Although Thar was aware that D’Argen could run fast enough to cross rivers and straits, he also knew that D’Argen’s speed was not enough to cross an ocean. It was tempting to try, especially once the shoreline came into view, but instead of jumping over the railing, he started pacing the deck of the ship.

The shore was so slow on approaching. It took what felt like years for him to see people.

When the ship’s crew lowered a dingy in the water, he was the first on it. The new ship designs, with a much higher railing that D’Argen would probably appreciate, also had a much deeper hull. They were larger and heavier, able to break the spring ice easily even without Thar’s help, but they were unable to dock too close to the shores of the northern lands.

Once he stepped on solid ground, his body felt like he was the ocean. He continued to sway slightly, rocking to the waves splashing against the wooden dock behind him.

“Missir Thar,” a mortal woman Thar had seen multiple times greeted him. “Liege Haur has been waiting for you.”

Thar looked away from the mortal and scanned the crowd. There were hundreds of mortals wandering the streets of the small port city they had constructed. He did not see Haur anywhere among them.

“Is he at the construction site?” Thar asked.

“Yes. I have been tasked with taking you there as soon as the storm passes.”

Thar eyed the tall peaks of the mountain in the distance. Looming behind them were dark clouds that spread far across the horizon.

“No need. I will go now.”

“But Missir—”

“Miss…” Thar interrupted her instead, trailing off.

“Eliza, Missir. I am Eliza.”

“Miss Eliza. Take shelter and make your way to the construction site when it is safe,” he added just enough command to his voice so that she would not follow him. She did not.

Thar walked down the main street of the city. As soon as he was away from all the buildings, his blood started singing. It felt almost like it had been waiting for him to reach a certain distance. The itch in his feet intensified and started crawling up the rest of him. It felt like his entire body was vibrating. If this was how D’Argen felt all the time, it was no wonder the man was constantly bouncing on the spot and fidgeting with everything in sight.

The mahee with the scent of the ocean was urging him to run. Thar did not realize he had braced himself against the hard ground until a lock of his hair came loose in front of his eyes. Then he scowled. He pushed it back behind his ear, straightened from the slight hunch his body naturally fell into, and brought his feet together.

The urge to run was strong. But not as strong as his mahee. Instead of pushing off, he forced himself to calmly walk north.

The approaching clouds shaded the sun from reflecting in the snow and brought with it winds that would freeze the edges of the beach. As he walked toward it and the storm came over him, its winds picked up his long hair and light robes, throwing them about in all directions. The ice that danced along with the winds pelted him like relentless needles, though they did not hurt. The howling sounded like a song. The cold itself was enough to cause frostbite and lost limbs.

Thar breathed it all in.

His mahee was stronger than D’Argen’s.

The itch disappeared completely. The ice turned to flakes that danced under his breath, the winds felt like a caress through his long hair, and the snow under his feet was soft. The north accepted him and surrounded him.

Thar felt like he was made for this place. Or this place was made for him.

From him.

What felt like too soon, he passed the snow houses that were constructed for workers to hide out and rest during the night and such storms. Then he came to the large granite slabs, cut from the neighbouring mountain and delivered to the area using Halen’s machinations and constructions. Finally, through the howling winds, Thar saw a person. Haur was covered in what looked like bear fur from head to toe. The only reason Thar even recognized it was him was due to his long braid flying through the wind. And because Haur would be the only one stubborn enough to try and outlast a snow storm.

“Can you stop it?!” Haur yelled across the distance between them.

Thar eyed the clouds above him, only to realize the sky was empty. Huh. He reigned in his mahee, pulling the cold back into himself, and the snow and winds both died out. By the time the last of the flakes joined the snow at his feet, Haur was already in front of him.

“When I saw the skies clear but the storm continue, I figured it was you. After all, who else can make even a bright day like today an uncomfortable one?”

That one sounded like an insult. Haur’s wide grin was friendly though.

“How did the court take our findings?” Haur asked.

“Not good,” Thar said. “They want a strict embargo on that ore. None of it leaves the north unless in the presence of one of us.”

Haur nodded along as Thar spoke, as if he had already received the message from Evadia stating that. When he said he already had a few things in place to help with that, Thar realized that maybe someone in Evadia did not trust him to relay the whole message.

Not someone. Vah’mor. Thar knew very well why the General of Evadia disliked him and distrusted him so, but the incident that had caused it all to boil over was so long ago. Vah’mor could certainly hold a grudge for a long time. And they made no show at all of hiding their dislike. Fortunately, the feeling was mostly mutual.

