South of Surrender (Hearts of the Anemoi)

by Laura Kaye

  Hope flared in Chrys’s chest as the visible strain left Boreas’s face. Chrys turned and sought out Livos, standing behind him on the street. He waved him over. Livos took a knee. “We need cover. All of you, draw in a fog. Thick as you can. And track down my dagger. We can’t lose it.” Livos nodded and left, and Chrys turned back to Boreas.

  “We have to stop meeting this way,” Zeph quipped.

  “Yes.” A great wracking cough seized Boreas. Blood spilled over his lips. “O-wen, son?” He scanned his gaze over the group, his normally silver eyes dulled to a flat gray.

  “I’m here, Boreas. Right here,” Owen grunted, his arms shaking as he poured the cold energy into his father.

  Fog began to roll in around their position, dense and obscuring.

  Boreas’s head lolled toward Owen. “You…are great…father.” He coughed again. More blood trickled from the side of his mouth. “I’m so…proud…you.”

  “Don’t,” Owen bit out. “Don’t you even think of saying good-bye.”

  Boreas dragged his hand up, as if in slow motion, and placed it atop Owen’s. “Have to. My…time’s over,” he slurred.

  Megan pressed a kiss to Boreas’s forehead. “Your time is just beginning. Do you hear? We love you,” she said in a tear-strained voice.

  Boreas managed a small smile. “You’re best…thing ever…happened to him, Meg…”

  Chrys saw what was happening. He’d seen the size of the hole, Boreas’s blood loss, and now his struggle to speak and breathe. The cold energy Owen poured into him, the healing energy Zephyros spread over him—they were mere Band-Aids. Analytically, intellectually, he knew this. But his heart…his heart could not begin to accept the tragedy unfurling before him.

  His beloved brother was dying.

  Chrys whirled on Aeolus, kneeling at Boreas’s feet, pale-faced and eyes filled with horror. “Do something!”

  Aeolus dragged his gaze from Boreas and gave a nearly imperceptible shake of his head. He might as well have shouted, “There is nothing to be done.” Their father turned back to Boreas and rested a hand on his shin. “I grant my permission, and my blessings, to transfer your godhood.”

  “Thank you,” Boreas rasped. At the same time, Chrys, Zeph, Megan, Owen—all of them—issued a collective protest. Owen turned to look at Megan, regret and devastation on his face. Boreas’s gasping coughs quieted the group. “Zeph, please keep your healing going long enough…”

  To keep me alive, Chrys finished in his mind. And the words cut deep into his soul, unleashing a physical pain that raced through his veins until he could hardly stand it. “B, fight it.”

  But Boreas didn’t respond, and Chrys didn’t hold it against him, because it was an impossible request. Great waves of grief slamming his heart into his ribcage, Chrys found Laney’s sad, horrified gaze across the small circle. He wanted to go to her, hold her, shield her from everything painful and unjust and tragic in the world. He wanted her heat and her compassion and her touch to bolster him when he felt he could stand no longer.

  “Owen.” Boreas patted his hands. “Release me.”

  “No.”

  “Owen.”

  “No, Boreas, no.” Tears spilled from his mismatched eyes. “No.”

  With an unseen reserve of power, Boreas pushed Owen’s hands away from the wound. “Closer,” he said. “Lean…over.”

  Owen braced his arms on either side of Boreas’s head and looked down onto his father’s face. The younger god’s back trembled with restrained grief.

  Arms shaking, Boreas pressed one palm to Owen’s heart, and one to his head. He spoke in low, rasping, stuttering words in the ancient language.

  “As m-master of the North…Wind, as guardian of Winter”—he coughed for a long moment, more blood flowing forth—“I command…the great, cl-cleansing winds of the…North t-to bow to the…n-new master now”—he gasped, his breaths making a whistling sound—“now before them. It is not the…vessel of the g-god, but…the wind that m-must be…honored and…protected.” He sucked in a deep rasping breath. “I command the North Wind, with…all of its powers, p-privileges, and…duties, into Owen, son of Boreas,…s-son of Aeolus, and c-commend him as…the next…Supreme God of the North Wind and Guardian of Winter. I have looked into his…heart…and his mind, and he is worthy.”

