“I’m afraid they’re confused,” Taran replied. “She’smypriestess.” He turned his cheek so it was pressed against the top of my head. “Easy mistake to make.”
“Yours? But—” The furred Fallen stuttered, dumbfounded. “You don’t have priests.”
“Of course I do,” Taran said, voice betraying nothing but amusement. “They’re so popular these days, and for good reason. What, do you think I wash my own back?”
The Fallen wrestled with this argument, clearly afraid of Marit but no more able to entertain the idea that I was Taran’spriestessthan I was.
“She is dressed like a maiden-priest,” the furry one argued.
“It’s a costume party,” Taran said sweetly.
Marit snickered with a sound like raindrops. “Well, there you have it! Glad we could clear that up for you. She’s Taran’s, and you’ll have to go gnaw your own arm for dinner. It seems you owe us an apology for wasting our time and spoiling the rugs.”
His words were light, but there was a taste in my mouth that lingered, a nearly primeval scent of fear. Instinctive fear of one of the Stoneborn—the greater gods. The Fallen seemed to feel it too.They wrestled with dueling urges to leap upon us and to collapse back down to the ground, but in the end, they retreated, eyes narrowed on Marit.
“Very sorry, Stoneborn. We did not mean to bother,” the furry one said, an apology that very evidently did not include Taran. After a moment, he scraped another deep bow.
“Wonderfully done,” Marit warbled, happy with how this had played out. “Youcanteach a dog new tricks, it seems. Now, to the kennels with you. Out. Out, out!”
The Fallen slunk out of the room with their eyes still on us, wet dog scent lingering a few moments more, and then diminishing howls of anger pierced the night to vent their fury at being denied me.
When there was no further sign of their presence, Marit groaned and put a dramatic hand to his forehead. “I wish Napeth would develop better taste in women. For the sake of your pretty décor, if nothing else.” Then he giggled at his own joke, still very drunk despite the interlude.
I tried to worm free of Taran’s arms, but all he did was spin me around, his attention finally refocusing on my grubby and trembling self. Marit approached too, just as interested.
It was only when I looked at the two of them together that I saw it. I’d never seen it before. It was nothing simple that I could point to like the silky texture of his dark hair or the bright color of his eyes, and it wasn’t in the sculpted lines of his face or the strength of his shoulders. It was his presence, a reaction he drew from me. The atavistic recognition of somethingother, something closer to Marit than to me.
Taran’s features weren’t just inhumanly perfect, they were inhuman.
Immortal.
I didn’t hear what Marit said next to him over the rush of blood in my ears, or Taran’s reply, but he began towing me back the wayhe’d come in, arms stiffened to keep me upright when my legs would have given out.
How did I never see it? How did nobody notice? Taran wasn’t mortal. I began to shiver like I’d fallen through the ice over a winter pool as we passed through a luxuriously appointed apartment with potted fruit trees and thick rugs. Taran pointed me toward an upholstered divan, but before I could fall on it, Marit cleared his throat.
“You’re letting them go after they trespassed in your house and threatened your priestess?” the god asked, hooking a thumb toward the direction in which the Fallen had departed.
Taran paused, effortlessly holding me up with one hand. “I thought I’d be merciful?”
Marit laughed hard, not in a nice way, and there was a matching blink of something dark on Taran’s face before he returned the sea god’s smile.
“Of course I’m not going to let them go. Just give me a minute.” He cast a brief glance down my body before plucking the last stone knife from my belt and tucking it into his waistband. He lifted me again and none-too-gently pushed me through a door in the rear of the large living area.
“Wait here,” he said.
I unthinkingly complied for two steps, but turned around to find Taran shutting the door in my face. The lock clicked, and I heard the sound of something heavy being dragged across the floor. Only then realizing that he’d trapped me somewhere, I banged my fists against the wood in protest, but heard footsteps recede in pursuit of the two Fallen, heedless of my shouts. The latch wouldn’t move, and even after I sang the lock open, I couldn’t shove the door past whatever Taran had put in front of it.
With his immortal strength.Immortal.
All options to flee exhausted, I slid down to the floor, shaking.Everything that had happened since I stole the damn boat crawled up my limbs and congealed into an icy-hot, shivering lump in my throat. Just in time, I grabbed a gold-chased urn from the floor next to me and retched into it, though there was little in my stomach and all I could do was dig my fingernails into the glaze while my gut uselessly convulsed, throbbing in time with my head.
How could I not realize what he was? He’d been too strong. He’d known too much. He’d been too perfect—especially to me.
He’d done this to me on purpose, and my broken heart fell to dust as I realized it.
I never expected to fall in love. It wasn’t forbidden to Wesha’s acolytes, just impossible for her sworn priests and unlikely during my training, which consisted chiefly of care for pregnant women, infants, and the elderly. Acolytes sometimes left the cult to serve other gods or marry, but those of us who remained considered that a personal failing, and I was always determined not to fail.
When I met Taran, the feeling took me entirely by surprise. I barely knew what to call it. I felt like the first person in the history of the world to ever discover effortless joy in another person, to look for his coming and going like the movement of the Sun and Moon. I treasured the emotion, cradled it to myself, and never thought to say anything to him about it.
