The world, in the absence of Ina, became a monochrome wasteland to Juraj. The vibrant, humming tapestry of life that had been his constant companion since awakening now felt like a faded, threadbare cloth. Her departure was not a simple emptiness; it was an active, gnawing void, a perpetual winter that had settled deep within the core of his being. He was the god of spring, and his heart had frozen over.
He did not return to the deep sleep of the earth. Instead, he wandered Korčula like a restless ghost, a shadow of the powerful, vibrant being who had walked into a lavender shop just weeks before. He haunted the places they had been together. The secluded cove was just a cold, rocky inlet now, the water a dull, leaden grey, the magical sea flowers withered to slime on the stones. The market square held only the echo of her laughter, a sound that now felt like a physical blow. He stood outside "Lavanda," the closed sign a permanent judgment against him, and remembered the jolt of their first touch, a sensation that now felt like a memory from someone else's life.
His despair was not a quiet, human sorrow. It was a cosmic imbalance. He was a fundamental force of nature, and his grief began to bleed into the very fabric of the island.
The change started subtly. A unseasonable chill clung to the morning air, a dampness that seeped into the ancient stones and made the tourists pull their light jackets tighter. The brilliant, cloudless Dalmatian sky began to habitually obscure itself with a blanket of low, grey cloud. Then the rain came. It was not the brief, dramatic, life-giving downpour of a summer storm. It was a constant, dreary, cold drizzle that fell for days on end, turning the vibrant green of the pine woods a somber olive and washing the color from the bougainvillea that tumbled over the stone walls.
The locals, who lived and died by the sun and the sea, grumbled. They gathered in cafés, steaming cups of coffee warding off the unaccustomed cold, their conversations a chorus of confusion.
"Have you ever seen a spring like this?" old Marin, the fisherman, would mutter, staring out at the sullen, choppy channel. "The sea is cold as a witch's heart. The fish are deep; they don't like it."
"The lavender," his wife would cluck, shaking her head. "My sister says Ina Marović's field looks poorly. The plants are drooping. It's too wet, too cold. It's not right."
The strange weather became the island's sole topic. It was an anomaly, a glitch in the predictable, beautiful rhythm of their world. They blamed shifting jet streams, climate change, a peculiar high-pressure system. They did not look to the tall, dark-haired stranger who walked the cliffs with the posture of a man carrying the weight of the world, his soil-colored eyes now the flat, dead brown of fallow fields.
Juraj felt it all. He felt the lavender in Ina's field beginning to suffer, their vibrant purple fading to a bruised, watery hue, their stalks bending under the constant weight of the rain. He could feel the confusion of the bees, the sluggishness of the sap in the trees. The land was an extension of his will, and his will was currently a dirge.
He stood in the downpour in the center of her field, the cold rain plastering his dark hair to his forehead, soaking through his clothes. He made no move to shield himself. The physical discomfort was a welcome distraction from the agony in his soul. He looked at the wilting plants, the symbols of her life's work, and saw a reflection of his own state. He was withering without her. He had poured his essence into this land for her, and now, in his despair, he was poisoning it.
He had tried to hold onto hope, the way a stubborn root holds onto frozen ground. But with each passing day, the cold certainty grew: he had terrified her. He had shown her the truth of his nature, and the fragile, beautiful mortal heart he loved had shattered under the weight of it. Vida's warnings echoed in his mind, no longer as a caution, but as a prophecy fulfilled. It always ends in tragedy.
In Dubrovnik, Ina was surrounded by a different kind of cold. It was the cold of anonymity, of being a single face in a thousand-strong river of tourists that flowed endlessly down the Stradun. The sun shone here, baking the white limestone streets, but she felt no warmth. The laughter and chatter in a dozen languages were just noise, a cacophony that highlighted her profound isolation.
She had tried to lose herself in the city's solid, human history. She walked the walls until her feet ached, tracing the grooves worn by centuries of soldiers and citizens. She visited churches and palaces, staring at altarpieces and tapestries without seeing them. She sat in crowded cafés, watching couples hold hands, families bicker, friends toast to their holidays, and felt a yawning chasm open up inside her.
The fear that had driven her here was still present, a low, background hum. But it was no longer the dominant note. The initial, primal terror of the divine had subsided, and in its place grew a much deeper, more personal dread.
It was the fear of loss.
She missed him. It was a physical ache, a constant, hollow yearning that made the lavish meals she forced down taste like ash and the beautiful vistas look like painted backdrops. She missed the sound of his voice, the way he said her name. She missed the feeling of his hand in hers. She missed the way he looked at her, as if she were the center of the universe.
And in the quiet of her rented room, away from the prying eyes of the world, she was forced to confront the real source of her terror. It wasn't his power. It wasn't the fact that he was a god.
It was the crushing, unbearable unworthiness.
What was she, Ina Marović, a simple woman who sold lavender sachets, to a being who could make the world bloom with a thought? Her life was a single, brief season. She would age, she would weaken, her beauty would fade. She was a mayfly dancing in the sun, while he was the sun itself. His love felt more real, more substantial, than anything in her mortal life, but how could it last? How could he look at her in fifty years, when she was old and grey, and still see the woman he loved? The love she felt for him was the defining truth of her existence, but to him, would it not eventually become a memory, a poignant, fleeting chapter in his eternal story?
The thought of him witnessing her decay, of his immortal love becoming a burden, a duty, a pity… that was the true horror. She was not afraid of his divinity; she was afraid of her own mortality.