“—so, I moved most workers to the quarry.”

“What?” Thar did not realize Haur had continued to speak. Why was his mind wandering so much recently?

“I said, we are on a break here for now due to changing construction drafts, so most workers are hiding out in the quarry.”

“Ah. Halen?”

“Yes. He believes the most secure way of building the castle is to move it under the mountain. That way, even if there are issues in the future, it would be a safe refuge for the rest of the city.”

Thar hummed in reply. It made sense to him.

“That is why we are on hold. He said he needed a naturalist to check a few things. Also, his idea is to use one of the castle walls as the only way to get to the ore veins in the mountain.”

“It makes sense,” Thar agreed. “Where is he now?”

“Hiding out from the storm you caused.” Then Haur decided to share everything that had happened in the past few weeks since Thar had left for Evadia to deliver their findings in person.

Thar listened with one ear as a breeze slipped out of his fingers and through his hair, untangling any knots created by the earlier storm. The warm kiss of the air around his fingers almost had him smiling. Then looking at Haur.

Even though Haur was smiling wide and talking animatedly with both hands waving through the air, Thar knew the man was hurt. He had been chasing after Lilian for a long time. Never seriously, everyone knew that, but it had become practically a habit for him over the last few centuries to stalk Lilian, confront them, shower them with gifts, and then run away laughing as Lilian chased him down. their feelings had been mutual, as far as anyone was aware, even if Thar himself had not seen the courtship due to his banishment.

The fact that Lilian’s mahee had ran away – escaped into the ether, as far as the others were concerned – and their body was still somewhere on this mountain, must have hurt him.

But Lilian’s mahee was not in the ethereal. Not fully. Thar let that warm breeze slip between his hair and the back of his neck, circle around his throat, and then sink into him from the entrance of his mahee. He did not hold back the small smile that bloomed on his lips when Haur looked back at him as he talked.

Lilian must have loved Haur as much as Haur loved them.

It took almost a full month of calculations and confirmations before Halen felt confident enough to mark the first piece of stone to be chipped away. He was using a small, suspended platform to maneuver himself along the mountain wall. As he pointed to another spot to the side, Thar, far below him on solid ground, raised his hands. He did not need the motion to direct his mahee, but he knew both the mortals and the other gods appreciated it – it was a silent warning of what he planned to do.

Snow and ice dislodged from the spot Halen had pointed to, revealing the same rough stone that served as the base for the rest of the mountain. Once it all landed safely, Haur led a few people with shovels to clear the snow off to the side. Halen marked another spot on the rock with a special paint that ate away at the top surface and created a patchwork of holes inside the rockface.

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Another dozen marks and then Halen used a complicated rope and pulley system to lower his platform. As soon as Halen’s feet were on solid ground, Thar felt all of his muscles tremble as they relaxed. The thought of Halen falling from his platform had made him so tense.

The trembling continued the entire time he directed water into the holes caused by Halen’s paint and then forced more and more of it in at faster speeds, making it just hard enough to crack the stone from within. The first chunk of stone that crashed to the ground had everyone freezing. A few eyes wandered to the top of the mountain. It did not move. Thar continued, directing the ice and water, widening natural cracks and creating new ones, forcing the stone to comply with his demands, and following Halen’s drawn outlines.

When Haur asked him if he needed a break, Thar just shook him off. It felt a bit strange to chip away at the base of the mountain, turning its natural rock formation into a straight edge and then digging deep under that. What would have taken billions of years for the winds to do, the three gods accomplished in barely two months.

In the past, when Thar had been working with Haur and Halen to help the construction of the port city, he had been solely focused on the work. It was the easiest way to ignore that tug inside him that had him wanting to take the first available ship toward the Rube Islands. He would overuse his mahee to the point of falling asleep with exhaustion.

Yet now, he could barely keep his feet from running, let alone his thoughts.

The work felt too slow. Time felt too slow. Everything was moving at a glacial pace. When Halen directed the first of the giant granite blocks to be loaded onto a platform and transferred over to the area, Thar started bouncing on the spot. He only stopped when he saw Haur looking at him strangely.

“You should rest,” Haur said quietly, placing a hand on Thar’s shoulder. “You have been overworking yourself these past couple of months.”

“I’m fine,” Thar grit out, shrugging the hand off. It felt like a weight, dragging him down and locking his feet to the ground.

