Chapter 32
A CHILL WIND WHIPS PAST me as I fall, and I fall, and I fall.
The jagged rocks rise up, the dark sea seething below. A wave reaches for me. It curls, collapses into white foam. All this time, it has awaited my return, and yet, fear cannot touch me. I have come far. I have fought and risen and broken the chains that bound me. If this is where I end, so be it.
Something wraps my upper arm, and the abrupt cessation of downward motion nearly wrenches my shoulder from its socket.
An agonized scream peals out of me. Amidst the gusting storm, I swing wildly, rain pelting my face and bare arms. Somehow, I manage to tilt back my head. My throat locks tight around a gasp. “Eurus?”
The East Wind pitches sideways, and a great bellow of pain leaves him.
His wings. The right one is most definitely broken. The left has been stripped down to gray skin, its scales torn away.
A crash of thunder sets my ears to ringing. “We need to land!” I cry, pointing to an overhang below.
A powerful gust blows us toward the cliff face, but Eurus manages to guide us safely onto the ledge. As soon as we touch down, he collapses with a muffled curse.
“Eurus.” Crawling to his side, I kneel, taking his face into my palms. “I’m here.”
His eyes soften. He looks at me as though I am a light, a brightness in the encroaching dim. “Min.” Wrapping one arm around me, the East Wind crushes me to his chest. “Thank the gods.”
I bury myself in his warmth, and gradually, my trembling subsides. We are alive. We have each other, each an anchor in this storm. “I thought you would be furious with me,” I whisper.
When I try to pull away, he tightens his grip, as if he cannot bear our parting.
“I was. But then I saw you fight your own mother in a bid to save me, and I realized how blind I had been. I know you, bird. I know you’re sorry, that you have regret.
I should not have been surprised that you were acting against me in the beginning.
I treated you horribly. I’m sorry I was not able to see past my hurt. ”
His apology heals some jagged-edged wound in me. “It’s all right,” I whisper.
“How did you get here?” he asks, voice low in my ear. “Did Boreas use one of the doors from his realm?”
I have no idea what he’s talking about. “We did what most people do when forced to cross the sea: we took a boat.”
“You… took a boat?”
“With your brothers, yes.”
Eurus pulls back, hands on my shoulders. He peers into my rain-streaked face, searching. “You sailed across the sea,” he reiterates. “Voluntarily.”
“I had no choice.”
“Of course you h—”
“No,” I repeat, with enough force to halt his dispute. “I didn’t.”
Whatever he sees in my expression sobers him. It is another moment before he speaks. “Why?”
Does he truly not know? I thought I had been transparent with my feelings, but fear is a fickle thing, and I cannot deny my part in hurting this god I love most.
“Because,” I say, “you mean more to me than I believed was possible. Because you are wounded, as I am. Because you are healing, as I am. Because I feel belonging with you.” And security and tenderness, desire and esteem.
“Because you push me to face difficult truths, even when the change is painful, necessary.” And oh, is it necessary.
But that is not the whole of it. Not even close.
“Because I lo—” My throat spasms, and I catch my breath, push forward into the unknown. “Because I love you.
His eyes are deep, they are bright, they are fathoms, newborn stars. The emotion breaking across his features threatens to be my undoing. Is this the first that he has heard these words?
The East Wind is not taciturn as I had long believed.
He is wary, he is guarded, he is mistrustful, but there is a gentleness, too, in his affections, once those walls have been brought low.
In the silence following my confession, I witness the collapse of whatever shields remain, all that stone reduced to dust.
He says but one word. “Bird.”
I bite my lower lip, tears cutting tracks through the chill rain. “When I said that I loved you,” I quaver, “it wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t manipulation. It is how I truly feel. I see you, Eurus, more than I have ever seen another and…”
I collapse against his chest with a back-breaking sob. “I’m sorry.” They are not enough, these words. They cannot reverse the ache I have caused. But I don’t know how else to repair the damage I have wrought. “I am so, so sorry for hurting you, betraying you. I was so afraid and—”
“Shh.” He rubs the back of my head, the tips of his fingers making small, soothing circles against my scalp. “It’s all right, bird. You’re safe. Nothing else matters.”