  Owen’s big shoulders shook. Megan’s sobs rang though the pre-dawn gray, and Laney wrapped her arms around the other woman’s shoulders.

  The North Wind, called by the incantation, swirled in a light breeze, round and round. All about them, snow fell. The wind whipped it into a fragile cocoon around the whole mourning group. Inside, the breeze still circulated, as if waiting.

  Chrys shivered mercilessly, more from the inconsolable grief overflowing his chest than the ravaging cold. It was nearly done.

  “Repeat,” Boreas gasped. He lifted his eyebrows in silent questioning. Owen nodded. Boreas haltingly stated three more lines.

  Owen repeated them in the ancient language, his voice a raw scrape. “I accept the power, the privileges, and the duties of the North Wind. I will be a fair and faithful master and a true and conscientious guardian. From this moment until I am no more.” A single sob escaped him. “I love you, Father.”

  Boreas had just enough time to offer a small, knowing smile. Silvery-white light lifted from Boreas’s body, pushing Owen into an upright position on his knees. The light congregated in a blindingly beautiful orb and shot into Owen’s chest. The North Wind inside the cocoon whipped into ever-tighter circles around the whole length of Owen’s body. All at once, it seized him. Owen’s body went rigid, and then seemed to absorb the swirling wind.

  He collapsed to his side. Zeph just managed to catch him. The thin, snowy walls of the cocoon drifted to the ground.

  “Owen!” Megan wailed, scrabbling around the group to him.

  His eyelids eased open and he slowly pushed himself into a kneeling position. He grasped Boreas’s still hand in his and tugged Megan in tight against his chest.

  Boreas was gone.

  Chrys’s heart railed against the reality, his mind spun and scrambled for a different interpretation, for anything else in the world to be true.

  Hot tears spilling down his cheeks, Chrys laid a hand on Owen’s bent back. Zephyros’s hand joined him, as did Aeolus.

  Movement in his peripheral vision caught Chrys’s attention. All the surviving lesser Anemoi surrounded them, kneeling, heads bowed.

  Chrys dragged his focus back to the group, and his gaze found Laney’s, her face a mask of grief. Hand over her mouth, tears streamed from puffy eyes. That she felt so deeply for his family made him love her even more. How that was possible, since he loved her beyond all reason already, he didn’t know.

  But that only added to the burden of his grief. Because Boreas’s death reinforced every one of his misgivings where Laney was concerned. The danger of pulling a human into his life, his world was too great. The risks were too massive. And Chrys could make room for nothing more in his life right now than the vengeance he needed to exact.

  He wasn’t sure how long they stayed that way, encircled not as gods, but grieving together as a family.

  Aeolus’s head wrenched up. His gaze flashed to the side. Chrys tracked the movement and then heard what had captured his father’s attention. A man’s voice. Shouting. Calling. Calling Laney’s name. The voice bounced off the thick fog, seemingly coming from multiple directions.

  Chrys shoved to his feet. Aeolus followed.

  Laney appeared next to him, her expression totally bewildered. “Seth,” she rasped. “It’s Seth.”

  “What?” Chrys bit out.

  “Last night, with everything, I forgot to tell you,” she whispered. “He threatened to call the police, so I told him…” She stepped forward, clearly searching for the other man in the fog.

  His dark form suddenly appeared, maneuvering through the debris and devastation.

  As he called her name again, Laney stepped further forwar
d. It was clear the minute Seth saw her. He took off at a run toward her. Glaring at Chrys, he pulled her into his arms.

  Laney gasped and stood rigid, as if caught off guard, but after a moment, she returned the embrace.

  “Thank God. Are you okay?”

  The hatred pouring off the human was nearly a physical thing, but Chrys was too numb with grief to feel it. And now, seeing the woman he loved in another man’s arms—it was nearly more than Chrys could take.

  “Jesus, it’s like a war zone. There was this whirling cloud and lightning like I’ve never seen. The police have everything cordoned off for blocks and blocks. But I found a way in. I thought—” Seth shook his head. “What the hell is going on?”

