Sky of Wind by Emily Deady

Chapter 27

Sol stopped at the window of the bedroom before he climbed out of it. He had changed his elegant princely clothes for his own comfortable trousers and basic shirt. Under cover of darkness, he was ready to find the secret entrance to the fortress cellar.

But something held him back.

Meena sat on the edge of the bed, holding a lit candle, watching him leave.

Sol glanced at the door, triple checking it was bolted closed. Perhaps it would be safer if he and Meena stuck together, now that Younn was on to them.

“Do you want to come with me?” Sol whispered. This had nothing to do with the way her face transformed when she was looking at the sparkling blue effect of the waves. Or the fact that he was going to be walking along the shore for a good part of his search.

She stood instantly. “Yes.”

His chest inflated with a strange light feeling when she readily agreed. “You’re sure? It might involve a little scrambling down some steep paths.” She probably hadn’t meant it and he didn’t want to get disappointed.

“I’m very good at scrambling,” she responded. “Let me change my clothes into something more fitting. Or, less fitting, actually. Something loose.”

Sol opened the window, inspecting their escape route as she quickly got ready. He smiled. They were getting close to their goal, he could feel it.

“I don’t think I could sleep anyway, after everything that happened tonight,” Meena whispered at his side.

Sol nodded in understanding. “Let’s go.”

She jumped nimbly up onto the window ledge. She’d changed into a loose pair of trousers, shirt, and an over shirt held in place with a tied belt.

It looked suspiciously similar to the clothing Robin wore in the forest. Sol thought she looked beautiful. The Majis women wore clothing that was suited to work and movement. This Meena felt like someone he knew.

“Oh, the candle,” Meena said, pointing back to the lit candle on the desk.

“I got it,” Sol responded. He’d been waiting for her to get out of the window before extinguishing their light source.

With a nod, she slipped over the ledge, clinging to it with her hands as she found a steady foothold for her feet. Their particular window was situated in the wall of the fort.

“They probably put us in this room, thinking the window would be too difficult to climb out of,” Meena whispered as he followed her.

“Little did they know, our keepers were actually making our task easier,” Sol responded lightly.

Meena smiled. Somehow, despite the darkness, he could hear it.

Climbing carefully around her on the outer ledge, he led the way over the wall and showed Meena the steep path to the shoreline.

It took quite some time to get all the way down the path, even after their eyes adjusted to the bright light of the moon and the stars.

“What do we do now,” Meena asked as they stumbled onto the sandy shore.

He was not tired from exhaustion, but his body was ready to stop moving for a moment. “Now, we look at the stars in the sea,” he replied.

“Sol, we don’t have all night,” she replied. “Literally. We need to get back before the sun is up.”

“Our search will be better served if we rest for a moment. That was a long climb, and it was only the downward one.” He wanted to see the enchantment on her face again as she looked at the sparkling blue waves. It was a selfish desire, and he knew it. But his words were also true. They would spend the rest of the night climbing up canyons. They both needed to catch their breath.

Meena had already turned from him. A smile lit her face, and she didn’t even know that she hadn’t seen the best part yet.

“Go,” Sol whispered, “step on the wet sand.” He stood back, not wanting to spoil the surprise.

Meena tentatively stepped forward, slipping off her leather shoes and carrying them in her hand. As her foot pressed into the wet sand at the edge of the incoming waves, blue light shot through the sand she’d displaced.

She gasped, lifting her foot up. The face she turned to him was pure jaw-dropping joy.

Sol smiled, stepping forward to join her as she traced her toe in the sand, creating a stream of blue light wherever she touched.

She ran down to the water itself, watching her footsteps shimmer and fade in the sand behind her. The moonlight was bright enough that Sol could see the way her hair danced over shoulders.

Dropping his own shoes in the sand, he ran after her.

“You’ve seen this before?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said, drawing to a stop next to her. “It happens in Istroya every few goldenreign seasons.”

“I love it,” she said, throwing her arms wide open as if to embrace the sea.

Sol understood the feeling well. The sea had always represented something bigger to him. Something beautiful and different and beyond himself, but something that made him feel more whole.

He was looking at Meena, though, and not at the sea.

He could feel the radiant delight on her face.

