Chapter 26 #2
Everything about her was lushly rounded, from the perfect oval of her face to her curved body, obscured more by chains of gemstones and sprays of blossom than the wrap of raw gold silk over her breasts.
Flower vines grew up through the reeds like supplicating hands, and they twined slowly around her thighs as though offering a lover’s caress.
From time to time, Genna would reach down and stroke one of the blooming flowers, then pluck it and toss it aside.
Something about the gesture made my stomach hurt.
Genna’s idols portrayed her variously, depending more on the carver’s idea of beauty than any canon of her appearance.
A halo of black curls to one, burnished copper skin to another.
Perhaps everyone saw something different.
For myself, I couldn’t see a pinnacle of feminine beauty but only the immortal power of the Stoneborn.
A woman with golden hair—not gold like a very fair-skinned woman might have, but the gold of metal and stone—and violet eyes like gemstones.
For all of her peaceful surroundings, I reminded myself that Genna was born from the stone of the Mountain no less than Death, and she was just as dangerous.
It was hard to see any of her in Taran or in my memory of Wesha.
She didn’t look old enough to be their mother, for one thing, or perhaps it was that the lush sweetness of her pouting mouth and little folded hands wasn’t reflected in the lines of her two youngest children.
Taran was beautiful too, but his beauty was made up of the many hard, sharp edges to his face and shoulders, and the dark, shadowed sweep of his eyelashes owed nothing to Genna’s indulgent smile as we came to stand before her.
When we were a few feet away, Taran halted and bowed precisely at his waist. At first I copied him, but at Genna’s expectant stillness, I fell painfully onto my knees in the water and bent my head.
Genna wanted her petitioners low and wet, it seemed.
“My priestess, Iona, as you requested, Peace-Queen,” Taran said, pitching his voice very soft, perhaps hoping that nobody beyond Genna would hear him.
“Come a little closer, mortal girl, let me see you,” Genna said after a moment.
I wasn’t certain what the protocol was, but I wasn’t willing to crawl, so I got to my feet and walked to the edge of the dais of reeds, which put my head on the same level as Genna’s.
Her expression was contemplative but not very impressed as she looked me over.
Both Genna’s and Wesha’s cults recruited among the spare children of poor peasants, but I’d been told more than once that I lacked either the looks or the sweet nature to have been taken in by Genna’s temple, and I wondered if the goddess was coming to a similar conclusion.
“My son tells me you sing,” she said, and I jerked a little to hear her describe Taran that way. It shouldn’t have been surprising, but Taran rarely referred to the other Stoneborn by their familial relationships.
“I do,” I said after a beat.
“Beautifully,” Taran added from behind me.
Genna looked again at my hands and face, then she nodded with a little frown of dismissal. I took that as leave to back up, not stopping until I felt Taran’s fingers spread protectively against my waist.
I kept my expression neutral as Genna raised two fingers and beckoned at one of the priests to refill her goblet—made of iridescent stone, the same as Taran’s stolen knives.
I had a sudden rush of anger against her, for Taran’s sake and mine. Even if the other Stoneborn had emerged fully formed from the Mountain, Taran had been young once, like a mortal child. He’d deserved better, just as her priests did, as even Wesha had.
I would never have gotten on with my mother-in-law, Taran. No wonder there was no mention of inviting her to the wedding.
“Where were you trained?” she asked, drinking from her cup before pressing it directly back into her priest’s hands.
“At Wesha’s temple, goddess,” I said, not daring to look at Taran before answering. He’d told me not to lie; I hoped he knew what he was doing.
“Why didn’t you take your vows to her?”
“Death killed her priests. There was nobody left to administer my vows.”
“But he didn’t kill you?”
It took all my effort not to lick my lips. I was walking a very fine line. “Taran found me first. He protected some of the remaining acolytes of the other Stoneborn after your priests left.”
“My softhearted child,” Genna said of Taran, nodding slowly at my incomplete truth. “And so now you are his. I suppose there’s a little symmetry in that. Wesha’s last priest, his first.”
“Peace-Queen,” Taran said, clearing his throat. “You wanted to talk to her about whether your priests ought to return.”
Genna did not like being prompted, but she pursed her mouth only momentarily before continuing.
“I believe you are the last one to make the crossing. The last one who remembers it, anyway. Tell me of the state of the mortal world. Are they doing very poorly?”
“Yes, goddess,” I said, swallowing past my dry mouth. “When I left, we expected a famine soon. The rains did not come. The sailors’ nets were coming up empty. The herds had yet to recover from our sacrifices to Death.”
A few other immortals had begun to creep closer, shamelessly eavesdropping on my conversation with Genna. The goddess nodded again, hands still folded primly together.
“But if the mortals long for our blessings, why do they not sacrifice to us and beg our mercy?” she asked, softly concerned. “I hear only whispered prayers on the wind that brings the dust from their barren fields.”
“I—I think that many believe the gods have abandoned them,” I said slowly. “They prayed for peace and prosperity, but Death gave them only fire and destruction. Then your priests left and never returned. If they could see some sign of your care—”
I wasn’t certain when it was supposed to be my opportunity to plead my case, but I didn’t sense that Genna’s attention span was very long.
“My care is evident in the very existence of mortals on their soil,” Genna said, voice a little sharper.
Taran’s hand was stiff on my lower back. He was poised to excuse us if I said anything more, but if this was my only chance, I had to make it count.
“Why not try telling them?” I asked, attempting to sound meek. “Send your priests, send the mortal queen’s daughter home, and let them spread the message that the gods will still answer mortal prayers. That you still have the power to heal their world with your blessings.”
“I sent Taran to tell them,” Genna said, eyes narrowing at him.
“Sent me with a slightly different message,” he replied in a somewhat less deferential voice.
