I nod at that. Shelter, provide, defend. This, too, I understand. “Is this to be your life then? Trapped in this cycle of blame and guilt, never to find reprieve?” Quieter, I ask, “Can’t a god earn forgiveness, even a banished one?”
I’m not sure how long we stare at one another, but I feel like I’m falling. Or I’ve been falling, and my only wish is to continue this drop to discover what awaits me at its end.
The North Wind asks, “Am I worthy of such a thing?”
“I don’t know,” I counter. “Are you?”
“No.” He speaks with the conviction of one who has asked himself this question before. “I am not.”
My heart breaks for him. How can he think so little of himself? How can I think so little of myself? “And what if I think you are?” I challenge. “What then?”
The king takes a strand of my hair, then tucks it behind my ear, the tips of his fingers brushing its sensitive shell. His touch shifts to the curve of my jaw, and he hesitates. But he continues up to my cheek, and coasts along my scarring, and I fight the need to bow my head beneath the caress, a wave of gooseflesh pebbling my skin.
“You are,” he says, “not what I expected.”
And now we tread untrodden ground. A road whose path is full of ruts. I stare down the stretch before me, wondering if a broken ankle would be worth it. “You wanted to show me something?” I remind him.
Boreas nods, steps back. A little twist in my stomach but… it’s for the best.
He leads me to a gold-wrought door at the end of the hall, sunlight pouring through the panes of glass from within. He turns the knob. “Welcome,” he says, “to the City of Gods.”
31
GOLD AND LIGHT AND MARBLE. Open courtyards and filigreed molding. Fountains and the musk of pressed olives. Climbing wisteria and summer on the breeze.
Boreas and I stand in the middle of a plaza marked by an incredibly elaborate fountain. Gauzy curtains flap from open windows of teetering, multi-storied buildings. Plant-filled alcoves pocket the space between the balconies from which hang cloth dyed the white of snow and the blue of the deepest sea. Damp spray from the fountain sends prisms of colored light fluttering across the ground, which is fashioned from pure, hammered gold. The air feels strange. There is a presence here I cannot name.
Sensing Boreas’ gaze on me, I say in wonder, “This is where you grew up.”
He surveys our view for a time. “Technically, I grew up outside the city limits.” He points to a building far beyond the rooftops, nestled among the mountains surrounding the valley. “But my family would visit the city on occasion. It is here the deities of the world make their homes.”
Boreas as a child. I’m imagining him splashing in the fountains or playing marbles in the streets. It’s an oddly comforting thought. “Do you miss it?”
“It has been many years since I’ve returned.” He begins unbuttoning his coat. Indeed, it is far warmer here. I quickly follow his exampleand lay my coat alongside his on an empty bench. “It is hard to miss a place where you are no longer welcome.”
I fall into step beside him as we turn onto another street constructed of uneven white stones. A handful of gods and goddesses pass us by. They don’t notice our presence. “Can anyone see us?”
“No.” It is a word coated in bitterness, vile and acerbic. “My name—as well as my brothers’—was struck from the books following our banishment. Our ties to home were severed. Should a deity look upon my face, their gaze will slide over it without recognition. This was our punishment, granted by the Council of Gods. As for you, a mortal, you are so far beneath them your physical presence doesn’t register.”
It is reassuring, though the gods seem vain and pretentious.
Boreas gestures me down an avenue lined with market stands and wheeled carts. I move through it eagerly. It’s a pleasure to sift through the bustle of life in this new place. The divine move about from stall to table to wagon to investigate wares: wooden buckets of the sweetest, ripest apricots; bushels of freshly picked flowers; furniture; marble sculptures of nude men and women—“The divine are notoriously narcissistic,” Boreas mutters—caged birds; various textiles; leather sandals; tomes and scrolls.
One of the stalls catches my eye near the end of the road. The vendor sells wine—bottles of it. At the moment, he’s deep in conversation with a goddess wearing a long, flowing dress, an owl perched on her shoulder.
Though none of the patrons notice our presence, the owl turns its head, peering at me unblinkingly over its folded wings. The vendor’s yellow hair glints where it curls over his naked shoulders. He laughs with abandon, and the sound pours out as he offers a cup of wine to the goddess. Even with the distance, I swear I catch its floral scent. My stomach twists in longing.
“That would be the Vintner,” Boreas mutters darkly. “If he’s not participating in some debauched revelry, he’s sticking his cock in a willing body. Drunken fool.”
I turn away from the unintentional sting of his insult. I have found myself in that very same position more times than I can count. I shouldn’t care. I shouldn’t give a damn about what he thinks of me—
The king stops me with a hand on my arm. Gently, he tugs me to face him. Every line imprinted in his flawless countenance reveals a severity I haven’t seen in many days now. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I wasn’t saying that about you.”
“But it applies to me.” My cheeks burn hot.
He steps closer, lowering his voice. His scent and his heat and his skin and his breath envelop me too easily. “I will have to be more careful with my words in the future. I’m used to speaking without thought for others.” A little furrow crinkles the smooth curve of his forehead. “For what it’s worth, I consider you neither a drunk nor a fool. It takes much courage to purge the vices from one’s life. I admire your commitment to recovery.”
The praise is as unfamiliar as it uncomfortable. I accept it with a murmured, “Thank you.”
