Chapter 17
I wrapped the thick, silver cloak Taran had given me during my first full day in the Summerlands around my body, but I was still shivering.
The high ceilings of the stone room swallowed up light and heat, and no amount of fur rugs or tacky murals of hunting scenes could soften it.
Taran offered to kindle a fire in the enormous red granite hearth that dominated one wall of the room we’d been assigned, but when I flinched, he lit a single lamp and left me to dress for dinner.
Wirrea’s decorating scheme drew heavily on the trophies of her kills, and the taxidermied heads of several fantastical creatures—one with two blunt horns on its head, the face of an antelope, and the long neck of a snake—gazed down on me in glass-eyed stupor.
Even if we all survived dinner, there was no chance I would be able to sleep in this room.
Actually, there were several reasons I would not be sleeping in this room.
At the house of the Moon, I’d slept in the priests’ barracks, but when I inquired as to sleeping arrangements here, the craggy old hunt-priest who’d led us in just pointed to the woven leather mat in front of the single, enormous bed.
In case Taran needed anything in the night, like a drink of water, or an orgasm.
I couldn’t even distract myself with that idea, though I tried hard. My thoughts bounced and spun in my skull without escape.
Taran rapped the open door to announce himself.
“Are you ready?”
Taran had gone very quiet when Wirrea announced the presence of the reborn god of the Underworld, but I doubted that anyone who didn’t know him as well as I had would have seen that he was rattled at all.
“Not yet,” I said, one hand still holding my cloak shut at my neck. “When we came in, did you happen to see whether there are any other doors on the ground level besides the main gates?”
“I didn’t notice. Are you wearing the dress I laid out for you?”
I hadn’t noticed either, which was careless of me. I hadn’t survived this long without being aware of the exits.
“You forgot to pack whatever goes under it,” I said, briskly answering his question.
Taran’s lips curled with amusement, but I couldn’t spare any outrage upon confirming that nothing went under the filmy bodice of the dress except me.
There was only one narrow window in the room, and I opened the shutter and peered out into the courtyard, where the waning light had turned the red stone to the color of embers.
The ornate face of the palace might offer enough purchase for hands and feet if we had to climb out, but we’d be totally exposed during our descent.
“Come see if your shoulders will even fit through here,” I said, gesturing for Taran to try.
“My shoulders? Why am I climbing out the window?”
“Only if the main exit is blocked.”
Instead of confirming the feasibility of an escape from the second floor, Taran crossed his arms and leaned against the wall, eyes narrowing.
“Are you scared?” he asked, sounding surprised.
“Yes, of course I’m scared.” I was surprised to have to say it.
“What are you afraid of?”
I gave a small laugh. “I’ve been scared for the last three years straight, ever since every other maiden-priest was incinerated by Death. Why aren’t you afraid?”
“It’s just a dinner.”
And it had just been the midsummer solstice rites. It had just been a stormy day in Ereban. It had just been a few remaining death-priests and their loyalists.
“I know,” I said slowly, tapping the window frame. “Please, I’d feel better if I knew there was another exit.”
Taran humored me by kneeling in front of the window. It was too narrow even when he turned to the side, which meant Marit probably couldn’t fit through it either.
“Do you want to leave?” Taran asked when I bit into the side of my cheek in worry.
“Right now?”
“Sure. I’ll have Marit get the horses.” His face was utterly serious.
“We can’t just leave. We don’t know anything yet.”
“We absolutely can. There’s a benefit to having a reputation like mine—I’ll explain that I forgot that I previously arranged a threesome back in the City, and we’ll just go. Nobody will think anything of it.”
When I forced a laugh, Taran got to his feet and covered my hand on the window frame with his own.
“I don’t want you to be afraid,” he said, voice intent. “You don’t have to come tonight.”
“I can’t let being afraid stop me from doing anything, or I’ll never do anything again. I just…want to be ready.” I took a deep breath. “So, what’s the plan?”
“The plan? We’ll have what is sure to be an awkward dinner, during which you are likely to hear many unkind words about the Maiden, but you shall be your typical model of tact until we go home. That’s the plan.”
I snorted at that blithe assessment of the risks.
“Taran, the Shipwright was just murdered by the Maiden, and now he’s brought the Lord of the Noonday Heat to his home, probably to help him plot revenge. Aren’t you worried what they might do?”
“No,” he said firmly. “Because we are not going to get between Death and the Maiden.”
