He didn’t know who I was.
“No, let me see,” his companion slurred. He grabbed my chin, turning my face to the side and back. “Wesha doesn’t pick them for looks, does she? Hard to tell under the grime.”
“Singers,” Taran said, casually knocking the immortal’s hand away from my face. “Wesha picks singers. Marit, why don’t I meet you in a moment by the game boards?”
Marit. I knew that name. Waverider. The god of the open ocean, the unreliable patron of sailors, potters, and drunks. His priests fled the war in the first month.
“Singers! How lovely,” Marit told Taran, ignoring Taran’s request to depart and shoving him playfully. “Why are you here, little maiden-priest?”
“Wesha sent me here,” I said, voice grating in my throat. Taran’s expression hardened.
“Really. What does she want from me now?” he asked cautiously.
I didn’t have a moment to unpack that, because there was a clatter of clawed feet on the tiles behind me. I spun to see the two Fallen from the storeroom, who’d caught up to me at last. They’d shed their bronze lion masks, but their unnatural meld of immortal and animal was worse than Death’s sigil.
They slowed as they entered the courtyard to take in the three of us, but they’d picked up sacrificial knives, and rage twisted their bestial features.
I reached for the knife at my own waist, but Taran neatly grabbed me and hauled me back against the hard length of his body. He pinned my arms to my sides by wrapping me in a mock embrace, chin digging painfully into my scalp. I struggled like a dove in a snare, but I couldn’t move his grip at all.
Marit belatedly recognized the arrival of the two Fallen and frowned.
“You were not invited to this party,” he chided them, leaning back to his full, considerable height in affront, the effect slightly undercut by his wobbling intoxication. “No Fallen outside of Death’s sector! We don’t want to see you, let alone smell you.”
They did smell terrible, but this would be their least offense. The two Fallen looked at each other, regrouped.
“We just want the priestess,” the reptilian one lisped. “Give us the priestess. Maiden-priests belong to our father.”
“Let me go,” I began to insist again, but Taran slid his hand upto grip my neck in a gesture that was equal parts threatening and protective. I shut up.
“Now, first off, that’s no way to speak to Stoneborn,” Taran drawled.
Marit snorted agreement.
“Before you speak to us, you bow,” Taran added.
The first Fallen, whose ancestry seemed to have involved more fur than scales, snarled and took a step forward. “We do not bow toyou, Taran ab Genna.”
Taran didn’t respond, but the arm around my waist slipped until his hand covered the one on my knife.
“I assure you, you do,” he said, voice dangerously lazy.
“I could go for some bowing,” Marit said, scratching his chin. He burped, then giggled, the noise unsettling. “Do it.”
The Fallen looked at him sullenly, but after a moment, they both halfheartedly bobbed their heads.
“That’s a shit bow,” said Taran.
The reptilian one hissed and took another half step forward, and Taran pulled me back by the same distance. But its sibling made a curt gesture, seeming to think the better of it. They bowed more deeply, animal spines curving like bows, then straightened to fix golden eyes on me again.
“I’ve had enough. You heard Taran ab Genna.Kneelor be knelt,” Marit said, but this time there was an echo like thunder, and the chamber filled with the scent of brine, fogging the air and dropping the temperature in seconds. Water out of nowhere rose around my feet, enough to soak my boots.
My breath caught in fear of this casual display of power, but Marit’s threat made an impression on the two Fallen. They flopped to the floor, prostrating themselves in the new puddles with performative, splashing obeisance.
Marit watched them grovel for a moment, his expression darkly amused. His power thickened the air, soaking my lungs until they felt overfull. And then just as quickly as his mood had dipped, he was done, smile shifting back to hectic cheer. “Well, alright. Say what you want. Politely.”
The reptilian Fallen struggled up to two legs again, brushing his soaking robe with scaled hands. His mouth curled into a yellow-fanged snarl as he formed human speech with obvious difficulty. “She’s a priestess of Wesha. See her dress? Wesha’s priests are ours, she vowed it. All Stoneborn agreed.”
“Hmm,” Marit said, appearing to consider this argument. “What do you say, Taran?”
