Page 85 of Winds of Destiny

She shakes her head. “You have to free Ophiucas, of course.”

Oh.Oh.Of course she’s right. I do—it goes from a nothing thought to a driving urge in the space of a second. I’m conscious of a tension that isn’t mine, a fitful hope that at last things will be different, that I can finally,finallybe free.

Our god needs me, and I need him.

“Come with me,” Gilraen says, taking my hand.

“Someone will stop us—”

“No one will stop us,” she says confidently, leading the way. And she’s right. Somehow, even though there are cries of joy all around us, even though the temple chimes are ringing hard enough to shake the ground, no one lays a hand on us or even seems to realize that we’re moving. Soon Gilraen doesn’t need to lead—my feet are confident on the path to the cove where my god has been waiting so, so patiently for these past twenty years.

His head is out of the water and resting on the sand when I get there. I run to him and kneel beside him, wrapping as much of his muzzle as I can in a tremendous hug. “Thank you,” I say—pray—with all my heart. “Thank you so much. I would never have survived this without you. I would have lost them without the pearls, and we wouldn’t have prevailed at Inarime. Thank you, thank you.”

One of the god’s tears bursts against my head, shattering into a thousand seed pearls that glisten in the sand. Another blessing, and a plea—free me.

Of course he needs help. Even when the everwinds were ten times as strong as they are now, it was only during storms that they whipped the waves up enough for Ophiucas to get in and out of the cove. We can’t afford to wait and see if a storm will bring enough water to get him out, especially not when I’m here. I can do this.

I’m just not entirely surehowyet. I need to use the winds to whip up the water, get it pounding, get it to surge in and out of the cove, but without flying—and my last experiment didn’t go so well—I’m not sure that I’ll manage it.

Ophiucas pulls back, and I let him go. He doesn’t retreat all the way into the water, though—instead, he lowers his nose to the sand and wiggles his head back and forth a bit. He’s asking me something, but…

“Oh, of course.” I step up to him, thenontohim, climbing the long length of his snout until I reach the crest of his head, where his massive horns begin to jut from his skull. I hold onto one of them, steadying my stance, and then Ophiucas pulls away from the cove.

Gilraen shouts, “I’ll ring the bell to evacuate the lower levels of the city!” and that’s when I realize that I’m going to have to do something that hasn’t happened in Zephyth since the everwinds went away. I’m going to have to work up such a storm that the city itself is drowned, at least for a while.

This used to be commonplace, a thing that happened multiple times a year, but how many people will even remember that? Who is going to hear the bell and not understand that they need to get to higher ground? How many of our citizens might be lost just because I can’t take the time to explain what I’m trying to do?

Ophiucas hums soothingly as he turns toward the gap that separates the cove from the dark sea, and I decide that the best thing I can do is have faith in him. He needs to be free—needs it desperately. He’s been languishing for too long, our poor, captive god. Our people will be all right—my sister will see to them.

As for me: right now, I have one goal—to bring the water in and let Ophiucas out.

My serpent god braces his long body on the bottom of the cove and lifts his head up high, until I’m thirty feet in the night sky. Wind is already whirling around us, natural wind, and it lends me strength that I never before imagined I could have. I spread my arms and reach out with my magic, and the wind slams into the water right in front of me with a tremendous splash.

And now I’m soaked and haven’t created a single wave. Okay, not the method to use, then. Maybe if I reach farther out instead and use the wind like I would a broom, sweeping the water in toward us. In…and in…and in, creating greater and greater swells, each building on the momentum of the last push to get the next one to rise higher and travel farther…

Water is surging past us into the cove. The temple must be absolutely swamped. Water will be rising in the city already…but it’s all right. It’s going to be all right.

Focus on Ophiucas.

The water from the sea is colder, drenching us both, but I find it invigorating. Ophiucas is still steady beneath me, but I can sense a new energy in him—he’s ready to leap, to ride the best wave I can create out into the sea. I’m getting closer, but we’re not there yet.

I dig deeper with my fledgling ability and increase the tempo of the waves I’m creating—boom-boom-boom-boom. Water tries to rush away but I don’t let it, sweeping it back to us, forcing it into the cove. This place needs to be full before Ophiucas can ride the water out.

In, in… My head hurts, my arms are beginning to ache, but I know I’m getting close from the way Ophiucas is trembling beneath me, readying himself to leap. I’m surrounded by water, but my mouth is dry, and my heart is pounding the wall of my chest, and I use the winds to hold back the water I’ve already poured into the cove while I bring in more, more, more…

And then the wave breaks, and so do I.

Water rushes out of the cove with a sound not unlike raising a city from the depths, thunderous and all-consuming. It builds, it crests, and then Ophiucas is there, surging with it, throwing himself into the immense wave and letting the water carry his huge, heavy body over bladelike rocks and finally out into the sea. His head plunges down into a whole new body of water, and I go with it.

I’m lost. It’s so dark—even the moonlight has abandoned me now. For the first time since I started this, I’m scared. I reach out toward my pearls and feel my lovers’ fear and confusion. I want to reassure them, but how can I? What could I say to make it all right? How can I pretend that nothing is wrong when I’m nearly out of air and I can’t see my god?

A second later, though, Ifeelhim. Ophiucas is beneath me, lifting me, and then I’m out of the water, coughing for my life as I cling to the same spot I just vacated. He’s crooning now, a sweet song I’ve never heard him sing before. It’s triumph and tenderness all at once, and as I catch my breath, I can feel his gratitude as surely as I feel the water itself.

“I love you,” I tell him.

“And I love you,” he whispers back, stunning me into immobility. He spoke to me. Heneverspeaks to us anymore, not even to the priests, why—

Then he shifts and moves and tilts, and all of a sudden I’m sliding off his head and falling straight into the arms of—

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