Zoya

This is it. This is what finally kills me.

The cart bears down with a thunderous rolling and clacking of wooden wheels over cobblestones. Somewhere behind it, Lanthos whinnies with obvious distress, dragged back with its weight and bucking frantically in the air.

Time slows down. I fall to the ground painfully, seeing the blue sky twist and spin like a kaleidoscope. My hair flies out like a dark net, and I bow my head.

I must accept my fate. If this is how it ends for me as the portents foretold, then I’m ready to be taken by the gods.

“Gods help me!” a man’s voice rings out. “Woman, get up!”

A strong hand arrives at my elbow and jerks me up. My feet scrabble to find purchase on the ground as the unknown man seizes me by the shoulders.

But the cart is too close, and there’s no time to get out of the way, I think dazedly. Until the man gives up on tugging me upward and flings himself down on top of me instead.

What is he doing? Now we’ll both get crushed under the wheel, surely. My eyes well up.

But no. The man rolls us sideways and off the cobbled path.

Just in time, too. I watch the cart sway drunkenly past, speeding up as it rolls downhill. The man gives out another shout.

“The horse!” he yells. An older man springs forward, his hand at his belt. A knife slices through the air, then Lanthos is free of his burden, though still tangled up in the reins.

I sigh in weak relief and my head falls back. A most unfamiliar pressure on my body regardless, I am somehow still alive.

“Are you alright?” my savior asks me. “Are you hurt?”

My eyes open. The blue sky above is blocked out by a golden head and a pair of gleaming green eyes. I’m suddenly blushing and breathless, held firmly in the embrace of extremely muscular arms.

“Yes, thank you,” I say primly. “I’m perfectly fine. In fact, I didn’t really need your help.”

“Well, by all means, get trampled next time.” The green eyes crinkle attractively. “How rude of me to try and save your life.”

My blush intensifies. The man has a point. And if he wasn’t so very good-looking, I’d have an easier time accepting it.

“Yes, well.” I clear my throat. “Ahem. Thank you for that. Would you mind letting me get up now?”

For a moment, I think he’s going to refuse. He’s big and much heavier than I am. If he doesn’t want to get up, I could be lying trapped under him all day.

Which should not be such an enticing thought. I dismiss the matter from my mind at once.

The man smiles down at me, almost as if he’s able to read my thoughts. “Very well. If you insist.”

Then he’s leaping upward in a single bound, stretching a hand down to me in perfect confidence that I’ll take it. His fingers are warm to the touch and intertwined with mine. Even after I get up awkwardly and try to brush my dirty tunic and coat down, he holds on to my hand.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” He peers at my eyes. “You didn’t hit your head by any chance? You seem a little confused.”

I snatch my hand away, mortified. “No, I’m fine. Please move aside. I must fetch my horse, though I think my goods for the market are completely ruined.”

Lanthos seems unhurt and more or less calm in the grip of the kindly older man who grabbed his reins and saved him from toppling over with the cart. But the wine—I groan with dismay.

At the bottom of the steep path is a small lake of red wine, mixed in with darker plum and cherry colors and giving off the strongest fumes I’ve inhaled since the last summer harvest. A number of bystanders gawk and shake their heads sadly. Good wine gone to waste always seems like a crime.

“I think you’re right.” The golden-haired man folds his arms regretfully. “Only about a dozen or so bottles are left intact, I see. On the other hand, any stray dogs or pigeons who come to today’s market are about to have a very happy day.”

“Pigeons don’t drink wine,” I say curtly, “but you’re right, stray dogs might lap some up. On the other hand, that man over there is already scooping up some of the top layer up in a cup, see? So not entirely a waste.”

The man at my side looks down at me and grins. “I like your spirit. Will you tell me your name?”

“Zoya Undergrove.” I squint up at him a little suspiciously. “And you are? I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before. ”

“Auron Bozzelli, at your service.” He sketches out a small salute, two fingers to the forehead swiping down. “I’ll help you get your bottles.”

Just as he moves down the path, leaving me with Lanthos, Isodore arrives.

