I thought at first that I’d succeeded in summoning my memory of Taran to comfort me at the end, because it was impossible that he would actually be here: I’d taken both horses, then rushed after the priests by a route that left no trail on the stone. But the Fallen heard him too, and they paused their chanting of the sacrificial rite to confront a second intruder.
Taran skidded into the firelight, panting so hard that the cords of his neck pulled with every breath, sweat gluing his tunic to his chest and his filthy hair to his cheekbones. One hand clutched a bare sword and the other a stone knife, but he’d come alone and unarmored.
Oh, you idiot. You didn’t think either of us would survive this—why did you follow me down here?
He didn’t know a tenth of the blessings I did, and they wouldn’t work anyway. Marit had said he was really just a Fallen, just theyoungest bastard child of the Peace-Queen, and he was outnumbered more than seven to one.
He shouldn’t have come. He knew better, and he should have spent the rest of his eternal life wondering what happened to me instead of coming here just to die too. I twisted enough to hit the goat-like Fallen in the chin with the back of my head, winning a few seconds to yell for Taran to run, because I didn’t have time to sayI’m sorryorI love you. Even from a distance, I caught the emerald gleam of his eyes as they locked on mine.
The Fallen raised his arm, knife in hand, not even bothering with the final words of the rite in his haste to dispatch me.
I thought the last thing I’d ever hear was Taran screamingno, but the wordless crash that swept through the cavern in the next second was louder than any voice, flooding the cavern with a flash of green light like a ball of lightning striking a tree. Reality wavered, vibrated, and then swept away the cloying press of memories. My eyes flooded and blurred, but the echoes of the shockwave reverberated in my soul more than in my ringing ears.
Whatever had just happened stunned the Fallen into stillness too, but for a moment, I couldn’t discern any real effects. Taran slumped to his knees, chest heaving like his breath had been knocked out of him, but everyone else kept to their feet. What had he done?
Awkwardly, as though walking on unfamiliar limbs, one of the enslaved dead who had dragged me to the altar left her position by the bonfire and stumbled toward us, her form wavering between green and a peace-priest’s saffron. Before the Fallen could recover from the flash of light and slit my throat, the little dusk-soul shouted a high-pitched curse and drove her spear through his gut.
29
The way Taranmoved with a blade in his hand had been beautiful in the courtyard. When it was for show, he turned like a dancer. Here, in the hot, dripping seconds after the dead turned on their handlers, the arcs of his blade were ugly and effective. Short, rough motions that caught the Fallen at the joints of their arms and necks. Faster movements than my eye could follow, but I could see the clench of his jaw from the distance of the altar, because he might have known he could do this, but he didn’t remember it, and he had to blindly trust that he knew how to block the grasping claws of Fallen whose lives depended on taking his first.
They might have succeeded, teeth and talons against one man with a sword, but for the assistance of the dusk-souls, who were inexpert with their spears but screaming with fury at their captors. Several had thrown down their weapons and fled, but most stayed, and they threw themselves at the Fallen. The Fallen had lost all control of the dead, and the dead were just as invulnerable to immortal struggle as mortal blows. Every half-immortal abomination went down in a pincushion of thrusts, spears carving through red robes. Gold and crimson blood splashed the bare stone of theUnderworld, thick enough to run into puddles, long after the Fallen quit moving.
Every ounce of fight had fled my body. I clung to the altar I’d nearly died on for balance, breath whistling raggedly through my teeth as I tracked Taran’s blade. The carnage didn’t end even after the last Fallen had dropped to the cavern floor; Taran strode among the bodies and methodically decapitated each one, his shoulders straining from the effort until he was splattered up to the waist with gore. It took a long time. Multiple blows. The violence of it pulled my mind to the breaking point.
I didn’t react when Taran viciously kicked the head of the Fallen who had nearly slit my throat to the side, or even when he climbed the stairs to the altar to stand in front of me, face incandescent with rage and chest still heaving with exhaustion. He looked like he’d spent the time it had taken him to run here composing a few really devastating observations about my folly, but when I didn’t move or lift my eyes above the level of his blood-spattered hands, his first question was almost gentle.
“Are you hurt?” he asked again.
If he’d yelled at me instead, I might have slipped deeper into shock, but his question was like permission for something I’d often longed to do and never indulged in. I threw my arms around his waist and fell apart. I gave up all self-control and sobbed into his neck, letting myself go completely limp against him. Nobody was depending on me now. It didn’t matter if anyone saw through me to the bottomless fear inside. I cried out all the tears and terror I’d stifled for years, clinging to the safety of Taran’s strength.
He was as surprised as I was by my reaction, but after one stiff second with my messy face pressed into his throat, he groaned and wrapped his arms around me until my bones creaked, anger warring with relief in his touch. His bloody hands caught in my hairand pulled as they tightened, and the small pain did more to reassure me that I was still alive than any words would have.
He kissed my temple, the part of my hair, whatever he could reach, and I cried harder.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I panted through sobs, eyes scrunched shut against perceiving any reality that wasn’t Taran, impossibly here.
He pushed me back far enough to grip my shoulders in his hands, but I hung my head, unable to face him.
“You’re not sorry! Isn’t this what you wanted? If you’re sorry, why do you keep doing this to me?”
“They didn’t have anyone else,” I said, weakly defending myself.
“I don’t have anyone else! Was the idea of a life with me so terrifying that you couldn’t wait a single hour before throwing yours away?”
“I would have done the same thing for you—”
“I don’t want you to do the same thing for me,” he said, really yelling now. “Domorefor me.Livefor me. I would let the entire fucking City and everyone in it fall into the sea before I risked losing you. Do you understand?”
“I know,” I sobbed.
“Do you? What did you think would happen if you died down here? Did you think I’d take over your war against Death? Did you think I’d stop the other Stoneborn from subduing the entire mortal world? I wouldn’t. I don’t care if anyone survives, if you don’t.”
I tried to rub thick tears off my face enough to see him, but the entire world was distorted. “You don’t mean that,” I said, voice shaking.
Taran leaned back in, fingers tense on my arms.
“Act like I do,” he said, precise words as sharp as a vow and eyes as hard as emeralds.