  Right there. Right there was a man who would take care of Laney Summerlyn. If Chrys walked like he should—like he’d said he would—Laney wouldn’t be without someone. Cold desolation filling him up until he could hardly breathe, Chrys turned away.

  Dawn approached. Light enough existed to show the devastation of the neighborhood. Damaged houses, including the still-smoldering ruins of Owen’s, downed trees, smashed cars, the corpses of otherworldly creatures, including some of the inter-ordinal Anemoi, who would turn to dust when sunlight laid upon them.

  “We must go,” Aeolus said in a low voice, as if he didn’t want to disturb the solemnity that still hung over Boreas’s body.

  Slowly, the others all rose. Owen lifted Boreas’s body into his arms. Zeph stepped forward to support Megan, weak with exhaustion and grief.

  Chrys let his gaze drift back to Laney, now standing beside Seth. The man’s expression was part lethal, part bewildered. “Father, the humans must seek shelter with us until we can figure this out,” Chrys said. They had to get their dead back to the Hall of the Winds before sunrise, but no way he was leaving Laney here unprotected. Not with Eurus and Devlin still out there.

  Owen’s gaze cut to Aeolus. His eyes. Still brown and blue, but now the light that flared from them was brighter, lighter, infused with flecks of silver.

  Aeolus looked from Megan to Laney and Seth to Tabitha. “So be it.” He turned to the lesser Anemoi. “Gather the dead. Leave no one behind.”

  “We’re not going anywhere,” Seth said. “I’m taking Laney home.”

  Chrys refused to meet Laney’s eyes. He couldn’t bear to see whether she wanted to go. “Not up for discussion.”

  Seth got right up in his face. “I agree completely. We’re leaving.”

  The man’s eyes. They possessed an odd reflective quality Chrys hadn’t noticed before. Rage washed off Seth and, with it, the same hint of supernatural energy he’d felt before.

  Aeolus shoved the two of them apart and glared down at Seth. He jerked his hand away from the human and stared a long moment. “What are you?”

  Seth frowned, but Lacey stepped between him and the god. “He’s my friend.”

  Aeolus gave the man another long, assessing look, then nodded. “Bring them,” he said to Chrys, then turned away. “Time is short.”

  Laney wrapped her arms tight around herself. For a moment, she looked so lost and alone that Chrys had to go to her, hold her, touch her. He pulled her into his arms. Her fingers fisted into his shirt, as if holding on for dear life.

  He held her for a long minute, and then he tipped her chin up with his fingers. “I am sorry beyond measure that I pulled you into the middle of this.”

  She glanced away, toward Seth, then opened her mouth as if to speak.

  “Please, let me finish,” he said. “We have to get Boreas back to the Realm of the Gods before the sun rises, and I can’t leave you here. Not now.”

  Her eyes went wide. “I can go to the Realm of the Gods?”

  “Normally, it is forbidden. But Father can invite you into his home if he so chooses.” When the Olympians found out humans had been there, there would likely be hell to pay, but really, so much shit was waiting to hit the fan that one more thing wouldn’t make much of a difference. “However, I must make you sleep for this trip.” Human consciousness couldn’t well tolerate the transition between the human and divine dimensions.

  “I trust you, Chrys. Whatever you need, I’ll do.”

  Were his heart not already buried under so much grief, the words would’ve pierced him.

  One hand around her back, he pressed his other to her forehead. A warm, soothing wind poured over her and dragged her under. She went limp, and he caught and lifted her into his arms.

  Seth lunged, but Aeolus blocked his path and forced him into unconsciousness. He hefted the man over his shoulder. “There’s something about this one,” he said.

  Chrys nodded, but now wasn’t the time to figure it out.

  Zeph and Livos repeated the process with Megan and Tabitha.

  In the east, the first slivers of dawn threatened.

  One by one, they shifted into their elemental forms and shot skyward toward a future that no longer made any sense.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Dressed in long ceremonial robes, Chrysander stood at the South point on the giant compass rose inlaid into the floor of Aeolus’s Hall of the Winds. The ceremonial hall was huge and round, with a domed ceiling that gave it the soaring feeling of a temple. Murals telling the stories of the exploits and service of the Anemoi decorated the walls in muted hues.

