I pause mid-turn. The man stares at me with tears in his eyes, and an answering lump wells in my throat. I do not understand this sadness, this profound grief. “How do you know my name?”
“It doesn’t matter.” The words are choked, frail things. “Here.” Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out a crystal sphere, a perfectly encapsulated dawn. “For those dark nights when you need it.”
As though caught in a trance, I take the orb in hand.
I know this object. I know its contrasting sensations—cool glass, warm heartbeat—and how the curve perfectly fits the well of my palm.I know its unspoiled rosy kiss. I know the chime it makes upon hitting rock, like a nail flicked against a windowpane. I know its reassuring weight in my pocket. And I know that, until this moment, I did not realize I had missed its presence.
My eyes lift to the man standing before me. He is beautiful. The curve of his cheek splays into the sharp, stubbled jaw, then dips to the darker skin of his neck where the sun has baked it. That crinkling gaze and laughing mouth.
“Zephyrus,” I whisper, for it could be no one else.
Tears pour unhindered down his face. “You remember.”
How could I not? For there is our first encounter in Carterhaugh, the West Wind unconscious. His unwanted presence in my bedroom. My visit to Willow. Our kiss in the glen. With every unearthed recollection, heat gathers to a point inside me, and climbs up my throat, and collects behind my eyes. I let it come. There is relief in surrender, relief in knowing that I was not mad, that I have found him. Bringer of Spring.
“I missed you,” Zephyrus whispers.
I fall to my knees.
I’m crying so hard it cuts my breath. My hands lift, shielding my face. Things had gone so horribly wrong. The tithe. How could I have forgotten? That final battle. The Orchid King’s death. And fabled Meirlach, puncturing my chest like a bright, silver star.
The heel of my palm digs into my chest. Fresh anguish courses through me. It is both now and then, here and there. I am a body strewn across the ground. I am a woman bent double, on her knees. I am drenched in blood, and still.
Kneeling at my side, Zephyrus envelops me in his embrace. Even after all this time, he still smells of damp earth, sprigs of clover, honeysuckle. My tears are boundless. For long moments, we do not speak.
“How?” I whisper. “How is this possible? How are you here, alive? My soul rose from my body, and I s-saw the bargain. Your life in exchange for mine.”
“But the bargainwassatisfied,” Zephyrus explains. “The tithe stripped me of my immortality. I am a god no longer.”
Shock hits, bleeding into a well of deep sadness. He could have been free. Now he is mortal, and powerless. “Tell me that’s not true.”
Quietly, he says, “I cannot.”
“Zephyrus—”
“Why, Brielle?” he murmurs. “Why would you sacrifice yourself for me?”
As if he doesn’t know.
“I didn’t have a choice.” A sharp cry cracks against my teeth, and I choke, hot tears blurring his form.
“You did have a choice! The sword was meant for me.”
“No!” I weep harder, folding into deeper blackness. “She would have killed you.” By the Father, I never want to experience that helplessness again.
“Brielle.” Leaning back, Zephyrus captures my hands, brings them to his tear-dampened mouth. “When I saw you step in front of that sword—” He breaks off, and the rough, tearing sounds of his grief shatter something in me.
“I would do it all over again,” I say. “I have no regrets.” Bringer of Spring, who so loved his winds. I squeeze his fingers tighter. “I know what power means to you.”
He appears slightly bemused. I realize I’ve only known Zephyrus as he was: a captive. But here kneels a free man, and I have never seen his shoulders so unburdened. “And what does it mean to me, darling?” he asks.
A warm breeze lifts the fine hairs falling around my face and coaxes Carterhaugh from its doze. Control, freedom—he’d clung to both for all he was worth. “It means everything.”
“Brielle.” Gentle is my name in his mouth. “I was an incredibly powerful immortal. I was agod. And I was alone.”
Fresh emotion rises as a knot in my throat. His wound is my wound, and if I could relieve him of it, I would. I understand, Ido, but—“Better alone than dead.”
“I confess I do not share the sentiment.”
