prisoner, a servant. I did not owe you a thing! And even after I fell for you, you made it obvious that it could never w-work between us. You told me yourself that once you r-return to the City of Gods, you are barred from living in the mortal realms. When you are gone, this estate, this town, will be all that I have left!”
“You could have come to me!” he roars, whirling around, his winds snapping outward from the motion.
“You could have trusted me enough to inform me of these things. You think I don’t understand the lengths someone will go to in order to return home?
I was willing to die in this stupid tournament so that the council would reverse my sentence. ”
“I could have trusted you?” I gape at him.
“The god who stole me from my h-home and used me to enact his revenge? Who forced me into a bargain in order to earn my freedom?” I glare at this giant of a god in bewilderment.
He has completely lost his mind. “My only option was to keep my head d-down and focus on helping you win the tournament, because you never would have let me go otherwise. You wanted me as a tool,” I whisper, pained, “but you didn’t want me. ”
“That’s not true, bird.” A quiet admission. “I was going to ask you if you wanted me to stay with you at the estate. I was going to suggest that we could build a home together, if you chose. If you wanted that.”
My heart. “I do want that—”
“Then why would you do this?” Eurus crowds my space. I drink him in, wishing I were not so weak. “Why go to such lengths to hurt me?”
The world melds into hot streaks of color. Lady Clarisse, Prince Balior, and the soldiers are so much closer now. “You need to leave. They will capture you—”
“I don’t give a damn about that,” he snarls. “Tell me why you chose that witch, who has never showed you an ounce of kindness, over me. She’s nothing to you—”
“No,” I grind out. “She’s my mother.”