  At the start of the private installation ceremony, five of the sixteen spots stood open, the corresponding lanterns dark. A sixth spot stood open while the light still burned—Eurus’s cardinal spot in the East. In addition to Boreas and Apheliotes, the gods of the North Wind and Southeast Wind, the compass rose stood empty on its East-Northeast, West-Southwest, and South-Southeast positions.

  They’d lost five good, nay, great men last night. His heart hurt so badly, Chrys still found it nearly impossible to draw in a full breath.

  Aeolus made his way around the circle, first installing three new inter-ordinal Anemoi, all the eldest sons of their deceased fathers. He promoted Phoenicias from god of the East-Southeast Wind to become Apheliotes’s successor in the Southeast, and Phoenicias’s son succeeded his father. One by one, the new gods filled in and fortified their circle. New lights shone in each of their lanterns.

  The ceremony was needed and it would strengthen them, but it also emphasized that nothing would ever be the same.

  And then Aeolus stepped to the top of the circle, where a large ornate ‘N’ was tiled into the floor. Owen stood back from the circle, outside of it, in long fur robes reminiscent of the kind Boreas used to wear.

  “Owen, chosen son of Boreas, son of Aeolus, step forward to claim your godhood and your rightful place as Supreme God of the North Wind and Guardian of Winter.”

  For a long moment, Owen stared at the dark blue ‘N.’ Chrys could only imagine the grief weighing down on Owen now. In one fell swoop, he’d lost his father and the quiet life he’d chosen and built with Megan, Teddy, and the baby on the way. As a full god, his life was no longer wholly his own, and he came to power in the midst of war, when nothing was certain and no one was safe.

  Owen stepped into place as the master of the North Wind. He repeated the words he’d said for Boreas during the night: “I accept the power, the privileges, and the duties of the North Wind. I will be a fair and faithful master and a true and conscientious guardian. From this moment until I am no more.” His voice was heavy with sadness.

  Aeolus lifted the circular glass lantern out of the floor and opened a door on the side. Since Boreas had already bestowed his northern energy, the interior was empty. Except… Aeolus reached in and removed something. “Open your hand,” he said quietly. “The day you married Megan, Boreas arranged for these to be placed here. They each now contain remnants of his divine energy.”

  Owen extended his hand and received the gift. For a long moment, he struggled to rein in his grief. His brow furrowed, his eyes squeezed closed, his lips pressed tight together. And then he nodded and opened his eyes. “Thank you,” he rasped. Just like Boreas to d
o something so unexpectedly thoughtful, whatever it was.

  “Your light will guide and lead the North Wind. Place it within so all will know you as its master.”

  Owen raised his other hand and turned it palm up. He looked at it, concentration plain on his face, and a small orb of bright white light lifted from his skin, hovered. He placed it within the lantern.

  Aeolus secured the door with a skeleton key and lifted the lantern high. “Long live the North Wind.”

  “Long live the North Wind,” everyone answered, the joined voices echoing against the cavernous ceiling.

  Aeolus gave the key to Owen to safeguard, for the only one who should ever have access to that divine energy was the god himself, then he settled the lantern into its space on the floor, completing the circle. Once again, sixteen lights shined, although one threw a pall over each of the other fifteen.

  But Chrys had seen proof in Eurus’s desiccated hand that the infernal dagger was effective against him. And that gave him hope.

  As the group began to break up, Owen stood looking a little lost. Zeph must’ve seen it, too, because they both crossed the compass rose to him at the same time.

  Owen glanced up, pain shining out of his strange eyes. He opened his palm. Three faceted crystal snowflakes glimmered in the low light. “He always gives us snowflakes.” He cleared his throat. “Gave.”

  “You brought him back to life, Owen. These past few years were the happiest he’d had in a very long time.”

  Chrys nodded. “That kind of happiness means everything, and the three of you gave it to him.” He felt Zeph’s gaze on him. “What?”

  His brother arched a brow. “If happiness means so much, why are you throwing yours away?”

  Owen crossed his arms and tilted his head, as if waiting to hear the answer, too.

  “I don’t know what you’re—”