“In my possession, yes.”
It seems a shame to waste the drink on someone who will not savor it. “Here.” I offer it back to him.
He straightens from his languishing, abruptly suspicious. “You do not want it?”
“No.” Not after learning that it cannot be replenished, this reminder of his home.
The West Wind moves as though afraid he will frighten a rabbit back into its burrow. He reaches toward me. Warm, clever fingers curl around mine. However briefly, we cradle the curved crystal in togetherness.
An enthusiastic screech from the distant festivities shatters my paralysis, and I relinquish my hold on the drink, watching his throat work as he swallows the last dregs.
Zephyrus sets aside the glass with unusual care. Gone is his previous amusement. “To answer your earlier question, I drink because the nectar helps dull the pain.”
I am drawn to this version of him, this grave immortal who has seen the world. My attention is his to manipulate, his to bend. “What pain?”
“The pain of life. What else?”
There is a certain ambiguity to the response, which tempts me into questioning him further. Zephyrus has never given me so much in so few words. “Life isn’t just pain,” I tell him quietly, although much of my life has been marked by it.
“How young you are. How little you know.” Before I can defend myself, he says, “Imagine this: A god, beloved and adored by all. A hero, in some regard. Yet one mistake was enough to tear down the legacy he’d built, leaving his name forever tainted. Coward, they called him. Murderer.”
My eyes widen.Murderer?
“That is my pain,” he murmurs. “I am the West Wind no longer. Now I am simply Zephyrus: outcast, prisoner.” His head hangs. “You deny the pain of life? That is very naive of you.”
“You aren’t listening,” I snap. “Of course we experience pain in our lives. That is the nature of our world. But if you find your life to beonlypain,onlysuffering, then I question the manner in which you live.” I point to his hand. “You continue to gift your blood to this place. Why? Why must you harm yourself for the Orchid King? Will you spend an eternity suffering for his benefit?”
“You must understand. It is the price I must pay.”
“Forwhat?” That is the question that remains unanswered, that plagues me during my sleeping and waking hours, that I have brought forth into the light for careful study, yet still I lack an explanation. “Why are you bound to the Orchid King?”
Murderer.
“It occurred long ago. I’ve accepted my situation will not change.” When his eyes lift to mine, they shine with clarity. All traces of the nectar’s enchantment have vanished. “I am not like you. My beliefs are full of holes. The water pours through.”
It hurts me to see those with little faith—in anything, really.
“But you do believe in something,” I press. “Right?”
One of his hands slides on top of mine, pressing it into the grass. I stare at the place where we touch, and my toes curl inside my boots. Despite my gloves acting as a barrier, his wide palm imprints heat into my skin.
“You ask what I believe?” His lashes dip, gold fringed in the dying light. “I believe there is more to you than I first assumed. I believe you have many shades, not just one.”
“That’s not—” I falter, unsure of how I feel about his admission. It warms me even as it frightens me. “That’s not what I meant. Belief in a higher power. Faith in the good forces of the world.”
“Why can’t I believe in things that move me? Are you not a good force in this world? Do you not spread kindness and compassion wherever you go?”
I’m helpless to stop the blush reddening my skin. I didn’t realize Zephyrus viewed me in such a favorable light.
“You,” he says, “are a bright, willful woman who understands the sacrifice true dedication requires. It takes strength of character to extend compassion to so many, even those who don’t deserve it.”
Bright. A word gifted to things touched by illumination: knowledge, a star. I had not believed Zephyrus capable of seeing deeper than one’s skin, of hearing anything aside from his own laughing voice.
“We are all deserving of compassion,” I say.
“Are we?” And then the despair manifests, fully formed to dull his eyes. “I have questioned myself more in your company than I have in the last thousand years.”
“Is that so bad a thing?”