“Zoya, what happened?” she squeals, her voice pitched much higher than usual. “I heard this huge commotion from the other side of the square, but I had no idea it was you!”

“Another one of my accidents,” I say wearily, and she frowns, looking around at the whole mess. Giant puddles of wine aside, the cart is in pieces, the barrel has shattered into a broken shell of itself, and fragments of the clay wine jars are littered everywhere.

“It is a curse,” says Isodore in awed horror. Then her tone shifts abruptly. “Who’s that?”

Auron Bozzelli toils up the path, cheerfully carrying a few of the remaining wine jars cradled in his arms.

“I am Auron, beautiful lady,” he says, causing Isodore to giggle and blush. “Tell me your name, and the name of the goddess who gave you such lovely eyes, as well.”

“This is Isodore Halkias,” I say repressively, sending Isodore a warning glance. “She is my good friend and shares my stall.”

“Oh, I see.” Auron casually accompanies us as we move to the center of the market. Since I’m tugging Lanthos along and Isodore is practically swooning, there seems to be no point refusing his help, though my pride insists on thanking him somehow.

“My father will send you some bottles of our finest vintage for your help today, good sir,” I say, tying Lanthos’s reins to a saddle post nearby. “You only need to tell me where your home is, and he will see it done.”

“Oh, there’s no need for that,” Auron Bozzelli says, his green eyes bright and brazen. “Assisting two such beautiful nymphs of the grove is reward enough.”

Isodore simpers and giggles some more. For a young woman who is usually as articulate as she is decisive, she has become surprisingly foolish in the presence of a mere man.

Well, perhaps not a mere man. Those broad shoulders and the golden hair do give him the look of a Hercules reborn, while his wily charms could rival those of Hedylogos, the god of sweet talk and flattery.

Auron glances at me. Perhaps something about my stiff shoulders and fixed expression gives him pause.

“You’re hurt,” he says in a low voice. “I suspected as much from the way you fell. You should sit and rest awhile.”

“But I—”

“He’s right, Zoya,” Isodore says, cutting me off without hesitation. “It’s not as if you can sell much today, anyway. Go sit by the lake and rest. I’ll take you home in my cart once I’m done for the day, but unfortunately I can’t accompany you right now. Perhaps this kind gentleman . . .”

“Of course,” Auron says immediately and with the audacity to wink at Isodore. He actually winks at her, as if they are the two adults trying to humor a stubborn and troublesome child.

That troublesome child being myself, of course.

“Very well,” I say, swallowing my incipient wrath. “But only for a while.”

Auron Bozzelli fetches us some warm bread from a nearby baker’s stall and takes me to the lake, leaving Isodore behind to sell her wares and watch Lanthos at the stall. It’s surprisingly pleasant, sitting beside the still water with a man with the good looks of a god.

He has the honeyed tongue of a born lover, as well, but for the time being, he restricts himself to asking questions about me, my father, and the Undergrove vineyards. Almost against my will, I find myself telling him things about my life.

About how much I love springtime, and the smell of new wine, and how much work it takes to care for a vineyard, but how it satisfies something deeply rooted in my heart. He seems to understand this perfectly, nodding as he responds with stories of his own childhood sometimes.

In fact, the day passes so pleasantly that I’m shocked to see it’s nearly sundown when Isodore comes to take me home. Auron helps to load up her cart with the remainder of her wares and mine and sends us off with a cheerful wave, as if he does this every day.

“I like him,” Isodore remarks as we drive off, Lanthos teamed with her own trusty Filo. “He seems trustworthy.”

But when I mention him to Rhea later at home, she has a very different response.

“Auron?” she says, narrowing her eyes. “Auron Bozzelli, you said? Are you sure?”

“Yes,” I say, a little defensive, though I don’t know why. “You were the one telling me just this morning to spend more time looking for a man. I don’t mean I want this one, but—”

“Oh, you should.” For a moment, an acquisitive gleam flashes in Rhea’s eyes. “You really should. Auron Bozzelli is perhaps one of the wealthiest young men in the whole kingdom. And if he’s as taken with you as you say, Zoya, then perhaps he’ll choose you as his bride at the Eros Encounter.”