Chapter 32 #2
“I shouldn’t have to ask now,” he said, bending down and retrieving my ring from the floor where my scarf was threaded through it.
“You already said yes. You agreed to marry me when you thought I was a nameless, penniless mortal. I could have died young and left you a widow, or fallen sick and made you nurse me. We might have been poor or barren or chased out of every town by religious loyalists, but you went ahead and promised me your entire life for the price of a stone house and a plum tree. Well, I can still provide those.” He looked at me steadily.
“Are you really saying you wouldn’t have said yes if you’d known who I was? ”
I looked at him helplessly, because who he was before he met me was the furthest thing from what was pulling us apart.
“It wouldn’t have changed anything. But Taran, it still doesn’t.
What do you think being married means? I’m yours.
I’m yours forever. I’ll love only you till the end of my life and past it, but you were going to marry Iona Night-Singer who led the mortal rebellion against the gods. You always knew that!”
He’d always known who I was. I had blood on my hands and a prayer for vengeance on my lips the day he met me. I wished he could explain what he’d thought we’d do when the war was over, but none of that would change what I needed to do.
Taran stared at my ring in his hand unblinking, as the ghost of the person I’d known haunted us both. Eventually, he knotted my scarf around it and handed it back to me.
“You don’t even know the half of it. You want to go to the Painted Tower? You want to be free of your vows? Fine, I’ll take you. Pack your things.”
I shook my head, not trusting this mood, whatever he was thinking, but he grimaced and snatched more clothes off the ground.
“That’s what you’ve been asking for, isn’t it? You don’t really want a ring, or a wedding. You want to stand between Death and the Maiden. But you don’t even know how you ended up in the middle.”
My lower lip trembled at the accusation. “That’s not true. Why do you think I’m here? I always chose you first. I don’t want to be free of you, I want you back.”
He rubbed his fist over his forehead, knuckles white. “You should at least know what you’re choosing. Go on. We’re leaving tonight.”
He batted away all other questions and any suggestion of waiting until morning, his mood so wild that I eyed the walls of the palace with worry as his power vibrated against it.
What could we do, anyway? Go to bed? Try to sleep?
Taran threw a few clothes into a pack and waited impatiently as I collected my belongings.
His face was stiff and impassive, but his shoulders jerked at what I packed and what I left.
I was abruptly attached to all of the fancy trinkets he’d pilfered for me, even if I knew there was no chance I’d ever need them.
It hurt to leave them behind and take only the things I’d arrived with. My white dresses. My ring.
I gritted my teeth and packed for him too. He was coming too. He was coming home with me, even though he turned away when I stuffed a winter cloak into a saddlebag.
The grass soaked my boots when we stepped into the silent evening.
It was too dark to see the Mountain, even with Lixnea’s silver chariot racing high in the evening sky, but Taran turned to mark a point on the horizon as though he could feel our destination.
He inclined his head toward the stables. “Can you ride tonight?”
I wondered whether he planned to carry me all the way there if I said no. Probably so.
“Are you fishing for compliments?” I asked.
He looked back so sharply that I couldn’t help but make a face at him. It was still Taran, after all, and he’d thrown me directly out of bed on this journey.
“It’s not funny.”
“It’s a little bit funny.” I said it with a hand over my heart. He should think it was funny, because Taran never stopped trying to make me laugh, even when we thought we were doomed.
His jaw clenched, and for just for a moment I saw the same well of grief and confusion I’d been swimming in for months reflected in his face. He smoothed it away and tried to turn, but I caught his arm.
“Taran,” I said softly, sliding my hand up his shoulder until I cupped his cheek, warm skin and breath against my fingers. “Just tell me, whatever it is. I’ll still love you.”
He searched my face, deciding whether to believe me.
He’ll forgive me, I told myself. Because I’d forgiven him. And whatever else he had to tell me, I’d forgive that too.
“Don’t make any more promises you can’t keep,” he said stiffly, and he strode off toward the stables.
The Mountain was all around the Summerlands.
Every road led to the Mountain, and the Painted Tower lay on the other side, on every side.
It was a hard two days’ ride up and down a trail that few people had ever traveled, with Taran stopping only when I asked to rest. The Painted Tower was visible as soon as we crossed the rim, a stark white line against the dark sea on the horizon.
The faint, glowing forms of dusk-souls were visible even at a distance when they disembarked on the shore, leaving their funeral boats behind.
Taran must have traveled this way before I met him, his freedom finally in sight after three hundred years subject to Genna’s will. And yet the first thing he’d done was bind himself to me, choose me, over and over, through death and rebirth and beyond.
Please, just once more. If you ever believed in me, believe in me now. And even if you didn’t, stay with me like you did then. Don’t make me sail back alone.
There were the ruins of stables behind the Painted Tower, surrounded by ages of uncleared scrub that had overgrown the gardens where none of the Stoneborn saw it or cared.
Taran tied our horses before looking up at the tower.
The one window did not face the Mountain, but I was abruptly certain that Wesha knew we were coming.
Light poured out of the open doorway, drawing us inside.
Taran paused at the threshold and extended his hand to me.
I thought he was seeking reassurance, and I gladly wove my fingers with his, but as soon as he set foot on the floor tiles, I was clutching his arm to stay upright.
My vow to Wesha was unraveling in my soul, the threads of it tearing away from my bones to leave me gasping for breath at the sudden hollows it left behind.
The ringing in my ears was so loud I nearly didn’t hear Taran’s shout up the staircase.
“Mother,” he called. “I’m back.”