Once dressed, he walked out of the room, returning with my stone knife in his hand, the blade chipped and filthy. He squatted in front of me and dangled the knife between finger and thumb.
“So, who were you planning to kill?” he asked, trying the tip of the blade until a shimmering dot of blood formed on the pad of his finger. I didn’t think it was a real question until his bright emerald eyes lifted to mine for the answer.
“I didn’t come here to kill anyone.”
At his look of disbelief, I wrapped my arms around myself tighter. He’d just killedtwoimmortals with the attitude of a man doing a mildly unpleasant chore.
“You were carrying a stone knife on your belt. Who was it for?”
“Every maiden-priest carried knives like that,” I insisted, but his lower lip remained stiff with skepticism.
“This is going to take forever,” he sighed, tilting his head to the right side. “Swear that you aren’t lying. Give me your vow.”
“What? No.” I was so offended by the request that my rejection came out as a snort. He’d lied to me forthree years.
Taran smiled, the expression not reaching his eyes. “Let me rephrase. You’re going to swear that you won’t lie to me, or I’ll turn you out of this palace. You look like a five-course dinner for any of Death’s Fallen still alive in the City.”
“You don’t mean that,” I said, studying his face for tells.
“Try me.”
The idea that Taran would ever do anything to risk my life was too unthinkable to stick long in my mind, but his eyes glinted like a metal blade. This wasn’t the same man. The man I loved was dead, and if Awi was right, this immortal had been crafted anew bythe Allmother. He could be different. He could be terrible, a merciless killer.
“I vow that every word I speak to you will be true,” I finally said, wincing at the now-routine twist in my soul as the promise turned irrevocable. The quick flash of his dimples indicated that he’d caught the nuances of my wording—I didn’thaveto tell him anything—but he relaxed.
“I didn’t come here to kill anyone,” I repeated, and he nodded in satisfaction.
“Do you know what this is?” he asked, gesturing with the knife.
“A surgical blade.”
“Did you make it?”
I shook my head. The rainbow obsidian came from a quarry on sacred Mount Degom, but I’d never been.
“If you’re not here to murder someone off Wesha’s long list of people who have it coming, what are you doing here, then…?” Taran inclined his head inquisitively as his voice trailed off, and I realized he wanted my name.
“Iona,” I said after letting the silence stretch too long. I had to introduce myself to him for the second time. I had to tell my betrothed my name. “Iona ter Wesha.”
“Iona,” he repeated, testing my name in his mouth, though he’d called menightingalefrom the first time he’d heard me sing. I searched his face for some glimmer of recognition, some faint hint that he’d heard my name before, but his green stare was cool.
“What are you doing here,Iona?”
I’d come here for him. But if Awi was right about what he’d been doing in the mortal world, I was lucky he hadn’t found it convenient to murder me.
“I didn’t mean to come here. I sailed from the mortal world to ask Wesha for a boon.”
“A bad idea. The Stoneborn don’t do anything for free, Wesha least of all.”
“I didn’t think she’d do it for free. I was her last priest.”
“What did you want, then?”
“I—I wanted my betrothed back. He…died a few months ago.” My voice cracked when I spoke. It made my vow throb in my chest to speak of him in the third person, but it was just barely acceptable to the nearly sentient force of my promise. I couldn’t let Taran know that I knew him, not if he’d gone to quash our rebellion.
Taran lifted one eyebrow, attitude now mildly interested.
“I thought Wesha’s priests were celibate?”