I closed my eyes, fighting back the memory of the roof collapsing over my head at Ereban. The blast that took Taran’s life on the beach.
“The entire world is between the two of them.”
Taran’s hand lifted from mine, but I didn’t open my eyes until he brushed a strand of hair away from my cheek.
He was uncharacteristically solemn, but if anything, he was calmer.
“Don’t be afraid. You should realize that what happened to you was Wesha’s fault. She locked her husband away from his family, his power, and his home for three hundred years, and all the mortals were trapped in there with him. But that’s over now.”
I didn’t believe that. Not after what I’d seen.
“I was at Ereban three years ago. About to take my vows when…the riots started.” When I started the first riot.
“The other maiden-priests weren’t any threat to Death.
He killed them out of spite. He just lifted one hand”—I waved mine, to show Taran the gesture that had forever changed my life—“and they were gone. In one second. Everyone I knew. There wasn’t enough left of them after the fires burned out to fill a single funeral boat. ”
Taran leaned in, sympathetic but undeterred. “Wesha abandoned her priests, hung you out to answer for her sins. She practically fed you to Death. I would never do that to you.”
I took a deep breath. That wasn’t what I was worried about. But it made me feel better to hear it.
He didn’t even know he was doing it, but it felt like Taran was still keeping his promises to me. He said he’d finish this.
I nodded tightly, and Taran wrapped his arms around me, over the cloak, to brush a kiss against my temple. I leaned into the warm solidity of his body, anchoring myself in his embrace and listening to his breathing until my heart slowed.
“Now, are you ready?” he asked again.
I put my hand on the ties of my cloak, hesitating to take it off.
“I understand the point of the dress, but I look ridiculous.”
Long before we even left the City, I’d explained my feelings about appropriate clothing to Taran, and he’d nodded thoughtfully.
The resulting dress had a wide, black band at the waist, one thick enough to conceal two sheathed knives.
And while the skirt was slit all the way up to my hips, the opaque panels of black hammered silk overlapped enough to cover my legs.
The problem was the bodice, which theoretically covered me from collarbones to wrist—with a gold mesh so thin and fragile that not only the shape but the color of my nipples was visible through the transparent fabric.
“The point of the dress?” Taran lifted one eyebrow.
“So that I don’t look like a maiden-priest.”
Bracing myself, I let the cloak fall to the floor and fought the urge to hide. In response, Taran took a step away so that he could look me up and down with a broadening smile on his face. It lit his face up, made the dimples in his cheeks pop and his green eyes sparkle with warmth.
He used to tell me I was beautiful. Not from the beginning. Later. After he’d already told me that I was brave and clever and good. After I’d promised to marry him and after he’d promised to love me past the end of the world. You’re beautiful because I love you was what I’d heard.
His hands had never touched the places his eyes brushed now, but my body tingled all the same.
“No, that’s a good idea. And I’m glad nobody will recognize you,” Taran said, minutely shaking his head without looking away.
“But?”
“I just wanted to see you in that dress.” If anything, his smile grew wider until he nearly shone with suppressed laughter. I would have swatted him and thrown him out of the room to put on something more concealing, but his grin was so conspiratorial that I wanted to soak in it.
He didn’t have to say it. He was delighted with how I looked.
Taran opened drawers until he found a tray of cosmetics to offer me.
I would have just rubbed on a little rose salve, but he wet his thumb in his mouth and stuck it in a jar of powdered gold dust. He delicately wiped a little over each of my eyelids, then ran his thumb over the center of my lower lip, pulling it down until the inside of it caught on the salt of his skin.
I marked the contraction of his pupils where they hung on his thumb against my mouth.
“You look…” He shook his head again. “Like I imagined you would.”
My heart beat faster—not from fear anymore, but from the heated promise in his eyes. A different kind of promise, one not about life and death but about bodies and heat, my lips and his hands.
Someday I’d let him keep that one.
“Are you ready?” he asked again, leaving a smear of gold against my mouth when he finally pulled his hand away.
I nodded and squared my shoulders. Although I might as well be wearing nothing, I didn’t feel the chill anymore. I’d meet Death again, and this time Taran would be at my side. Perhaps everyone would survive this evening.
Taran paused just before we stepped into the hall and took in my resolute face.
“A hundred years from now, you won’t be afraid anymore,” he murmured. “I promise.”
He was too much a Stoneborn to be making that kind of reckless vow, but as it wound through me, as comforting and solid as the cloak I’d left behind, I couldn’t be anything but glad for it.