The South Wind gazes at me with an openness I have wished for in those hours before dawn. This powerful immortal, this undying god, is many things. Vulnerable, he is not. “Home is not a place, Sarai. Not for me.”
“I’m not your home,” I say, voice quavering. “I can’t be.”
I did not realize a brightness touched his eyes until it winks out, like a star extinguished. “Then we have nothing left to say to each other.”
Notus climbs aboard to take his place at the rudder. I settle against the bow, stomach curdling with something resembling shame. I don’t know whether to scream or cry, plead or fall mute.
In silence, we depart, launching across the dunes. I stare at my arrow bracelet, trace its delicate leaden curve as the winds strengthen, jostling the boat. Neither the heat nor the glare of midday can touch me. I imagine it is a cool, dark room I retreat into, drapes drawn, doorbarred. If I wrap myself in blankets thick enough, perhaps reality cannot touch me either.
Here is what Notus doesn’t understand. I once lived a life where I loved and lost two people I held dear. So I told myself I would live a life where I had no future. I would live a life where I would love no one, because if I didn’t love anyone, I wouldn’t lose anyone.
So that’s what I did. I closed my heart. I turned my back onI wishandI want. I belonged only to Ammara, not to the world, which owed me nothing. Maybe Notus does—did—see a home with me, as I saw a home with him.
As our vessel cuts through the great sandy valleys, the wind pitches into an eerie keen. My head snaps around. At Notus’ back, a great red mass gathers, stretching seam to seam across the sky.
“Red storm!” I scream.
The South Wind grits his teeth, fighting to remain on course. The wind is so powerful it yanks the sails taut with a loud snap. The sailer rattles. The air is deafening. Notus attempts to guide us into a trough between two dunes but is forced to redirect as the whirling cloud overtakes us and the sun goes dark.
We veer wildly, unable to maintain our course. When I glance up, I notice the sails have been shredded, the thousand grains of sand having sliced the canvas to strips. “Notus!” I point to the sails.
He nods with grim-faced resolve. “Grab the rudder!”
The stern slides out, pitching me into the mast. My shoulder makes impact, and I bite back a pained cry, yet manage to hook one arm around the post long enough for Notus to yank me against his chest and position my hands on the rudder. “Got it,” I say.
While he struggles to patch the holes in the sails, I use my weight to hold the rudder steady. It sounds as though the sky is shattering overhead. The most vicious of red storms can stretch for up to fifty miles. Our only hope is to claw free of it before we’re dashed to pieces, or worse—buried alive.
As we lean hard into a turn, another gale wrenches me sideways. I slam against the crates. One of the ropes snaps. Two boxes go flying,a third exploding against the hull. Wooden fragments pelt my face, and my stomach heaves as I’m flipped over, dragged backward over the vessel’s edge.
Something solid pins my shoulder against the sailer. My legs hang over the railing, toes skimming the surface of the sand. Through the hazed debris obscuring his face, Notus’ eyes burn into mine with unmistakable fear. He hauls me back into the sailer and directs me to the mast.
“Grab hold,” he growls.
Once I’ve anchored myself, he returns to the rudder. The air is so choked with particles I can’t see even a foot in front of me.
A burst of speed propels us toward the dune’s summit. As we fling ourselves off its crest, arrowing through debris, another battering gust snaps the vessel around. We spin. My hold on the mast breaks, and I’m falling. “Notus!”
The last thing I see is the South Wind’s eyes. Then he, too, is swallowed up.
21
MY SHOULDER SLAMS INTO THEground, pain rupturing at the joint. The squall steals my cry. It drives daggers into my eyes, wrenches the fabric of my dress with sharp hands of greed. Down, down it hammers, shoving me deeper into the sand, the dense cloud of particles razing my skin. In seconds, I am buried.
My thoughts white out. Staggering upright, I fight to maintain balance against the vicious gales. A step forward, and my knees fold. Sand piles atop my body with frightening speed as the earth demands flesh.
I shake my head, grip fistfuls of sand in an attempt to stabilize myself.Focus!I need to reach higher ground. Caught in the valleys between the dunes, the sand will accumulate, and I will be unable to climb free. A heave, an arduous push, and I am once again standing. I slog headlong in some nameless direction, unable to see, or hear, or speak, until eventually, the ground begins to ascend.
Eyes slitted against the debris, I search for a broad shape among the red-gray slew. Notus should be somewhere nearby. I couldn’t have fallen far. But there is nothing.
“Notus!” I scream. Yet the wind snatches that, too.
Again, I shout his name. The storm’s roar bleeds so thoroughly across the landscape it would take a miracle if he could hear me.
“Sarai?”
The bellow is faint, but it is the anchor I have desperately been searching for. “Notus!”
“Where… you?”
