I spin around desperately. “I’m here!” Still no sign of him. I stumble in the direction of his voice, sinking knee-deep into sand. “I can’t see you.”
Hunched against the brutal winds, I continue to trudge through the sand that sucks at my shins and licks stinging tongues at my face and neck.
Sarai.
I halt, a hand lifted to shield my eyes. The air churns and churns. Now the voice is coming frombehindme—I think. A glance over my shoulder. The cloud parts momentarily. There, a dark form manifests on the fringe of my vision: the South Wind.
You’re going the wrong way.
“Well it would help if you kept calling for me so I knew where you were!” I cry back.
This way, Sarai.
I lurch forward, arms swinging to maintain my balance. It feels as if I make no progress toward the blurred figure, which, curiously enough, seems to stand taller than the South Wind, but the air shifts so rapidly I can’t trust my vision. “I’m here!” A mirage? An illusion?
Hurry. You don’t have much time.
You’d think the South Wind wouldhelpme, instead of hovering just beyond reach. He, too, has power over winds. Yet he watches me struggle.
“Sarai!”
My head snaps around. “Notus?” This voice, different now. Rougher, its texture akin to a raw, unpolished stone. I waver in uncertainty, my legs trembling from overexertion. I need to rest, but to rest is to die.
Something slams into my back. I hit the ground face-first, legs crushed beneath a heavy object—a tree or block of wood. The sand heaps too quickly. My thighs, buried. My stomach, buried. It continues to pile higher: breasts, shoulders, neck. Though I scramble to dig myself free, I succeed only in submerging myself deeper.
“Notus!” I cough, spitting out a mouthful of sand. “Notus!”
No reply, just a roar, a quake of energy drilling deep into my ears. My eyes slip shut. Gods help me, I don’t want to die. Not like this. I doubt anyone would ever find my body.
When I open my eyes, however, I gasp. In the distance, the South Wind trudges toward me, shoulder braced against the storm, using his powers to divert the worst of the wind. When his gaze locks onto mine, my heart feels as if it might burst, so overwhelming is the relief. He is the South Wind, and he has returned.
Arms extended, Notus shoves back the flying debris. Eventually, he carves out a small pocket of air to combat the storm’s force. On the other side of the transparent barrier, the squall gnashes its fearsome teeth.
Notus punches his open palm toward me. A current lifts the heavy wooden slab from my body and flings it elsewhere, pain rolling down my legs as the weight vanishes. The second I’m free, he yanks me into his embrace.
“Are you hurt?” His mouth brushes my ear, the low, deep tones thrumming with power.
“No.” I fist a hand into his robe. His body heat seeps through the fabric, into my skin. “I was looking for you, but the storm—”
“I know.” His arms tighten, deliciously hard with muscle. “You’re safe now.”
Gradually, my trembling subsides, the chatter of my teeth tapering off. “Where’s the sailer?”
His fingers splay across the small of my back. “Gone. In pieces.”
My stomach plummets, dragging my heart along with it. That vessel was our only means of reaching Ishmah before nightfall. Before…
I hide my face against his shoulder, a dark pall blanketing my thoughts. This cannot be the end. There are things I must say to Father. So many months of illness when I did not sit with him, eat with him, speak with him, comfort him. What if he leaves this life before our relationship is fully mended?
“We can’t delay.” I am clinging to sanity by frayed threads. “If the sailer is destroyed, then we’ll need to travel by foot.”
“Sarai,” he says. “You know that’s impossible.”
Improbable, maybe. Not impossible. If Notus can maintain the protective dome, we should be able to cross the dunes with relative ease. Water is the greater concern. We’ll have to wait until nightfall and use the constellations as a guide. Even then, I fear too much time will have passed.
Heartbeat after heartbeat, we stand together, wrapped in one another’s arms. It’s the safest I have felt in years. “Look,” I say, “sometimes dire circumstances force difficult decisions. A red storm might pass quickly, or it might squat in place for days. Father doesn’t have days. We can travel through the storm using the dome as a protective measure.”
“It can’t be done,” Notus says.
