His eyes soften. He looks at me as though I am a light, a brightness in the encroaching dim. “Min.” Wrapping one arm around me, the East Wind crushes me to his chest. “Thank the gods.”
I bury myself in his warmth, and gradually, my trembling subsides. We are alive. We have each other, each an anchor in this storm. “I thought you would be furious with me,” I whisper.
When I try to pull away, he tightens his grip, as if he cannot bear our parting. “I was. But then I saw you fight your own mother in a bid to save me, and I realized how blind I had been. I know you, bird. I know you’re sorry, that you have regret. I should not have been surprised that you were acting against me in the beginning. I treated you horribly. I’m sorry I was not able to see past my hurt.”
His apology heals some jagged-edged wound in me. “It’s all right,” I whisper.
“How did you get here?” he asks, voice low in my ear. “Did Boreas use one of the doors from his realm?”
I have no idea what he’s talking about. “We did what most people do when forced to cross the sea: we took a boat.”
“You… took a boat?”
“With your brothers, yes.”
Eurus pulls back, hands on my shoulders. He peers into my rain-streaked face, searching. “You sailed across the sea,” he reiterates. “Voluntarily.”
“I had no choice.”
“Of course you h—”
“No,” I repeat, with enough force to halt his dispute. “I didn’t.”
Whatever he sees in my expression sobers him. It is another moment before he speaks. “Why?”
Does he truly not know? I thought I had been transparent with my feelings, but fear is a fickle thing, and I cannot deny my part in hurting this god I love most.
“Because,” I say, “you mean more to me than I believed was possible. Because you are wounded, as I am. Because you are healing,as I am. Because I feel belonging with you.” And security and tenderness, desire and esteem. “Because you push me to face difficult truths, even when the change is painful, necessary.” And oh, is it necessary. But that is not the whole of it. Not even close. “Because I lo—” My throat spasms, and I catch my breath, push forward into the unknown. “Because I love you.
His eyes are deep, they are bright, they are fathoms, newborn stars. The emotion breaking across his features threatens to be my undoing. Is this the first that he has heard these words?
The East Wind is not taciturn as I had long believed. He is wary, he is guarded, he is mistrustful, but there is a gentleness, too, in his affections, once those walls have been brought low. In the silence following my confession, I witness the collapse of whatever shields remain, all that stone reduced to dust.
He says but one word. “Bird.”
I bite my lower lip, tears cutting tracks through the chill rain. “When I said that I loved you,” I quaver, “it wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t manipulation. It is how I truly feel. Iseeyou, Eurus, more than I have ever seen another and…”
I collapse against his chest with a back-breaking sob. “I’m sorry.” They are not enough, these words. They cannot reverse the ache I have caused. But I don’t know how else to repair the damage I have wrought. “I am so, so sorry for hurting you, betraying you. I was so afraid and—”
“Shh.” He rubs the back of my head, the tips of his fingers making small, soothing circles against my scalp. “It’s all right, bird. You’re safe. Nothing else matters.”
“It’s not all right,” I weep. “I betrayed you. I broke your trust. Ihurtyou.” And in hurting him, I hurt myself. “All because of some pitiful attempt to please a woman who has never shown even an ounce of kindness toward me?” I cry harder. It sounds so pathetic when voiced aloud.
But the East Wind gathers me close, as close as two bodies will allow without sharing skin. “I forgive you, Min. I do. And I’m sorry,” he suddenly says, “about your mother.”
I shake my head. “That woman wasn’t my mother. My mother died the day she tried to drown me.” No, Nan was more of a mother than Lady Clarisse ever was.
Pulling back, I gaze at Eurus with all the love I possess. Here is a battle-scarred warrior, a tortured soul, a god whose single-minded vengeance has driven him for centuries. But I see none of this now, only a softness in the planes of his face as he considers me.
We do not speak, only lean forward, mouths seeking as our lips soften into pliancy. One kiss becomes two, becomes three, each one venturing continually deeper, sweeter, hungrier.
In the end, I pull away first. “Your brothers,” I whisper. “They came all this way to help you.”
Eurus is not amused. “They will get themselves killed,” he grinds out, then considers his response. “Well, maybe not Notus. Or Boreas. Zephyrus, definitely.”
I am inclined to agree with him. “They may be mortal, but they love you and wish to see Prince Balior gone.” Our eyes lock and hold, his uncertain in light of my statement. “You are the only one strong enough to destroy him.”
Through the salt and grime and blood blighting his face, the East Wind grimaces. “Prince Balior’s strength is greater than I believed was possible. I fear my powers may not be enough.”