“It’s not all right,” I weep. “I betrayed you. I broke your trust. I hurt you.” And in hurting him, I hurt myself. “All because of some pitiful attempt to please a woman who has never shown even an ounce of kindness toward me?” I cry harder. It sounds so pathetic when voiced aloud.
But the East Wind gathers me close, as close as two bodies will allow without sharing skin. “I forgive you, Min. I do. And I’m sorry,” he suddenly says, “about your mother.”
I shake my head. “That woman wasn’t my mother. My mother died the day she tried to drown me.” No, Nan was more of a mother than Lady Clarisse ever was.
Pulling back, I gaze at Eurus with all the love I possess. Here is a battle-scarred warrior, a tortured soul, a god whose single-minded vengeance has driven him for centuries. But I see none of this now, only a softness in the planes of his face as he considers me.
We do not speak, only lean forward, mouths seeking as our lips soften into pliancy. One kiss becomes two, becomes three, each one venturing continually deeper, sweeter, hungrier.
In the end, I pull away first. “Your brothers,” I whisper. “They came all this way to help you.”
Eurus is not amused. “They will get themselves killed,” he grinds out, then considers his response. “Well, maybe not Notus. Or Boreas. Zephyrus, definitely.”
I am inclined to agree with him. “They may be mortal, but they love you and wish to see Prince Balior gone.” Our eyes lock and hold, his uncertain in light of my statement. “You are the only one strong enough to destroy him.”
Through the salt and grime and blood blighting his face, the East Wind grimaces. “Prince Balior’s strength is greater than I believed was possible. I fear my powers may not be enough.”
“What will happen if you are unable to defeat Prince Balior?”
“I expect he will continue to amass power until he has taken over the mortal realms. Then, I imagine he will set his sights on the City of Gods.”
It is not meant to scare me, but to offer clarity. When all is smoke and shade, what remains? The understanding that inaction is a choice. I cannot afford to stand idly by. “How can I help?”
“You can help by keeping your distance. I don’t want anything to happen to you. I want you safe, understand?” When I do not reply, he shakes my arms. “Bird.”
“Yes, I understand.” Though I am not willing to remain in the background as I was months ago. Perhaps there is something I could do. I may not be able to fight, but I do know poisons.
Mentally, I flick through the pages of The Practice of Herbal Remedies.
Before I can properly identify a solution, the East Wind shoves himself upright. Another gust nearly knocks him over, but I grab his arm, steadying him. Slowly, his wings expand. I hear a soft pop, like a bone slipping out of place. Eurus winces.
“Are you fit to fly?” I ask.
“It’s not far.”
That does not exactly answer my question.
He gathers me into his arms. “Hold on tight.”
Looping my arms around his neck, I settle against his chest as he launches toward the top of the cliff where his brothers battle Prince Balior. We alight on the grass near the manor. It is still—too still.
I gasp. Boreas, Zephyrus, and Notus are shadow-bound, piled in a heap. The South Wind isn’t moving. Boreas struggles feebly, and the Bringer of Spring stares blankly as black oozes across his face, blotting out his eyes, seeping down into his mouth.
“He’s suffocating them!” I cry.
Eurus is already halfway across the terrain, releasing a great, bellowing roar that sets the air to trembling. His ax appears in one hand, and he hurls it toward the ground with ruthless force.
Air erupts to blast Prince Balior off his feet. Before he goes over the cliff, a massive pair of shadow hands pluck him from the air and deposit him safely onto solid ground.
The prince gifts Eurus a thin, closed-mouth smile. Blood stains the front of his garment where the dagger impaled him, but he does not appear woozy from blood loss, or even weakened from the injury.
“Your battle technique is efficient, though crude.” He retaliates with an explosion of his own.
Eurus ducks, an arm raised over his head to create a full-body shield, a hardened barrier of air that deflects the attack.
And so it goes. A mortal man possessing powers divine. A deity who commands the eastern storms. Eurus reaches out a hand, dragging the tempest nearer to him. Clouds split and collide. A bolt of lightning tears down his arm, the sky flooded white.
As I squint against the brilliance, a large stone drops from the sky, thudding into a pool of muck only steps away.
I stare at it in perplexity before peering over my shoulder. Did the storm somehow blow a boulder from the beach onto the cliff?
