When I turn my head, I find our mouths less than a hairsbreadth apart.
I lick my lips. The line moves forward, but the South Wind makes no effort to retreat. Neither do I. My attention drops to his mouth, its full lower lip, before flitting elsewhere. “Well?” I clear my throat. “Are we going?”
Notus steps away, eyes unreadable. Only when he has faced forward again do I release the breath I hold.
We reach the front of the line swiftly. After spinning a tale of visiting relatives in the city, the guards wave Notus and me through, completely unaware that Ammara’s princess is in their midst. Truth be told, I prefer the anonymity. It is a freedom I do not often experience, to wander the earth unacknowledged.
The main thoroughfare, which runs parallel to the cliffs, is hectic at this hour. Due to the lack of space available on the perimeter, a few artisans have set up shop in the middle of the street, much to the frustration of Mirash’s denizens. At one point, movement comes to a standstill as a farmer herds his cows across the road.
Continuing down the crowded lane, I can’t help but notice the interest Notus piques. Mainly women, even those who are married, opal runes inked upon their left hands. I glare with all the ire I possess until the interlopers slink away.
Notus coughs into his fist, though it sounds more like a laugh.
“What?” I snap.
“Nothing.” But his mouth ticks up at one corner.
“They should keep their eyes to themselves,” I sniff. Notus and I are, after all, engaged. It’s perfectly acceptable to stake a claim on the immortal I am to wed, charade or not.
“Careful,” he murmurs, “or I might begin to think you’re jealous.”
“Then I’m playing my part well, because that is exactly what an engaged woman would feel when strangers ogle her betrothed.”
As usual, Notus moves through crowds with an ease I fail to replicate. Always, he is searching, awareness of his surroundings touching upon smaller details I might overlook.
“You’ve been here before?” I ask him, nudging aside an elderly fellow lodged in the current of the market.
“Not in years.” Notus leads me down a crooked alleyway squeezed between two stone structures with flat rooftops. I follow closely on his heels. “If you recall,” he says over his shoulder, “I asked you to accompany me once.”
He had. At the time, I didn’t trust him, this unknowable god whose power was something I could not comprehend, though I could not stop my eyes from seeking the South Wind out at every opportunity. “I remember.”
“You turned me down.”
I press my arm against my nose as we maneuver around a pile of refuse, home to a thousand buzzing flies. It reeks of decomposed animal parts. “To tell you the truth,” I say, “I thought you were only asking me out of service to Father.”
“It was never out of service.”
“I know that now.” With the refuse behind us, I drop my arm, breathe in the cleaner air. Ahead, a spot of brightness signals the end of the alleyway. “I stopped by the stables that morning,” I confess.
Halting, Notus turns to face me, his expression creased in confusion. A droplet of sweat wends down the side of his neck. I fight the maddening urge to lick it clean. “When?”
And so descends the urge to flee, fast and far, for as long as my legs might carry me. Yet paired with this impulse is the desire to bereassured and held close. If I were bolder, I might press the pad of my finger along the crease edging the South Wind’s mouth. I image how the touch would burn. “Just after dawn.”
“I looked for you,” he says, searching my gaze in the gloom between the buildings. “I didn’t see you.”
“According to the gatekeeper, I missed you by a handful of minutes.”
Notus appears deeply conflicted to learn this. Would it have made a difference if he had known? “I thought you didn’t want to travel with me,” he says. “If I had known you would show, I would never have left.”
I had recently turned nineteen. I didn’t understand why this worldly immortal would ask me to accompany him on a trip to a nearby city, though at the time, I wanted desperately to be worthy of his attention. With the competition fast approaching, I couldn’t afford to take time off with practicing, but I hadn’t cared.
“You would have,” I say, unable to temper my bitterness.
“Why do you say that?” He sounds more curious than anything else.
“You had no loyalty toward me. You probably thought I was an annoyance more than anything else.”
Notus looks positively perplexed. “That’s not how I felt about you—at all.”
