There is that, yes. Notus is doing everything in his power to help me, but even gods have their limits. “I understand,” I tell him, “and I’m sorry. Take a moment if you need it. Let me know when you’re ready to return.”
But Notus asks, “Are you sure it’s your father’s health that calls you back to the capital, or is it something else I’m unaware of?”
“What?” I gape at him. “Didn’t you read the note?”
He scowls. “I did, but there’s more at stake than you’re telling me. The sooner you lay everything out on the table, the sooner we can return to Ishmah.”
Red douses my vision. If I was not certain Notus would disarm me, I would snatch his scimitar and fling it against the nearest palm. “My father is dying, Notus!”
“You want my cooperation? Then I need answers.” Fire brightens his ebon eyes. “Let’s start with the curse.”
Something fractures inside me, this many-faced image of myself. A roar of noise overwhelms me. Is it the wind, which has begun to lash with increasing ferocity, or my own thundering heart? I can’t leave Mirash without the South Wind’s cooperation. Neither can I stop myself from crumbling. I can only delay my inevitable collapse.
“I was born a sickly child.” I speak low and quickly. “According to the physician, I was not going to survive the night. Father went to Mount Syr to beg the Lord of the Mountain for my life. At first, Father believed him to be merciful. My life was saved, and I grew into a healthy baby.
“But that same year, drought decimated the realm, and the majority of the crops failed.” I move to stand at the bow. The blue, cloudless sky, and beneath, the bronzed earth. “Father suspected something was amiss. He returned to Mount Syr to question the Lord of the Mountain, who revealed parts of the bargain he did not originally disclose.” In my periphery, I watch Notus straighten, his attention fixed on my profile. “In exchange for my life, he claimed Ammara’s nourishing rains for himself.” Sweat trickles along my hairline. I dab it with the sleeve of my cloak. “That is my curse, my burden,” I say. “The suffering I have placed upon my people.”
For a time, the South Wind regards me, his face wiped clean of emotion. “That’s all?”
While I don’t want to deceive him, I see no other option. With so few days remaining, it seems pointless to inform him of my impending death. Perhaps it’s time to accept the hand I’ve been dealt. I do not want him to mourn me. “Yes.”
A particularly harsh gust snatches at my dress. Notus is trying his best to appear unaffected, but as time goes on, I see his cracks, just as I see mine.
“You understand how terrible this is,” I press. “If the rains do not return, my people will perish. The last of our crops will fail completely. Our army will weaken. Ammara will be left defenseless.” Any conqueror might waltz through Ishmah’s gates and lay claim to the realm without ever lifting a weapon. There will be none to stand against them, or the darkwalkers.
He lifts a hand to his eyes, shielding himself from this truth that shines brightest of all. Then it drops, fingers balled into a fist. “How long have you known this?” When I do not respond, he growls, “How long?”
“Always.” The word burns like a lit match in my throat. “I have always known. Father forbade me to speak of it.”
He shakes his head, jaw clenched as he stares at the wood grain beneath his feet. “I didn’t know.” The words are spoken so softly, I initially believe I imagined them. “King Halim requested my return to help fight the darkwalkers, but I didn’t realize a greater threat loomed.” Then he frowns. “Why do you believe there to be a connection between the curse and the labyrinth?”
This, at least, is no falsehood. “The symbol on the labyrinth door is the symbol of the Lord of the Mountain.”
His frown deepens, and the quiet stretches. “Have you warned your people of what’s to come?”
Guilt descends with punishing ferocity. “No.” Father and I fought over this. I wished to tell them. They deserved to know the drought was borne from dark forces. But King Halim wanted to keep the information private, between family. A curse threatening Ammara’s livelihood? There could be not even an inkling of weakness or doubt toward his reign.
Yet I think of Haneen, the storyteller. I think of Roshar, my dearest friend, and Ibramin, teacher and father. I even think of Tuleen, whose friendship has only begun to blossom.
“I think you should tell them,” Notus says.
That poisoned core in me, that festering resentment, lashes out. “Why do you even care?”
His head snaps up. “Have you considered that Ammara is not just your home, but mine, too?”
“That’s not true.”
“Who are you to say what is true?” The fury with which he speaks sends me backward a step. A strong gust whips at my hair and rattles the scraggly date palms shivering at our backs, long shadows cast across the arid ground. “It was my home, once,” he growls. “And I was a fool to hope it might one day be again.”
It spears me with the swiftness of an arrow to the chest. It is deep, this emotion, old as earth and weathered by much strife. “I don’t understand,” I force out. “You never showed that you cared for it before.”
“Didn’t I?” He stares at me until I drop my eyes. “I fought to protect your people. I adopted your customs. I paid respect to your gods.”
He did. I suppose I never considered the ways onemadea home. I’d always assumed it was something you were born into.
“When I was banished,” he explains, “I had no home. And maybe I wanted to believe I was deserving of one—deserving of you.”
My heartbeat stutters. “Me?” I whisper.