On the third day, watching the sunset paint the walls of Dubrovnik in a spectacular show of oranges and purples, she made a decision. Fleeing had been an act of fear. Staying away was an act of cowardice. If this was to be her one, glorious, impossible season with him, then she would not spend it hiding. She would rather have a single, sun-drenched hour in his arms than a lifetime of grey, safe solitude.
She would go back. Not to the man she thought he was, but to the god he was. She would offer him her fragile, human heart, for as long as it could beat for him.
The ferry ride back to Korčula felt longer than her flight. The familiar silhouette of the island, with its bell tower and red roofs, should have felt like a homecoming. Instead, it felt like stepping onto a stage for a performance for which she didn't know the lines. The unseasonable chill that hung over the island was the first thing she noticed. It was as if a piece of her own internal winter had leaked out and infected her home.
She went straight to her cottage, her heart pounding. It was empty, cold, and silent. Mačka meowed plaintively, weaving around her ankles, clearly unhappy with the prolonged absence and the strange, gloomy weather. Ina dropped her bag and walked through the quiet rooms, her footsteps echoing. It felt like a tomb.
Then she went to the back door and looked out at her garden.
Her breath caught in her throat. The miraculous, terrifying jungle Juraj had created was gone. In its place was a sad, waterlogged patch of earth. The plants were there, but they were struggling. The oversized vegetables had rotted on the vine. The glorious roses were brown and drooping, their petals scattered on the mud. And her lavender field… her heart broke.
The field, her pride and joy, was beginning to wilt. The plants were listless, their famous color muted, their stems bending as if in defeat. The constant rain and lack of sun were taking their toll. But she knew, with a certainty that went beyond horticulture, that this was not just the weather. This was him. His despair was killing the very thing she loved.
Without a second thought, she ran. She ran out of the cottage and into the field, the cold rain immediately soaking her hair and dress. And there he was.
Juraj was standing in the middle of her rows, his back to her, his head bowed. He was so still he might have been another one of the island's ancient stones. He looked… diminished. The powerful aura that usually vibrated around him was gone, replaced by a palpable aura of desolation. He was the source of the island's unnatural winter, and he was its greatest victim.
He must have heard her approach, or felt the disturbance in the air her presence always caused. He turned slowly.
The sight of his face was a physical blow. The vibrant, life-giving light in his eyes was extinguished. His features were drawn, etched with a pain so profound it seemed to have aged him. He looked at her not with hope, but with a resigned, weary sorrow, as if her return was just another form of punishment.
They stood in the rain, ten paces apart, the wilting lavender a sea of sorrow between them.
"Ina," he said, her name a broken whisper on the wind.
All the speeches she had rehearsed on the ferry vanished from her mind. There were no grand words, no philosophical arguments about mortality and divinity. There was only the raw, unvarnished truth of her heart.
She took a step forward, then another, her boots sinking into the soft, wet earth. She stopped before him, close enough to see the rain droplets caught in his dark lashes, to see the absolute devastation in his eyes.
"I don't care what you are," she whispered, her voice trembling but clear, carrying over the patter of the rain.
He flinched as if she had struck him, his eyes widening in shock.
She reached out, her hand shaking, and placed it flat against his chest, over his heart. The contact was like a spark on tinder. She felt a jolt, and she saw his entire body shudder in response.
"I love you," she said, the words simple, final, and utterly fearless.
A sound, half-groan, half-sob, escaped him. He covered her hand with his own, his grip desperate. "Ina…"
"But I am just… human," she continued, the tears now mixing with the rain on her face. She looked down, unable to bear the intensity in his eyes. "I am fleeting. I will grow old. I will… I will leave you. I am not worthy of your love. How can I be? How can my little life be enough for an eternity?"
This was the core of it. The confession of her unworthiness was the greatest vulnerability she had ever shown him, greater than offering him her body.
Juraj's other hand came up to cradle her face, his thumb stroking away the tears and rain. His touch was infinitely gentle, but his voice, when he spoke, was fierce, a low rumble of divine conviction.
"You are wrong," he said, his eyes blazing with a rekindled fire. "You look and you see a flicker. I look and I see the most brilliant star in the heavens. Do you think eternity is a gift? It is a sentence of sameness. You… you are the miracle, Ina. Your life, precisely because it is brief, is a concentrated fire of beauty and meaning that puts my endless years to shame. Your courage in loving me, knowing what I am, is a power greater than any I possess."
He leaned his forehead against hers, his breath warm on her cold skin. "You are not unworthy of my love. I am unworthy of yours. You, a mortal, brave enough to love a god. You are the worthiest thing in all my endless existence."
The words washed over her, healing the deep, festering wound of her fear. He did not see her as a temporary diversion. He saw her as the center of his eternity.
As he spoke, a miraculous thing happened. The cold, dreary drizzle began to slow, then stopped. A single, brilliant beam of sunlight broke through the thick blanket of clouds, illuminating the two of them standing in the lavender field. Then another, and another, until the entire field was bathed in warm, golden light.
The effect on the plants was instantaneous. The drooping lavender stalks seemed to straighten, lifting their heads to the sun. The vibrant purple hue began to return, deepening before her eyes. The very air warmed, the oppressive gloom lifting as if it had never been.
Juraj smiled, a true, radiant smile that reached his eyes for the first time since her return. "You see?" he murmured. "You are my spring. You are the only rebirth I will ever need."
Ina let out a choked laugh of pure joy and relief, throwing her arms around his neck. He caught her, holding her so tightly she could feel the frantic, joyful beating of his heart against hers. The god of spring had returned, and his winter was over. She was home.