“I’m sorry you suffered that alone,” I reply, catching his fingers in mine. “Did your brothers know that you did not share a father?”
Tentatively, he allows his hand to relax against my palm. His wings stir and resettle. “I never told them, but I would not be surprised if Notus knew. Of all my brothers, he alone would be keen enough to make the connection.”
“Might it be worth broaching the s-subject with him?”
“No.” He shakes his head. “I have done enough damage already.” Noting my confusion, he elaborates, “That mortal everyone’s been talking about—Prince Balior? It is in part my fault that he has gained this dark power.”
“Wait.Yourfault?”
He gathers himself before saying, “Long ago, I imprisoned the beast—the creature he travels with—in a labyrinth built in Ammara’s capital city. At some point, Prince Balior must have entered the labyrinth, promising to free it in exchange for siphoning some of its power. I did not think the beast would escape, nor did I particularly care.”
“Why did you imprison it?”
His lips twist in some cruel imitation of a smile. “The beast was an abomination, the bastard progeny of a woman and a bull. It did not belong in the City of Gods. Or maybeIthought I did not belong, with my hideous mutation. I looked at that beast, and I saw myself.”
“Eurus,” I whisper.
“Look, what’s done is done. I should not have imprisoned the monster, but it escaped regardless, and together with Prince Balior, it destroyed Ammara’s capital—Notus’ home.”
Which was already suffering from drought, if I recall correctly. “But if you were in Marles, who was watching over the beast?”
Before he can respond, the door to the tavern rams open, and in stumbles a large group of blue-skinned gods and goddesses, their brows wreathed in laurel leaves.
“The mortal king of Ammara was willing to do anything to save the life of his newborn daughter, who was born frail. In exchange for Ammara’s rains and the king’s promise that he would maintain the labyrinth, I used some of the beast’s dark power to borrow twenty-five years of life for the infant girl—but it was a cursed existence.”
It is a slow thing, this emergent horror. I can only listen as he goes on, the depths of his selfishness and malevolence brought into sharp relief beneath the low lighting of the tavern.
“I thought I had washed my hands of it.” As Eurus speaks, he looks elsewhere: the front door, the crowded bar, the couples dancing before the ensemble. Anywhere but at my face. “But years later, I learned the king’s daughter had grown, and Notus had fallen in love with her.”
“The child you cursed grew up to be your brother’slover?” I whisper in dismay.
A muscle tics in his jaw, and he traces his scarred cheek, chin to temple and back. “She wasn’t his lover at the time. Then, she was only an infant. I didn’t care about the consequences when I made my bargain with the king. I took Ammara’s rains,” he says in a tone I now recognize as remorse, “because I needed more power to fuel the storm surrounding the manor.”
“To keep others out,” I clarify.
“Yes.” It is quiet, this word. Quiet and defeated. “I believed I offered nothing good—to anyone. Not to family, and certainly not to the world. So when my brothers and I were banished, I did everyone a favor, and I flew to a place I knew none would go, and it was there I built my life on the rock in the middle of the sea.”
The clink of glasses fills the silence that swells to swarm us both. What do you say when the person you have grown to care for reveals mistakes from their past? Choices that have led to grave peril? The destruction of others’ lives?
“What you did,” I whisper to the East Wind, “was wrong.”
He flinches, the fingers of one hand curling into a fist. “I know.”
“But I understand.”
He loosens a breath, and his other hand envelops mine, squeezing so tightly my bones creak. In times of drowning, we seek the rock, the pillar, the ledge. Tonight, I will be that rock for him.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said before, about the drought,” Eurus murmurs. “You’re right. My actions have consequences.”
It is what I’d hoped for him. “What will you do?”
The toe of his boot nudges my ankle. Even that brief contact coaxes my pulse higher. “I know what must be done, but… I don’t know if I’m ready. The storm is my protection. Yes, people are suffering, but—” He releases a self-conscious laugh. “Is it stupid that it makes me feel safe?”
“No,” I whisper. “It’s not stupid at all.”
“A part of me wonders if giving up the rains will leave me open to attack. I’m not saying no,” he adds hurriedly, perhaps sensing my apprehension. “I’m saying I need more time to decide.”
It is more than I ever expected from the god who once spoke of others’ suffering as though it were of no more significance than an unexpected drizzle.
