Chapter 22
Taran had so many reasons to be angry about my short but eventful tenure in his immortal life that I had to wait for him to explain which of my sins we were going to discuss first. His tangled hair nearly brushed my face, and I deliriously wondered whether he’d be open to having this conversation in a different position, because I was too tired to fight back and his eyelashes were distracting.
“You’ve been remarkably untruthful for someone who can’t lie to me,” Taran said in a low, furious rumble.
At this accurate but somewhat irrelevant accusation, I exhaled, letting my head tip back and my gaze drift to the ceiling in pure wonder.
With my unparalleled talent for disaster, I’d managed to get Taran tortured, his only friend killed, and a second great war in the Summerlands started—just today!
Gods were dead! He was barefoot and bleeding in the wilderness.
But no, what he was really exercised about was that I had kept things from him.
I teetered on the edge of breaking into hysterical giggles. I’d lived under the axe of my secrets and the prospect of it falling felt like relief. Was that all? A few lies of omission?
Sorry, Taran, sometimes the people you love will disappoint you. Life is complicated.
“You lie all the time,” I pointed out. “And I try not to hold it against you.”
His eyes widened in outrage. “I am not a mortal dependent on the gods’ mercy.”
“I’m a mortal you’ve basically kidnapped and attempted to force into eternal servitude,” I said, giddy at the opportunity to speak my mind.
“You—” He made an incoherent noise of frustration and shook his head. “We are going to address the things you’ve done. Your little blessing that opens locks. Where did you learn it? Tell the full truth this time.”
“I already told you,” I said peacefully. “I learned it from the man I was going to marry, and I don’t know which god it invokes.”
Taran put the knife down, out of my reach, and tapped his chest. “I’m the god it invokes, darling.”
I blinked in mild surprise while Taran carefully watched my reaction.
“Oh, interesting,” I said, because he seemed to want my feedback, but my mind was so unmoored that I couldn’t make my thoughts travel in a straight line.
I had wondered whether he had any area of patronage, and this one made sense in light of his very casual relationship with property ownership.
“Well, it’s hardly as dramatic as hurling lightning bolts, but I suppose it comes in handy more frequently?
” I suggested when Taran kept waiting for a response.
“Yes, please do spare my ego now, of all things. Think a little harder.”
I tried to understand what he was saying. “It makes you the god of thieves?”
“If I had a little less mortal blood, I would be,” he said, face still tight and expectant.
“Or had any worshippers. Which I don’t. Because before I left for the mortal world, everyone thought I was nothing but one of the Fallen.
I never taught anyone a blessing to invoke my power—at least not here. ”
“So, that’s why you were surprised,” I said, realizing where he was going with this line of inquiry. I was ready to get there. I’d hear his plan to lie, charm, and seduce his way into the mortal rebellion. I’d finally get some answers too. What he’d really wanted with me.
“That betrothed of yours,” Taran said, and my pulse began to race in anticipation. “The one who taught you my blessing.”
“Yes,” I said eagerly.
“Someone willing to turn the blessings of the gods to his own purposes. Someone who didn’t hesitate to steal a priestess away from the Maiden. Someone you sailed all the way to the Painted Tower for.”
“Yes,” I said again, allowing myself to adore the elegant lines of his face. Beautiful, even in a rage. Taran’s full mouth tilted with grim satisfaction at having put the clues together at last. Here it was—the true story of the two of us.
“Your betrothed joined the mortal rebellion, didn’t he? That’s how I knew him.”
His conclusion was so inadequate that I felt like I’d missed a stair step. A laugh rattled up through my throat, then another. I wheezed. It convulsed in the back of my throat. I couldn’t breathe.
“Do you not realize we are discussing whether I ought to execute you for blasphemy right now?” Taran demanded, face going outraged. “You were almost a maiden-priest, and you were going to marry someone in active rebellion against the gods?”
I laughed harder, tears beginning to leak out of the corners of my eyes. Everything was right there, but he still couldn’t see me through this ridiculous image he had of me on my knees, Wesha’s devoted priestess.
I pulled one of my hands out of his grip and put it against his cheek, replacing it despite his snarl and attempt to move away.
“Taran, my love, my heart, my beloved two-faced lying bastard, I led the mortal rebellion.”
