“I meant the wounds.” He pokes the underside of one wrist. A clear substance oozes from the opening. “I don’t understand how I’m awake. I should be unconscious.”
“You know this from experience?”
The West Wind peers into the fire, tugging on his beard in a preoccupied manner. It has clearly been weeks since he shaved. “Twice before,” he says, “I attempted to escape the cleansing ritual prior to its completion. I did not get far before I blacked out.” He frowns and turns to me. “There remains the question of how I’m here, conscious, and—if I’m not mistaken—quite far from Pierus’ lair.”
“I had help from a friend.” Better to keep Lissi’s identity a secret. The less Zephyrus knows, the less Pierus can use against me. And I owe Lissi a great debt. She even surprised me a few hours ago by dropping off clean clothes for my charge, in addition to a pair of boots in his size. Then she’d left.For good this time,the sprite had said.
His hand twitches atop his thigh. I recognize the motion for what it is: the desire to grasp a weapon. “I thought better of you, Brielle.”
“Excuse me?”
A low growl of frustration darkens his response. “You have everything you could ever want. A home. A purpose and a place. You obtained Meirlach,” he says. “You’re an acolyte.”
“I’m not an acolyte,” I mumble.
He stares, green eyes blank beneath his mess of curls. “Yes, you are.” He gestures to the scarlet cloak concealing his nakedness.
“It’s not mine.” My voice softens further. “It’s Harper’s.”
Slowly, Zephyrus shakes his head. “I’m not following. You bested the Stallion. You acquired Meirlach. The title was yours to claim.”
“Harper delivered Meirlach to Mother Mabel, not I.”
There are words, and then there are the spaces between words—that which has not been said. The only way Harper could have delivered Meirlach to the abbess was if I gave up the sword. Zephyrus knows this. “Why?”
“I have my reasons.” I jab the stick into the logs. The tip catches, and I shove it into the ground, cool, moist clay extinguishing the flame in a curl of smoke.
“You’ve worked toward the position for ten years, yet when the time came to claim it, you gave the opportunity to someone else. Tell me why.”
Leather creaks as my gloved fingers curl inward. Rancorous, spiteful, cold-blooded, my ire possesses many faces, not just one. “I did what I thought was right at the time. I would have rather given the position to Harper, who held no uncertainty about claiming it, rather than take it for myself when I had begun to question my faith.” Even though it broke me to do so.
A muscle pulses in his jaw, its slow tic mirroring my agitated heartbeat. “You were free, Brielle.Free.Yet you returned to Under, placing yourself in unnecessary danger, and for what? To save the skin of a disgraced god?” The words prod, a knife to the spine. “It was foolish.”
“Saving your life was foolish?” Of all the boneheaded things to say. “Athank-youwould be more appreciative.”
His expression shutters, closed and cold. “You are wasting your time.”
“You’re an ass.” I chuck the stick into the fire, and sparks flare like dying stars against the overhang. “Do you know what I went through to get here tonight? The emotional turmoil I’ve experienced?” If he did not look so pathetic lying there, I daresay I would leap over the fire and bash his head into the rock. “But maybe you’re right and this has been a complete waste of time. Should I have left you to Pierus’ cruel ministrations? Perhaps you wouldn’t be in this situation had you not deceived me. I—” My throat closes. “I thought you cared for me,” I whisper. Strong in conviction I have been, but not strong enough.
“Brielle.” He lets out a long, weary breath. “I do care. I promise you, I do.”
“Not enough to put someone else’s needs before your own.”
He clenches his jaw, fights to neutralize his features. “All right,” he says. “Maybe I deserved that.”
“That is the least of what you deserve.” My voice roughens with rising emotion, the desire, like a frenzy, to tip back my head and howl, sound shattering up my throat. “You—” I must say it. “You are the cause of my misfortune.”
His hand drops. “I’mthe cause of your misfortune?”
“Spring, ten years earlier. You do not remember?” How easily my fingers curl, driving deep into the flesh of my thighs. “Think back, Zephyrus. Remember the story I told you. Remember the storm that destroyed Veraness, my home. Remember that my mother will never return.”
Fire—chaos and light—is all that separates us. “Veraness.” He frowns at the hands clenched in his lap. “I have not heard that name in a long time.” Then he looks up. “Veraness was your home?”
I’m shaking. Had the Orchid King not gifted me Mother Mabel’s journal, I would never have known the part Zephyrus played in my abandonment. And yet, I am here. I’ve sacrificed much to save him. I fear my own motivations despite the hurt harbored in my heart. “Do you deny responsibility of its demise?”
He appears dazed. “I tried to sever the bond that day.” His recollection rolls forth with slow contemplation. “I used all my strength. There was… much destruction.”
His attempt at escape left thousands dead, my home unsalvageable. Three days later, my mother was gone. It was then that I learned love was temporary.
