Gods of the Storm
The storm was rolling down from the mountain, grey clouds heavy with rain cresting the slate-coloured peaks and swallowing them whole until it was impossible to see where mountain ended, and cloud began. She ran towards it. The wind picked up. It tangled in her skirts – one moment wrapping the white fabric tight about her bare legs and the next sending them billowing out around her – all the while urging her on, away from safety, towards the darkest of those clouds.
Somewhere in that roiling sky walked her love, and she would join him.
This destiny had never been meant for her. It happened of its own accord, an accident, but she could no longer remain the quiet, submissive Lady Evelyn, betrothed to a future king, destined to wear a crown but stay forever silent and untroublesome by her husband’s side. It had become a thought she could no longer bear. Her spirit wanted its freedom.
If she died out there in the storm trying to attain that freedom, then so be it.
All those nights spent watching the storms from her balcony, taking in the wonder of that angry sky, she had thought herself alone. Never had she suspected the storm might be watching her back. One night she stepped out to listen to the thunder only to find an immortal seated on the stone rail.
His skin was the deepest blue of midnight, white veins like lightning, his eyes two pale moons, and his long hair a brooding grey resting on his shoulders. He was barely visible against the sky but against the pearly white stone of her home his presence was stark.
She might have screamed and called for the guards if he had been any other man. But his was a face she knew she had seen before without even realising it. Had she not spent all the stormy nights of her life watching him pass overhead with his clouds and rains and thunder?
They talked for hours – years. Every night that was darkened by a storm. And every night that was calm and quiet, she would sleep poorly, disappointed that they were so very far apart. Love between them was inevitable.
Then her betrothal to the prince was announced and the kingdom devoted itself to preparing a wedding feast while Evelyn cried in her lover’s arms. He wanted to take her away with him. To give her a place in the sky that was all her own and let her roam free all over the world as he did. But she had all the fears of a mortal soul that knows its place is firmly on the ground. She would not go.
At their parting, he blessed her with the gift of truth and lies, and the ability to tell one from the other. It was the only protection from her world he could offer. Then he vanished, and Evelyn did her best to sleep through all the stormy nights that followed.
But now she was determined to change her fate. Her betrothed had arrived to carry her back to his palace, and when she looked into his eyes for the first time on the steps of her home, she saw what hell awaited her should she take her place as his queen. There would be no joy, no love. Only suffering. All at the hands of her future king.
That evening a storm darkened the horizon. She ran. She left her kin at the feast, slipped her guards, and took to the open, hoping to find her love in the sky.
Halfway across a soft meadow the rain began. It fell heavy and hard, soaking through her dress and turning the ground to damp moorland. She did not stop, not even when she reached the heart of the storm. Dark clouds rolled overhead. Thunder split the heavens. When she tripped and fell, it was into her lover’s arms. His white eyes were bright with joy when he beheld her, and she saw the truth of his love in them. She shed her mortal fear and pressed her lips to his.
Lightning flashed across the sky and for a moment the world was bright. The next, both Evelyn and her lover were gone.