If he’d been paying attention, he could have figured that out by now. I didn’t have a lot of practice in deceit, and I’d covered my tracks poorly.
“You?”
That was enough to make him fully release me and sit back in appalled dismay. He stared at me as though I’d just transformed like a Stoneborn in battle.
“Yes! What did you think I did after Death murdered the rest of my temple?” I asked, fatigue making me snippy. “Cry alone while my country burned down? No. I took my kithara and my knife and I started killing death-priests. I started the rebellion. I led it. You knew me.”
“You led an army against the gods,” he said, horror and amazement warring on his features.
I didn’t think at this point that he mistook my reasons but merely doubted my capability. Which was insulting.
“I’ve told you enough to explain what happened. All the priests had fled, the gods were silent, and the queen wanted revenge for her sacrificed child. I organized the acolytes who were left behind and started fighting back against Death. In the end, he died and we won.”
Taran’s chest heaved, and the bare muscles of his arms tightened as he considered the knife on the floor. His expression was stricken with the same betrayal I’d felt on the day I discovered who he really was.
“Was it you?” he asked, voice dull.
“Me what?”
“Is that why you were so surprised to see me alive? Did you kill us both? Me and Napeth?”
Oh, that made my heart ache, despite everything.
“Me? Maiden’s mercy, Taran, no. Death killed you. You killed him. That’s how the war ended.”
“You’re lying,” Taran said, appalled. “How are you lying? Why would I attack Death, when I was sent to put down the mortal rebellion?”
“You expect me to know? You never told me! You strolled into our camp a month after the rebellion started and offered to help me. I thought you were mortal! The last I saw of you before Wesha dropped me here was when you went to confront Death with my knife in your hand, because the queen’s army was trapped against a line of his fires.
You didn’t put down the mortal rebellion, you fought in it. ”
Taran wildly shook his head. “No. That’s not possible.” Face darkening, he snatched my knife back up, looming over me. “Killing Death would just return him to the Summerlands, where I live. Turning the mortals against the gods would destroy both worlds. I wouldn’t do that!”
“You’re that certain? That you would never care about what had been done to us? Even if you could see us starving, dying, chased by death-priests. You don’t think there’s any chance you just…changed your mind?”
“If I’d changed my mind, it would be changed. And I know I wouldn’t do that.”
“You never did a single thing to stop me from putting every death-priest in the country to the sword, nor the queen from tearing down the temples. What did you possibly want, if not to help us? You cared about us. I know you did.”
I’d raised my head to talk to him, but Taran prowled over to me, on his hands and knees, knife still caught in his fist.
“Even if you’re lying, if anyone here thought there was a chance you were telling the truth, I would be…buried alive, probably. Entombed in stone forever. For encouraging rebellion against the gods. For spilling the blood of another Stoneborn.”
“You killed Marit,” I pointed out, trying to scoot away.
“Which everyone wanted me to do, and Skyfather still hung me by my wrists at the entrance of the grand arena for a week to pacify the Allmother. You saw what she did to Napeth just now. For this, nobody would forgive me. Ever. Putting down the mortal rebellion was my chance to be free of what I did when I stole the knives. Killing Death would be—” His eyes were hard and glittering.
“You are going to vow to never speak of this again. You are going to vow to forget this vendetta against Death entirely.”
I firmed my mouth. “No.”
“I don’t think you understand. If you want to live until dawn, you are going to make that vow.”
I curled my hands into fists and pushed up on my elbows until we were nearly nose to nose. “I’m not making any more vows to you.”
“A few hours ago you were willing to spend a thousand years naked and feeding me grapes just to get a bunch of wretched crafter-priests and immortals you’ve never met out of Smenos’s dungeon,” Taran said incredulously. “Now you won’t make a vow that will save both our lives?”
“You aren’t even offering me anything in exchange.” He’d had three years to kill me; if he couldn’t bring himself to do it then, he wouldn’t do it now.
“You’re trying to extract something for yourself? Do you have a death wish?”
“Honestly? Maybe?” I was fizzy and intoxicated from the relief of being able to talk about it with him. “That would explain a lot, wouldn’t it?”
The laugh that came out of his nose sounded like it hurt.