Prince Balior leaps, one, two, three spheres punched toward the East Wind’s face. Heartbeats later, a second rock slams into the ground, a stone’s throw from their skirmish. Except… My gaze thins against the thickening rain. That’s no rock. That looks like…
A startled laugh hiccups through me, and I look to the towering stone edifice in disbelief. A gap in the wall reveals where two stones have been pried loose. I suppose this is the manor’s island, too. It is her home, and one always protects one’s home.
Another rock peels away from the manor’s walls. It arrows toward the prince’s back, missing him by inches. The next projectile clips his shoulder. He spins, snarling, only to find an empty stretch of grass.
It is the distraction I need. As Eurus engages the prince in another round of vicious cuts, I dart toward his brothers, who lie smothered in shadow. When I attempt to drag the substance away from their motionless bodies, it suddenly flinches.
I frown. Nothing has touched the encasing darkness that I am aware of. When the next gust of sea air skates over the grass, however, the shadow again recoils.
Salt—a common ingredient that protects against dark sorcery.
I’m up, racing toward the manor, shouting, “I need salt!”
A bowl appears on the threshold of the doorway. I snatch it up, sprint back to the brothers’ sides. Grabbing a fistful of the white crystals, I toss the salt over the piling shadow.
As soon as it makes contact, the darkness recoils with a piercing scream, gradually melting away until the brothers have shed that consuming gloom.
I shake the nearest sibling. “Boreas!”
He startles, fist snapping out. I narrowly avoid a broken nose. He glances around, wild-eyed, before his piercing blue gaze locks onto me. “What happened?”
“Prince Balior trapped you with his power,” I say. “Eurus is battling him now, but…” The East Wind dives to avoid being impaled by a shadow spear. He hits the ground, broken wings crushed beneath him.
The West Wind blinks blearily as he sits up. “Mother? You know I hate when it rains indoors.”
Eurus and Prince Balior lock blades, one a bend of tarnished silver, the other a sheet of deepest night. Hail pelts harder, a sting against my skin. I shield my face, watching with mounting horror as the prince draws Eurus toward the ledge.
“He’s going to throw Eurus over the cliff!” I cry.
Boreas attempts to stand. Notus groans and rolls onto his side, a hand to his temple. Zephyrus glances around in confusion.
I can’t wait for them. Neither can Eurus.
I sprint toward the East Wind with all the strength I possess.
Another clap of thunder shakes my bones as shadow explodes outward from Prince Balior and shifts into the configuration of a massive bull.
I push my legs harder, throat scraped raw from a scream dragged up from the very depths of my soul.
The bull lowers its head. Eurus attempts to take flight, but he is only able to lift himself a foot off the ground before the pain of his broken wings forces him down.
Seconds before the bull bashes him over the ledge, the East Wind tosses out a noose, which slithers under the prince’s guard and wraps tight around his neck. The bull dissipates.
Eurus murmurs beneath his breath, one hand outstretched. Bits of shadow ooze from Prince Balior’s eyes and nose. Despite his thrashing, he is unable to tear free, unable to block Eurus’ wind-carved arrow from impaling his heart straight through.
Prince Balior gasps, body folding forward.
With cold regard, the East Wind sends his winds through the now-gaping hole, stuffing air beneath the man’s skin.
The prince’s shriek is so piercing it draws the hair straight up along my body.
And as Eurus’ power funnels into his black-hearted foe, the ax begins to disintegrate in his hands.
The sight sobers me. If Eurus is to defeat Prince Balior, it will require all of his power—power drawn from his ax; power siphoned from the storm that protects his island; power unearthed from his blood, bones, and internal organs.
Legs braced, he shoves his palms against each other, his expression carved from alabaster as the entirety of the storm shifts direction, swelling like a great tumor atop the island of rock.
In his eyes, I see the will. I see the acceptance, the resolve.
And slowly, slowly the walls of the storm begin to sink inward.
The winds lash with greater intensity. They do not wish to be directed, confined. But Eurus is their master. He crushes their dispute with his remaining strength and, with a final roar, funnels those last remnants into Prince Balior.
The man tosses back his head, mouth open in a soundless scream. His skin begins to dissolve, sloughing off his bones like ash. With a final word of power, the air ignites, tossing me backward with concussive force. My head slams against the ground, and the world goes dark.