Genna frowned and rubbed her dainty fingers along the stem of a bloodred anemone, looking between the two of us.
“It has been a long, long time since the mortals have seen any god but Death,” Taran added. “They only knew you through your priests, who are now gone. Even their memories of your blessings diminish with every year.”
I didn’t dare give him a look of gratitude.
“I did my best to calm Diopater’s anger,” Genna said after a thoughtful pause.
“I did not believe the mortals had turned away from us out of spite, but out of a lack of understanding—I believed that they did not know how much they depend upon us for their lives. But I hear you say that time alone will not be enough to mend this divide. If they have forgotten us, we must remind them.”
My breath caught with the hope that she would agree to send back her priests. The mortal queen would not be pleased to see a challenge to her power land on her shores, but if she got her child back because of it—
If it wasn’t too late to prevent a famine—
If I could get the mortal priests out of the Summerlands before Death turned his sights on the City—
I was so absorbed with the prospect that for once, someone had seen reason, that I nearly missed Genna’s next words.
“We will go to the house of the Moon and discuss what is to be done about Wesha’s blockade,” Genna announced, standing up.
“This division has benefitted neither group. Both the Stoneborn and the mortals have forgotten the Allmother’s laws, and I will tolerate it no longer.
I will instruct both Wesha and the mortals, as needed, until I have restored peace across the entirety of the world.
Wesha must open the Gates, and I must cross the Sea of Dreams again. The world must be as it once was.”
“I’m not sure that you need to go that far,” I tried to say, but my words were lost in the applause of the other immortals standing nearby.
“Don’t argue, she’s made up her mind,” Taran muttered into my ear while the noise covered his words.
Flower vines slithered up Genna’s body to obscure her bare skin, then trailed behind her like a cloak as she stepped down into the water and delicately approached Taran to cup his cheek.
He pasted a worshipful smile on his face, one he had to have practiced in a mirror.
“Perhaps I expected too much of you, asking you to fix what Wesha had done all on your own. But only because we both had such high hopes for you,” Genna told him fondly.
“And it brings me joy to see you prosper. Mortal devotion has grown so rare, when it is all that makes the long years tolerable. I am glad you have a priest now, even if it leaves Wesha without a single one to her name.”
I frowned at Genna as Taran wrapped his arm more closely around me, no doubt feeling a little possessive in light of Genna’s description of my devotion as a thing that could be acquired like a horse or a cloak.
“Would you like to speak with Wesha before I do?” Genna offered.
“No, Peace-Queen.” His tone was icy, and a hint of honest sadness crossed Genna’s face in response.
“I suppose I can’t blame you. Wesha was a sweet little girl—I don’t know how she could have turned so cruel. After all the favor I gave her too.”
Taran stiffened as Genna continued her musings.
“Do you think, after the Allmother has reminded Napeth of the strength of her laws, that you ought to try speaking with him before he does something dramatic again? I sometimes wonder if I wronged him, all those years ago.”
How had Genna possibly wronged Death? Was she supposed to deliver a happy, grateful bride in exchange for the end of Death’s campaign of conquest? Punish Taran even harder for delivering the means for Wesha to defend herself?
The set of his features did not alter with Genna’s words, but I knew the lines of Taran’s body, and it was fury that further hardened them. He replied very carefully.
“No, Peace-Queen. If you really thought there was anything Death wanted to hear from me, I assume you would have commanded me to say it to him, all those years ago.”
She wouldn’t find any impertinence in his words, but Genna recognized the shift in Taran’s mood just as I did. I found myself holding my breath, hoping that she wouldn’t take offense. Her power filled the room, clogging my nose like the scent of her blooming palace.
She smiled and let the moment dissipate.
“You’re right, of course.”
Genna ran a last finger across Taran’s cheekbone in farewell, perilously close to his eye, and nodded that we could depart.
The prolonged soak in the cold water of Genna’s audience chamber meant that I was all but hopping one-legged by the time Taran and I emerged from the forest of columns.
As soon as we were outside, he whooped, swept me off my aching foot, and tossed me over his shoulder, jogging a few steps in what I supposed was pure relief that he’d gotten me out before I told Genna that she ought to be locked in a pit for abusing the trust of her son and her priests.
I pounded on his back with my fists until he pulled me forward into the easy sling of his arms.
“I don’t think that could have gone better,” he announced. “Nobody is dead, nothing is on fire—I even think she liked you. How should we celebrate? Wine? Song? I know—I’ll steal one of those roast pheasants you like, and you can sit on my knee while we eat it.”
When I curled my hands under my chin instead of teasing him back the way he clearly wanted, it wasn’t because I didn’t like the way he laughed while afraid. I’d always loved him for that, just as I’d loved him for trying, despite what must have been his own misgivings, to help us.
But I couldn’t move past the image of the Stoneborn walking mortal shores again. Reclaiming temples that had been turned to palaces, demanding tribute that had been promised to mortal rulers instead.
“What if I just made things worse?” I mumbled into Taran’s warm throat.
He readjusted his hold on me before answering, careful not to pull my hair as he braced for the long walk back to the palace he’d stolen from Wesha.
“Oh, darling, you can’t think like that.”
His tone was still light and affectionate, and it reassured me.
“Do you mean it will be a good thing if Genna returns to the mortal world? Or do you think Wesha will still hold the Gates shut no matter what Genna does next?”
“I have no idea. I just meant that it’s no use wondering after the fact whether you made things worse—perhaps you might try thinking about it before you attempt to dramatically alter the course of the world?”
And that stung, but he wasn’t wrong. He could have told me that several times over the last three years, probably should have. It made me clutch him tighter.
Hearing uncomfortable truths might not be as familiar as his strong arms keeping me safe, but it gave me some hope as he carried me home that it meant we’d both live this time.