I could forgive her for all of them, except for what she’d done to Taran.
“So you let your son suffer all the consequences alone? You know what Genna did to him.” I leaned in, accusing the goddess whose name was chanted by women in labor. She’d been alone all this time, but her choices were her own, and Taran didn’t even get that dignity.
“What was I supposed to do? I couldn’t keep him in this tower with me forever. He wouldn’t escape to the mortal world.”
“I was ten!” Taran finally raised his voice. “You did nothing to protect me—after I handed you the means to kill my own father.”
Wesha’s face grew soft and troubled, and she didn’t deny it. “I didn’t want him dead. I wanted him to let me go.”
“Which is also the only reason you’ve spent the day roasting goose and decanting wine forme,” Taran said, and Wesha didn’t contradict him.
Three hundred years later, Wesha was still asking Taran to get her out of the trap she’d walked into willingly. To break her vows to the Stoneborn, the ones that had her sealing Death’s power over the Underworld, and set her free.
The legs of Taran’s chair made a piercing screech on the flagstones as he shoved it back from the table.
“Well, there you have it,” he told me, gesturing at the goddess. “The entire sordid story. Three generations of lies and cruelty. I’m sure you can see all the worst traits I’ve inherited from them—I’m hard-hearted enough to kill my father and spiteful enough to keep my mother locked up for three centuries, with enough of the Peace-Queen’s guile to keep you from knowing about any of it while you were dying in the firesweall lit. If I were you, I’d do my best to forget it all on the boat home.”
“Taran,” I began, then closed my mouth. I didn’t want to comfort him in front of Wesha, whose beautiful dawn-sky eyes were focused imploringly on her son.
“Don’t say that I’ve never tried to do anything for you. When you washed up dead on my shore, I was the one who gathered the mortal pieces of your soul and gave you your life back. Yes, that was me. Did you think it was the Allmother? Did you think you were really one of the Stoneborn? My father was mortal, and there’s red blood in your veins too.Icried when I saw you burned almost beyond recognition, andIwas the one who spent the power to healyou. And even though you swore at me and left as soon as I asked you for help, when your bride came looking for you, I sent her right to you!”
“Only because you want out of here,” he said.
Wesha’s mouth tightened. “I do.”
The lines around Taran’s mouth were white from anger and grief as he glared at his mother.
“Do you know that I’ve never once broken one of my own vows? I could have. I would have been strong enough by the end of my first decade of service to Genna, but I didn’t. I can live with my promises. I don’t know why nobody else can.” He said this last part directly to me as his shoulders sank. Without another word, he turned on his heel and stalked back down the stairs. The room was darker when he was gone, empty despite all the lamps burning in their niches.
Wesha made as though to stand and follow him, but I shook my head.
“Give him some time,” I advised her.
“He’s going straight to the stables and leaving,” she worried, long black hair falling around her face as she folded in on herself.
“He’s not. He wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye.”
The goddess gave me an ironic look. “You think you know him better than me?”
I did think that, but it wasn’t polite to say that to someone’s mother, so I just looked down at my dinner. The food was tasteless in my mouth, but I forced myself to eat a few bites, since it was the last hot meal I might expect for the next week. Wesha began to look at me speculatively, so I folded my napkin in my lap and got ahead of any ideas she might have developed about how to deploy me against Taran.
“What would you do if you were free?” I asked.
“Whatever I want, just like anyone else,” she said haughtily.
Points for honesty, but not much else, I thought, rolling my eyes. “You’re not making a great case for yourself.”
She snorted delicately. “Would you like me to try?”
Wesha had been born into a world determined to treat her unfairly, but she’d done nothing to make it better, despite considerable opportunity. When I shrugged, she gripped that dawn-streaked hair in her hands and pleaded with me.
“Would you believe me if I told you I’ve been alone with my regrets all these years, and I wish I could make amends? How could I even begin? There was peace and plenty when I was born, and now all the Stoneborn blame me for the smoking ruins I see from my window. Would Taran believe me if I told him I wished that I knew him now, despite all the love I denied him as a child? Would even Napeth believe me if I told him I wanted to find a way for us both to live in this world?”
“Well,” I said skeptically, “doyoubelieve any of that?”
She didn’t answer my question. “The story you heard,” she said after a moment. “The one my priests sang. I wish it was true that I sacrificed myself for peace. That three hundred years of loneliness meant something.”
“It’s not too late to make the story true,” I said, leaning forward with interest. “Do you want to make it up to Taran? Death would make the same bargain he did before. It would end the next war before it started. Stop the Stoneborn from reconquering the mortal world. And I could stay with Taran and give him the love and peace he’s never had in his entire life. That’s what he wants.”
