He’s up, shoving me aside as the beast appears through the undergrowth. As soon as it sights Eurus, it goes still. Its sallow eyes boil with a wrath that goes beyond simple misunderstanding. It has been exiled, imprisoned, disgraced. A twig snaps beneath its heavy hoof.
Eurus sends a blast of air at the beast. The tendrils shift into thick bands of rope that wrap its bony legs and snout, but sweat pours down Eurus’ face from the effort. How long will his power last before it is depleted?
The East Wind is so focused on the bull he does not notice a slim, dark figure emerging from the thicket, staff raised.
“No!”
I ram Arin from behind. His weapon flies from his hand as we hit the ground.
I’m crawling toward it when Arin grabs my ankle, yanking me backward with a muffled curse. Before he’s able to grasp the staff, I throw myself onto his back, wrap my arms around his neck. His head snaps back. Agony explodes through my forehead, and I fall to the ground, half-blind with pain.
The East Wind emits an ear-shattering roar. There is a sickening thud somewhere to my right.
My eyes crack open. The world blurs, then settles into place. Arin is crumpled at the base of a tree. Meanwhile, the bull has been contained in a spiraling mass of winds.
Curling his hand around Arin’s throat, Eurus lifts the smaller immortal, slams him back into the trunk of the tree, his face so close their noses brush. Even weakened, the East Wind is no mere deity. He towers. He looms.
“You touch Min,” he snarls, “you die.” A wind-carved blade appears in hand and cuts toward Arin’s neck.
“Wait!”
The wind-sword halts a hair’s breadth from the smaller deity’s throat.
Eurus says, his expression whittled to the finest rage, “He tried to kill you, bird.”
My arms shake as I push myself upright. “I know,” I whisper. But when I arrived at the City of Gods, I had not one ally. I was a mortal, a stranger in this realm. And Arin… he was kind to me. It is something I have rarely experienced, that kindness.
“He will kill you if I let him go,” Eurus growls as Arin’s struggles lessen. “Do you want to live or die, bird? Choose.”
My teeth sink into the soft flesh of my cheek. I promised myself I would never treat others as Lady Clarisse treated me. It is not for me to decide that my life is better than, more deserving. But today’s decision impacts the morrow’s rise. Something folds in me. “I don’t want to die,” I whisper.
He strikes. By the time I process what has occurred, Arin lies dead, his throat cut.
Shock enfolds me, and I turn away. A scarlet pool slinks across the forest floor, outlining my bare feet in red. As if from a great distance, a low bell tolls.
In the end, only one can walk through the door of the final trial. And yet, I cannot help but mourn Arin.
An explosive howl disturbs the birds from their roosts. The beast, who has been thrashing against the East Wind’s bindings, pushes forcefully against the substance. With a last cry of rage, the creature tears through its bindings, charging straight toward the East Wind.
“Run, Min!”
Into the forest’s depth I plunge.Away, away, away.But—Eurus.
I lurch to a halt, peering through the shadows shivering between the clustered trees. As the East Wind hits the ground, the beast stabs downward with a splintered branch torn from a tree. Its points tear through the membrane of Eurus’ wings. He releases an agonized yelp.
“Eurus!” I begin fighting my way back through the bracken, thorns be damned.
Wrenching himself free, the East Wind blasts the beast into a tree with his waning power. Briefly, his eyes meet mine, and in their depths, I see every fragment of his past colliding, a tempestuous meeting ofthenandnow. “Go! I’ll be right behind you.”
“But—”
“I promise. Nowgo.”
I do as the East Wind says. I go, and I do not stop until my legs threaten to buckle. As I weave through a great mound of roots, however, pain rips through my shoulder. I hit the ground with a shriek and spot a gash in my flesh where an arrow clipped me.
From the shadows, there emerges a blaze of reddish light. My lungs seize. Milk white skin and hair like flame, and a black whip, gleaming.
“Eurus’ mortal.” The Fate’s weapon slithers through the grass at her feet like a dutiful companion. She halts, looming over me with a sharp-toothed grin. “We meet again.”
