My vision has adjusted well enough that I can make out a broad shadow taking shape across the room. Relief weakens my knees. If I didn’t have the wall to support my back, I would absolutely liquify into a puddle. A cyclone sprints through the space as Notus unsheathes his sword and steps into a beam of moonlight. His eyes are blackest fire. His face is a thundercloud. This deity, who will topple cities, exterminate armies, send realms into ruination. He is the South Wind—he who commands the summer winds. Tonight, blood will be spilled.
He hacks low with his sword, and a thin blade of air slices across the room. The darkwalker dodges out of range, scaling one of the shelving units. When it reaches the top, it launches toward Notus, who blasts it sideways with another forceful gust. The darkwalker crashes into the wall. Dust clouds the air. The South Wind then catches the debris in another funnel of wind, using it to force the creature in between two narrow shelves. Even from this distance, I feel the wind’s dry heat.
He swings his sword. Misses. The darkwalker swipes at Notus, who neatly sidesteps, stabbing it in the hindleg. I shrink back as a roar blasts from its mouth. His power isn’t enough. The only means of killing a darkwalker are with salt, a strike to the heart, or decapitation. The darkwalker seems to know this and tries to keep its distance.
It retaliates with another vicious swipe, three long claws gouging his upper thigh. I bite my lip in worry. But that, I realize, is the South Wind’s intention. To place himself in a position of vulnerability, to feed the darkwalker’s bloodlust, to ensure it is so overcome by the desire to drag Notus’ soul from his body that it forgets itself.
It tears at his arms, shoulders, and back. Blood soaks the fabric of his robe. The South Wind neither falters nor slows. He takes the beating as the beast draws itself into a frenzy. The reek of blood is overpowering.
He cannot die, I remind myself. But he can be severely wounded, maimed. When the darkwalker next strikes, Notus maneuvers it into a corner, using his winds to bind the beast’s legs. It snarls, gnashing its fangs as he steps closer, scimitar raised. “Return to the shadows where you belong, beast.” His sword descends. It gleams bright silver: a falling star.
Steel punctures the creature’s skull, parting it as easily as water. Then Notus severs head from body. The darkwalker collapses in a heap of reeking flesh. Until, at last: silence.
My breath remains locked away inside my chest as the South Wind lifts a hand to his face. If I’m not mistaken, it quavers. “Sarai?” Slowly, he turns, scanning the collapsed shelves. Moonlight brightens the layers of dust, crystallizing it into new-fallen snow. He stalks toward the destruction, chest heaving. “Sarai!”
Taking a breath, I step out from behind the door. “I’m here.”
Notus spins toward me. Fear has ravaged his features so severely that it has done the impossible. It has aged him.
I’m shaking so hard my knees buckle. Notus catches me with a muttered oath, drags me against his chest, and bands his arms around me so tightly I feel as if he is an extension of myself. Our hearts beat in sync: melody and countermelody. Gradually, the warmth of his body thaws my stiff, frozen limbs.
“Sarai.” His frame trembles. And yet, sheltered in his arms, I have never experienced such security. “Are you hurt?”
I shake my head, face pressed against his sweaty chest. I can’t speak.
The South Wind lowers his nose into my hair. He is sturdy. He neither bends nor breaks. My fingers clamp on fistfuls of his robe. I do not let go.
“How did you know I was here?” I ask.
“Some of the guards are loyal to me. One overheard you asking about access to the restricted documents yesterday. I assumed you would return. The sentries posted outside the library informed me once you’d entered. I heard your scream…” He falters, his tone vulnerable enough to communicate all that he feels, even if he cannot bring himself to speak those words aloud. It makes me bleed. I hate that it makes me bleed. “Tell me what happened.”
So I do. I tell him of Prince Balior’s research, the symbol that graces both his book and the labyrinth entrance. I inform him of the abandoned corridor and its locked doors. I speak of what I learned: the story of how the beast came to be.
For a time, Notus is quiet. “Where are those documents now?”
“I dropped them,” I say. “This is the only book I was able to grab.” Pulling away, I offer it to him. Plain gray cover, perhaps fifty pages thick.
The South Wind touches the slim volume with a frown. “If those books can help us unravel the mystery of the labyrinth, then I will return for them.”
“No!” My hand clamps his forearm. “You can’t go back there.”
His features have been pressed by rigidity for as long as I’ve known him, yet now they soften with a rare, tempered amusement. “You do know that I am immortal, right?”
“And what of your wounds?” I gesture to the blood clotting the front of his robe. “You can bleed. You can feel pain. Why should you risk certain injury for something we are not sure will help?”
Our eyes lock. The unexpected drop in my stomach precedes the drop of my hand. And now I have said too much.
“Please,” I whisper. “Not tonight. Wait until morning, if you must.” In the brightness of day, it is unlikely a darkwalker will venture into the sun, though as time goes on, it seems less of a deterrent for reasons unknown. The only question remaining is how this creature slipped into the palace. Was it sent? Did it somehow find its way into the capital? How suspicious that I found it in the palace library, of all places. Could it have possibly come from one of those locked doors?
“How much does Prince Balior know about the labyrinth?” Notus abruptly asks.
“I’m not sure.” I search his gaze for answers. I find none. “He hasn’t told me much.”
Again, a silence, stretching longer than it did previously. “What?” I ask. Something has captured his thoughts. I wish to know what has the power to do so.
The South Wind rubs at his jaw, as if massaging away the tension there. He seems reluctant to speak. “Have you considered whether the prince’s motives are entirely unselfish?”
I narrow my eyes in suspicion. “What do you mean?”