Haur’s eyes narrowed, then scanned his entire body. “Your mahee may not be, but your body is overworked. That tension you feel? That is your muscles needing a break.”

No. It was not. It was his body begging him to run. It was that itch back at his feet and crawling up his spine. It was the ocean waves beating against the iceberg inside him and chipping away at it the same way Thar was chipping away at the mountain.

A shout had both of them turning. The wooden construct Halen had built, the one used the carry the large slabs of granite to their destination and then lift them vertically, had broken. One of the ropes snapped. The large slab of granite that it had just straightened, as tall as two floors, wavered for a moment. Then it tipped. And it started falling.

Halen yelled, directing everyone out of the way. Haur helped a mortal up that had to hobble and hop out of the way. Thar did not even lift his hands. He called Lilian’s winds to him. They picked up the loose snow around him and slammed it into the granite with such strength that it almost broke the stone. Thar spread the winds along the surface. The slab wavered, paused, and then tipped the other way. When it hit the natural stone of the mountain, it was with a crack of thunder as if lightning had struck right in front of him.

Silence reigned for so long that it felt like time had frozen completely.

Then the mortals started cheering.

Thar noticed his hands were trembling again. It was not with the cold. Not with exhaustion. He felt like he had barely skimmed the surface of the ocean even with such excessive use of his mahee. Except… that was not his mahee.

When Haur approached him, the man’s face was creased with worry. No. Not worry. Fear. Before Haur could say anything at all, Thar turned on his heel and stalked away.

Haur did not follow. He returned to the mortals and helped Halen as they secured the slab in place. Once that was done, he called for them all to take a break for the rest of the day. Thar watched it all from a distance, aware of the routine even if that was the first time such an event had happened.

Thar did not use one of the snow houses the others did to rest and keep out of the winds. He had a small platform, near the rest of the granite slabs that were coming in from the nearby quarry, where he watched everyone. The higher up, the easier it was for the cold winds to reach and surround him.

Night fell and a few fires dotted the field. Thar forced his eyes to remain on the granite slab he had moved, instead of wandering from fire to fire and all the mortals cheering around them. Could he have moved it in the past before his mahee was locked away? The chain was gone, he felt its absence like a lost limb, but he could not remember ever being so strong before. But then again, the mahee he had used to move the granite had not been his own.

A silhouette approached, the fire at their back making them indistinguishable. The lack of mahee told Thar it was a mortal. When the woman stopped before him, he recognized her. Eliza was holding a small woven basket.

“Dinner and drink,” she said, setting the basket before him.

Thar did not even realize he had forgotten to eat. No. It felt more like he had forgotten to be hungry at all. He scowled, but opened the basket anyway. There was a block of cheese, a plate with some roasted meat, and a skin with some sort of liquid. There was too much.

“I wanted to say thank you,” Eliza said.

Thar looked up at her in question.

“Thank you. Today. Many of us would have died if you had not intervened.”

Thar did not know how to respond to that.

“My father and mother among them,” the woman continued.

Thar looked back at the basket.

“Mind if I join you?” she asked.

There was no reason not to. He motioned to the snow on the other side of the basket. The action also shifted it all away, clearing the stone. It would still be cold, but at least not wet. As soon as she sat, she brought her hands before her mouth and breathed into them.

The action made something inside Thar loosen. He pulled the cold into him, away from the air surrounding her, and breathed it in. Then, he took his first bite and almost spat it back out.

Eliza started talking as she ate. The roasted meat was boar but it did not taste like he remembered it to. She was from Elese and her mother had taken on the commission to help with the construction. The cooked meat made him think of muscles and sinews. Eliza’s mother was an architect and Eliza herself was learning her trade. The cheese tasted like milk having gone sour. Eliza’s father was a farmer. The skin was filled with a sweet wine that made him feel like grape skin was sticking to his teeth. The family had come to the north almost three years ago. Thar could barely stop himself from puking up the few small bites he was able to take.

Was this D’Argen’s doing as well? Was this how far he would soak himself into Thar’s life?

Thar felt his blood boiling with anger at the thought. He ripped another piece of meat with his teeth and could barely chew it before he swallowed it down. Eliza kept talking, but he could not pay attention to her at all. The heat spread through him. Then he noticed her blush. It was not from the cold. The way she was looking at him from under her lashes was familiar. Thar focused on her rounded cheeks and dark eyes as he chewed and did his best not to taste nor think of the origin of the food he was eating. When he could not pretend anymore, even with the wine, he did the only thing he could think of – he consumed the cold.

