“You—you said we were in love. You wanted to marry me. But we took vows? Betrothal vows?” he asked, eyes widening as he worked through it. “That’s my ring. All those things you said…”
The shift from shock to anger in his face when I nodded wasn’t entirely unexpected, but it still hit me hard. Taran backed away from me.
“You have been trying to leave me since the moment we met,” he accused me.
That was not what I’d expected him to be angry about.
“If I’d taken you to the Painted Tower the night I saved you from the Fallen, you would have left me here. You’ve tried to run away from me half a dozen times. When you’d already promised to be my wife? Did you ever mean it?” he demanded incredulously.
I blinked, jolted by the accusation. “Taran, youdied. And I was so convinced that I couldn’t live without you that I sailed across the Sea of Dreams to ask Wesha to give you back. I’m only here because I wanted to marry you.”
“Well, here I am!” he cried, arms spread. “I’ve been here the entire time. You can have me, every possible way you can have someone, until the end of time. Past it! What were you waiting for? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Five minutes after I got here, I found out you were only in the mortal world tokillme. Put down the mortal rebellion. Make us worship the Stoneborn you hate!”
“Which Idid not do, even though I could have. Instead, I did everything you wanted, up to and including dying for you. What would have been enough, Iona? Was there a single thing I didn’t do?”
I gripped my hands so hard together they cramped. “I didn’t think you were the same person I knew. If I’d even known you in the first place—you were a Stoneborn, instead of a runaway acolyte. You’re immortal! You have priests! I didn’t know what you could have possibly wanted with me.”
“So the second you found out I wasn’t exactly what you expected, you changed your mind about me,” he said bitterly.
“I didn’t change my mind,” I insisted, grabbing the sheet and trying to wrap it around myself, even though Taran and I didn’t seem to mind shouting at each other naked. “I’ve been trying to changeyours. You were looking for me? I’ve been looking for you!”
“Then you’ll keep your promises? Good. I always keep mine. Let’s go find a peace-priest. We can get married tonight,” he said, expression fierce.
I put a palm over my face, nearly laughing in dismay.
“You want to get married now? Right now?” I asked incredulously.
“I shouldn’t have toasknow,” 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 whoIwas. 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 whatIneeded 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 andthe 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 youback.”
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.
