He nods, expression pinched. “You’re right. It wasn’t fair to make that decision for you. I should have known better.”
“What exactly did he say to you?” Even if Fahim had demanded that Notus leave, I would still expect a goodbye. They had gotten along well, Notus and Fahim, at least—I assume—until my brother discovered my relationship with the South Wind.
This immortal, this god, studies his hands, which rest in his lap. Strong brown fingers marred by white scars. He balls them into fists. “You were preparing for a competition at the time,” he murmurs. “Fahim told me it was your last year of eligibility. You were to age out the following spring. If you did not win,” he says, lifting his eyes to mine, “you would likely lose your only opportunity to see the world.”
There was truth to his words. The King Idris Violin Competition, founded by Ammara’s first sovereign, attracted hundreds of elite violinists from lands near and far. The winner was granted the opportunity to tour with orchestras beyond Ammara, beyond even Um Salim, to those realms in the north and west and east. One such realm, Marles, boasted the world-renowned St. Laurent Symphony. Performing with them was something I had dreamed of since I was a young girl.
Notus goes on with an urgency that implores I listen. “Fahim opened up to me. He told me how painful it was to have sacrificed music for duty to the crown. Itdestroyedhim, Sarai, and I… I couldn’t live with myself if I was the reason you lost your dream.”
I shake my head in disbelief. I hear him, but… “You could have talked to me about it. We would have figured something out.”
“Your brother had a point. It was unfair to string you along when it was unlikely I would stick around. Ammara wasn’t my home, no matter that I wished it were. A clean break was best for everyone.”
“Best for everyone,” I counter, “or best for Fahim?”
Notus opens his mouth, pauses, then closes it. A sweet breeze rustles the nearby laurel trees. “I know it was unfair,” he says, “but I’d hoped the letter I wrote would explain everything.”
My focus suddenly sharpens. “What letter?”
“The letter I asked Fahim to give you.”
Silence, broken only by the burbling fountain. “Notus,” I say. “I never received a letter.”
His expression twists into confusion, and I expel a pained breath. This message, another secret Fahim hoarded. I remember the anguish of Notus’ departure, how it ate me alive, these questions that had no answers. I remember elusive sleep, my days squandered. I lost years of my life in months. An entire summer, gone.
“If I’d received the letter,” I whisper, “maybe it would have helped me move on. But… it was unfair for you to leave without saying goodbye.”
“Sarai, Ineverwished to go, never wished to leave you.” His expression is made of layers: regret and misery, shame and remorse. He takes my hand. I haven’t the strength to pull away. “You must understand. I was a stranger in a strange land. As a princess, you are expected to marry for influence and power. I could not offer you anything resembling security. Yes, I am a god, but I have no ties to your culture, your people, your realm. And… people talked. Some of the things they said were not kind. I thought it best to remove myself from the situation entirely.”
“Since when do you care what others say about you?” My voice is hoarse, each word a shard of glass in my throat.
“I don’t.” He meets my gaze squarely, with challenge. “But I care what they say aboutyou.”
It is just like him to think of me in place of himself. It makes it difficult to be truly angry with him. “You don’t know what it was like after you left.” A low keen wells in my throat. Five years of anguish, heartache, regret. “I failed to compete that year. I couldn’t even make it past my bedroom door. You were gone, and then Fahim died—”
“I’d heard. There was an accident—”
“It was no accident.”
Notus has fallen quiet. “What are you talking about?”
Gods, he will make me say it. “Fahim wasn’t killed in a hunting accident,” I choke, though that is the story my family disclosed. Fahim Al-Khatib, diamond-bright, fell from his horse, and broke his neck. An honorable way to die. “He hanged himself.”
The South Wind is so still it is difficult to separate him from the shadows at his back. His dark eyes are pearled, sheened by a shattering heartbreak. “Sarai,” he breathes.
A coarse moan of despair deflates me, and I hunch lower onto the bench, hands shielding my face as Notus gathers me into his arms. I do not fight it. In truth, I am far from this place, this shadowed greenery.
“Two weeks after you left,” I whisper, “Fahim didn’t come down for breakfast.” To this day, the smell of fuul—beans with lemon and salt—makes my stomach turn. “This was unusual. Most mornings, he was first to the table.”
There we sat: Amir, Father, and I. Four chairs placed at a table large enough to seat sixteen. Every so often, one of the king’s advisors entered the dining room to deliver a message. At the time, Father was in negotiations with Um Salim about a possible marriage contract—my marriage to Prince Balior.
I wish the memory stopped there. But one cannot stop a flood in motion. Softly, I continue.
“After breakfast, I went to Fahim’s bedroom to check on him. He’d mentioned not feeling well the previous week.” Fool that I was, I’d believed it to be an illness, not some poison rooted in his heart and mind, a darkness that was his alone. “I found him swinging from the ceiling rafters,” I push out, “a noose around his neck.”
Notus stares at me, horror having petrified his features. “Sarai.”
And just like that, I break.
