“You seem melancholy, sweet.” She presses her nose to my shoulder and inhales. “What is your name?”
The answer materializes fully formed in my mouth. I only need to let it unfurl.
What was it Zephyrus told me? Does it even matter?
“Lissi?” A hulking creature with ram horns curling from its skull pushes through the throng. Its chest is round as a barrel, agleam with sweat. Upon catching sight of me, its eyes narrow. “Who is this?”
“Don’t even think about it,” the sprite snaps. “I found her first.”
The horned beast takes me in suspiciously. “A mortal. But the tithe is still two months away.” Its voice is so deeply resonant I feel its reverberation down to the soles of my feet.
“I’m looking for Zephyrus,” I say.
“Zephyrus?” The sprite wrinkles her nose. “You’d be better off without him. He is not one to trust.”
Neither are they. “Why is he untrustworthy?”
The sprite—Lissi—takes a delicate sip, then proceeds to chomp through the glass with satisfaction. I watch, in horror and fascination, as a black, worm-like tongue slithers out to lick the blood from her lips. “Oh, sweet! Haven’t you wondered why one of the Anemoi has found himself bound to Under?”
“The Anemoi?” I do not understand.
“Leave it, Lissi.” The ram-horned creature slaps its meaty hand upon her shoulder. I’m surprised her knees don’t buckle. “The girl is the abbess’ property. Do not meddle.”
What a strange thing to say. I am no one’s property.
Lissi scowls. “Hush, Balfer. A little information never hurt anyone.” She angles toward me. “You have heard the tales, haven’t you?”
As a matter of fact, I have not. There is no mention of this strange word in the Text.
“The Anemoi,” she says, “are four brothers who were banished to this world millennia ago. You might have heard them called the Four Winds? Zephyrus is known as the West Wind.”
The Four Winds. Why does that sound familiar? “Why were these men banished?”
“Not men, sweet.Gods.”
Zephyrus, a god? Of all the absurd claims I have heard, this tops it. “You must be mistaken.”
“But I am not. You know him as Zephyrus. We know him as the Messenger, or the Bringer of Spring.”
“That’s enough, Lissi. Let the girl be.” He grasps the child’s slim arm. “This is between her abbess and our king. We do not want to be caught in the middle of it.”
The sprite hesitates. Fear is an emotion I know most intimately. I sense it in the taut line of her back. Eventually, however, she nods. “Very well. Luck to you, sweet. Try not to wander too far.”
Turning on her heel, the sprite saunters off with her burly companion, leaving me with so many questions my head begins to pound.
Zephyrus is a god. From another realm.
If he is not from Under, where does he hail from? Lissi mentioned that he is bound to this world. As punishment, or as a precaution?
I’m so lost in thought I pay little attention to my wanderings. I’ve returned to the woods. The strands of blue lights brush my shoulders, and a strange sound intrudes, giving me pause. Movement in my periphery draws my eye.
Beneath the draping branches there sits an ornate, four-poster bed swathed in a panoply of blankets. Atop the bed, two figures lie intertwined.
The woman is bare: dark skin, silver hair, voluptuous curves. She lies spread over the white blankets, chest heaving. Her nipples peak—large areolas, rosy tips. She turns her face toward me, eyes pinched shut.
A man, equally bare, kneels between her parted thighs. His wheaten skin ripples across a muscled back, and beneath his round, soft stomach hangs his erection, a flushed protrusion that juts from a coarse thatch of brown hair. Two short antlers sprout from a head of tight sable curls.
From this angle, I watch a serpentine tongue slither from his mouth. As soon as the forked end skims the wet glisten of her flesh, her hips drive upward, a hoarse cry cracking the air.