He could not take her with him, but he could leave her with the one thing which always brought him joy.

Stepping behind her, he placed his hands on her shoulders. “Close your eyes,” he whispered.

He could not see her face, but he assumed she did as he had asked. He could feel her shoulders rising and falling gently with each breath she took.

“The joy you feel right now, that’s the magic.”

He could tell she was smiling from the way she exhaled a little more loudly through her nose.

“It can’t be that simple,” she replied, laughing a little.

He loved her. He loved that her mind always went to joy. He wanted to see the world through her eyes.

“Oh, you are being serious,” she said, breaking the comfortable silence. He could feel her twist her shoulders as she moved to face him.

He squeezed her gently, asking her with his hands to stay in place.

He would lose the battle he fought if he could see her face.

“Sol, the magic is special to you, to your people,” Meena said, her laughter gone. “I am fascinated by it, and in awe of it, and I love it, but I cannot take it.”

“You cannot take something when it is a gift,” Sol replied. “The magic has shaped my people, and we have shaped it. But it is not ours to hoard. Everyone can access the beauty of it. I want to give you this small part of me. It’s all I have that is free to give.”

She placed her hand over his. “Sol.” Her voice was sweet and sorrowful at the same time.

“I can’t teach you how to use magic in a single night, I just want you to experience the feeling of it,” Sol whispered, suddenly afraid that he had oversold his gift.

“I would love to experience that,” she replied.

“Look out at the waves,” Sol instructed, talking her through his own actions.

A small wave lazily crashed a short distance from the shore. Glowing blue light emanated from every drop that splashed.

“Breathe in, deeply.” Sol could feel her shoulders rise under her hands. “Let that breath fill every part of your body.” He waited for a moment. “Do you feel it?”

“I feel . . . happy. Calm. My mind knows that tomorrow might be difficult or scary. But right now, I’m here.” Her shoulders sank with her next exhale. “I don’t feel the magic, though.”

“No, you felt it,” Sol reassured her. “That is the harmony.”

“That’s it?” Meena turned around. “Everyone can do that! Why was this such a secret?”

Sol laughed at her surprise. “It’s a little more complicated than that. You have to learn how to channel that harmony and spread it around you, which . . . takes a little longer.”

“Oh, that makes sense.” She turned back to face the blue waves. “Thank you for sharing that with me, Sol.”

“You’re welcome.”

Sol’s eyes lingered on her hair long after her face had turned away. Simply being in her presence made him happy.

His wife.

He had never imagined a life for himself in which he had a comrade purely for the sake of companionship.

He was a Majis. He was leading a rebellion in the footsteps of his father, a hero. He loved his family, of course. But he couldn’t allow himself to be close to them because he knew he would lose them.

He’d been close to his father. He loved his father. He idolized his father. And then his father had been chosen. And Sol vowed to himself that he would never make the mistake of loving someone too closely ever again.

She turned back around, her soft eyes looking up at him tenderly. She lifted her hand slowly toward his face.

Sol knew he should stop her action, but he did not want to.

Before she touched him, however, she tensed, pointing over his shoulder. “What is that?”

Sol spun around, letting his eyes adjust from the brightness of the luminescent water.

“I thought I saw a torch up that canyon,” she added, still peering up the dark cliff side. “It’s gone now.”

“This canyon should be impassible. I tried to get to the fort from every place on the shoreline last night. Could you seen have anything else?”

“It looked like the torch illuminated a man in a soldier’s uniform, but he disappeared into the stone cliff side before I could fully get a glimpse of him. And everything was so far away, it was hard to see anything clearly.”

“This must be it,” Sol said, his body tensing in preparation for activity. “I searched this canyon extensively last night, though, and it was impassable.”

“Can you use magic in any way to find the path?” Meena asked.

“It’s a good thought, but that’s not how it usually . . . actually, the wind did guide me once before.” Sol closed his eyes for a moment. It was easy to find the harmony inside him after just sharing it with Meena.

He exhaled with a wordless sound, letting it rumble in his throat in harmony with the crashing waves.

The breeze from the sea picked up its pace, swirling around him like an old friend.

Reaching for Meena’s hand, he let the wind guide him.