Chapter 19 #2
When Taran rolled over and tugged me down beside him, I draped myself over his chest and stroked his face and hair with my hands, reassuring myself that every precious line of him was fixed.
I nestled into the length of his body and matched my heartbeat to his.
When he tilted his head back to kiss me, my nose rubbed into his cheek as our lips and tongues met, and it felt natural, despite the novel press of his naked body against my clothed one.
I’d held him just like this before, because this was nothing but care to me. Gentle. Intimate.
I’d only pulled away to take a breath, not stop, when the expression on his face surprised me. It had harder edges than I’d expected, knowing and a little sad, even as he traced the curve of my mouth with a fingertip.
It bruised my own heart when I understood—he’d been trying to coax me back into his arms for weeks, and this was how he finally got me there.
“Oh, no, Taran. No. This isn’t how you get this,” I said, withdrawing far enough to frame his face with my hands.
I couldn’t let him think he could buy me with his hurt any more than I could be bought with gifts.
“Don’t ever do something like this again, do you understand me?
” I tapped his collarbone, right where the Huntress had sliced into him.
“I will call down Wesha’s blessing of night, or I will help you fight our way out, or I will just die, but I will never want you hurt on my account. ”
I said that because I couldn’t say sometimes I think I still love you, you terrible lying bastard, please be more careful with yourself.
The glittering wariness in his face held for three more heartbeats before dissolving in pained confusion. Taran sat up and pulled on his trousers in silence, then drew his stained cloak over his unbroken skin.
“You only get one mortal life,” he eventually said. “And I’m one of the Stoneborn. What am I immortal for, if not for this? Don’t think too much about it. Tomorrow it will be like it never even happened.”
“Tomorrow it will still have happened,” I said, recovering a bit of my anger. “You should have let me kill her.”
Taran huffed out a small laugh. “It is really interesting to me that you thought that was an option, but let me remind you that killing the Stoneborn is strictly not allowed.”
“Says who? The Allmother? She didn’t do anything when you died, when Death died, when Smenos was murdered! If there are no consequences for doing something, then it is allowed.”
The Allmother’s laws protected men as well as immortals, and I’d yet to see anyone ask the Stoneborn to answer for a single dead priest. Laws that were never enforced were no laws at all, as far as I was concerned.
“Believe me, there would have been consequences if my priestess killed the Huntress in her own house.”
“Only if anyone found out we did it,” I said, giving Taran a serious look.
Taran shook his head in amazement. “Were all maiden-priests this bloodthirsty?”
I shrugged, managing to find the humor in my proposal to eliminate any witnesses when Taran pulled out one corner of his mouth in a crooked smile. “Surgeons, you know…”
Taran laughed and reached for me, and this time he kissed me more deeply. Possessive, with an intentional graze of teeth against my lower lip. “I probably shouldn’t find that so attractive,” he said, knocking a knuckle against my chin. “Seems likely to get me into trouble.”
Always did, I thought, but this time it made me smile too.
Taran looked ready to settle in the bed and rest for a while, but I cocked my head at the door apologetically.
“While we’re on that subject, I set fire to Smenos’s workshops before I came in here looking for you. We should probably leave before they put it out.”
Blinking, Taran tipped his head back in dismay. “Remind me not to leave you to your own devices ever again.”
I nodded. That would be fine with me.
He got to his feet, experimentally stretching his arms and checking his range of motion.
When he found it all satisfactory, he shot me a sidelong glance.
“If you’re trying to convince me I should let you go, you’re not doing a very good job at it.
You’re making yourself both dangerous and precious to me. ”
“The point is not to get away from you. You should come with me. The mortal world, the rebellion…you’d understand what happened if you came back.”
“It would be a little crowded on the ship, don’t you think? You, me, your mortal lover, fresh from Wesha’s clutches?”
If I thought that question had anything to do with our next destination and not his claim on my loyalty, I would have told him everything. Or almost everything.
Good news, Taran! If you’ll give up this nonsense about eternal service, I’ll stop looking for my betrothed and row you to Lubridium myself.
You may hear a few surprising things about me once we get there, but please remember that I was very understanding, all things considered, when you tried to make me worship you. In five years we’ll laugh about this.
I winced and tucked my hands into my chest, because Taran was probably not in the mood to see the irony at this exact moment.
“Come anyway? We were betrothed for almost two years, but we never married, and after all that’s happened, I wonder if there was a reason for that,” I confessed, giving voice to my secret fear. He probably hadn’t thought we would both live when he proposed.
“You mean after you’ve sailed the Sea of Dreams, bargained with Wesha, and upended my life, you’re not sure this dead idiot would want to marry you?”
I nodded unhappily.
“Then you’re well rid of him, plum tree or no,” said Taran, looking pleased with the theory.
Through great effort, I kept my face straight at that announcement.
I drew breath to chant the opening notes of Lixnea’s shroud as I headed for the door, only to feel another twinge of disquiet in my stomach, the opening salvo of one of my vows.
Which one? I had Taran, and I had not abandoned my efforts to get him to the Painted Tower.
“We’ll get Marit, and we’ll leave before the others find us,” I said, trying to reassure myself, but it didn’t work.
I turned, following the pull in my chest. Not toward Taran.
“Awi,” I realized. “Have you seen Awi?”
“The bird? Not since we arrived.”
I hadn’t seen any lesser immortals in the entire complex, even though Smenos and Wirrea should have had retainers and children filling up the palace. They would have had no reason to desert the Shipwright upon his death, unlike the priests he let his wife prey upon.
Had the little bird gone looking for them?
My vow dug its claws into my stomach like a cat kneading bare skin.
“I can’t leave without her,” I said, breath still coming fast. “I need to find her before we leave.” There was some relief in forming the intention, but the twist in my chest still thought there was some risk that my vow to bring her to the mortal world would go unfulfilled.
“Perhaps we need to consider ways of getting you out of your vow to the bird goddess before we work on your obligations to Wesha,” Taran said, eyes darkening, but he reluctantly followed me out of the room, and together we began to sweep the empty halls for any sign of life.