He released his hold on the air around him, sucking it in with every inhale and begging it to fill his stomach as well as his lungs. It did not work. He forced it further down, through his entire body and to every limb. It felt like breathing fire. The colder air far above them came down, surrounding him and trying to suck the heat out of him. It settled in deep with the wine in his stomach. The wine that doused that cold and made his fingers twitch, as if they needed to grab onto something.

A chatter had him pulling out of his inner thoughts and focusing on Eliza. She was shivering so bad that her entire body was trembling. Eliza’s hands were shaking as she fumbled with a piece of stone, dropping it in the snow twice.

Thar released his mahee completely, bringing the temperature back to normal. Once he knew what she was comfortable with, he would consume just enough to—

She whispered a few words under her breath. Thar did not hear them all, but he knew those words. He never needed to say them but he knew them. With the words she spoke, she guided the mahee into a spell. Not just any words. Not just any mahee. And not just any spell. She stopped shivering on her own, her body relaxing, as the cold around his dispersed.

Thar stared in wonder.

“How did you…” he could not even finish off his question.

“Oh? My father taught me. He said it would work here since there is so much of your mahee around this area,” she said, unaware of what she had just done.

A mortal. Using magic. Right before his eyes. Thar knew what that ore could do, but he had yet to see it himself. And now, this mortal, she acted like it was nothing at all to use his scent and his mahee and his very being to keep herself warm. It… did not anger him. Or scare him. He was impressed.

When she smiled at him, her cheeks were rosy with the wine and there was a childish glee in her eyes. When she offered him more wine, it tasted sweet. When she laughed, he smiled. When she hesitated, he prompted her to keep talking, when she blushed… he encouraged it.

He did not think of D’Argen at all as she leaned in, her eyes closing. Her lips were chapped when they touched his. They tasted like blood. Unlike the earlier meal, he found that taste delicious for some reason. He lapped it up and then dug deeper.

He did not think of D’Argen. He did not.

At all.

Except for when he breathed in her warmth.

#

Thar did not sleep in any of the snow houses. In fact, Haur had yet to see Thar sleep at all. The few times Haur had seen Thar at night, the other was either wandering barefoot in just in a silk robe, or sitting atop at the granite slabs and meditating. So, when he did not see Thar that morning anywhere, he thought the man had gone off to the quarry and check the progress there. Nevermind that there were two other Never Born there to ensure everything was running smoothly.

But also, it could have been Thar avoiding the questions that he knew would come. How Thar had been able to use the wind to stop that accident yesterday from turning into a bloodbath was a question Haur was finally feeling confident enough to ask.

Yet when he finally saw Thar, emerging from one of the snow houses with a mortal woman right behind him, the question fled his mind completely.

Haur did not remember the woman’s name, but he had seen her around often enough. The way she blushed as she stood beside Thar, the way she fixed her hair, the way Thar smiled down at her and ran a finger down her cheek – it was not the first time Thar had taken a mortal lover, but it still caught Haur off guard.

The two split up, the woman going over to another fire where two older mortals with similar features as her greeted her with a plate of food and a cup. Thar walked to the edge of the camp and then out of sight. Before Haur could get up to follow him, Halen arrived. The man looked harried.

“Haur, I need to talk to you,” Halen said. “In private.” His eyes darted to the few mortals around the fire.

Haur deemed his lunch finished, having already lost his appetite with Thar’s appearance, and got up to follow the other. Halen led him to his workshop where he made the plans for the castle’s construction.

“We have a problem,” Halen said, as soon as the door was closed behind him. His voice was quiet.

“If it is about your contraption, it happens. Nobody was hurt.”

“Yes and no,” Halen said. “I spent all night trying to figure it out, why it happened. It should not have. I have made such things before to carry even heavier loads. So, this morning, I went to look at it. And then I spent almost as much time convincing myself I was wrong.”

“Wrong? You did nothing wrong.”

“No. I did not,” Halen agreed. He then pulled a tarp aside from one corner in the building. Under it was a large coil of rope. “Look at this,” he said.

Haur walked up to examine the rope but saw nothing special about it.

“This is the rope that broke yesterday,” Halen explained. Then he took up one end of it and lifted it right under Haur’s nose. “This.”

“What am I looking at?” Haur asked, looking at the perfect cut, as smooth as the other end where—

“The rope was not frayed,” Halen confirmed his thoughts. “It was cut.”