“Do you deny that I adore your body? That I wish for nothing more than to mark it with my mouth and hands, so that all will know you are mine?”
After how thoroughly he’d worshipped me… I delicately clear my throat. “I do not.”
His eyes crease with gentle amusement. “You cared for me,” he murmurs.
“I did,” I say. “Do.”
He continues to trace my facial features, his expression wonderous, as though he has never seen something so unexpectedly exquisite. “No one has ever cared for me, bird. I grew up believing I was not worthy of love. So when you gave those things freely, it was difficult for me to accept that perhaps you truly did love me, as I had grown to love you.”
Now it is my turn to frame his face in both hands. “I love you too, Eurus. I love all that you are, and all that you are not.”
The East Wind pulls me close, captures my mouth with his own. Our tongues flirt, and he molds the subtle curves of my body beneath my damp clothes. If there were four walls, a bed, a shut door, I would climbonto his lap and allow pleasure to guide us. Never before have I considered a life where I could have a love like this and feel worthy of it.
With a playful nip on his bottom lip, I pull away. “What did the council say? What about returning home? Reversing your banishment?”
He blinks, and his eyes clear. “They agreed to grant me my wish. But if I want to live out my days with you in the mortal realms, then I must become mortal, too.”
Surely he is not suggesting… but he is, I realize. The East Wind—mortal. “But you despise mortals. You think they’re weak—”
“Not all of them,” he corrects me. “Not you.”
“Eurus—”
“Listen to me, bird.” He captures my chin, angling my face down so I’m forced to confront every uncomfortable emotion splayed across his features. “You have taught me more in a handful of months than I have learned in the many millennia of my existence. You are full of courage and resolve. You are steadfast in your morals, unfaltering in your beliefs. You fall, yet always you push ahead, no matter the obstacles in your path.”
There had once been a time when I would deny such claims. But I have weathered much in my relatively young life. I do not disagree with him.
“I have witnessed the gods struggle with simple tasks,” he goes on. “They are given everything: health, riches, influence. Yet at the first sign of adversity, they collapse. But you, bird—” My cheek grows warm beneath his palm. “You are so much more than I expected from a simple bane weaver. You are good. Too good for me, certainly. You have shown me peace when all I have known is suffering. You have provided me refuge when all I have known is threat. And I would be the realm’s biggest fool to let you slip through my fingers.
“I want you, bird. I want everything you’re willing to give me, for as long as you’re willing to give it. For the remainder of my life, and whatever awaits beyond, I will do everything in my power to bring you happiness. You wish for the moon? I will pluck it from the heavens. There will never be a day when you do not know, with complete certainty, that you are safe, and loved.”
The sentiment draws tears to my eyes. I yearned for such things. It was always in vain. “If you are truly mortal, what happened to your power?”
“Gone.” At my confusion, he explains, “I used every last fragment of my power to destroy Prince Balior. A god’s power may be drained, but it can always be revived, so long as a portion is left in reserve. But I used everything I had. There is nothing left. Not even my immortality.”
But his wings… those remain, curiously enough.
“Now that my power is gone,” he continues, “you will be happy to know that my hold over Ammara’s rains is broken. They will have already returned to the earth, where they belong.”
Gladness wells in my chest. Tucking myself against Eurus’ side, I rest my head on his shoulder. “What does being mortal feel like to you?” I ask him.
He rubs my upper arm for a time, deep in thought. “It feels fragile.”
“Lifeisfragile,” I point out.
He acknowledges my argument with a dip of his chin. “I suppose I will grow used to it, in time.”
“You do not regret it?”
“No, bird.” I expect hesitation. There is none. “I regret nothing.”
As for myself? I mourn the god Eurus was, yet I celebrate the possibility of a shared life, something once secreted behind the high walls of immortality. Without his powers, without the divine touch in his blood, is he still the East Wind, or is he merelyEurus? Does it even matter, in the end?
As it turns out, it matters not one bit.
“Does this mean you’ll stay?” I ask in tentative hope.
The edge of his laughter catches. I dearly wish to hear more of it. “Did I not confess the depths of my heart to you?” He gathers me closer, so that not even a square of parchment could slip between. “Yes, bird. I wish to stay with you. If you’ll have me.”
