The Stoneborn were far enough away that their conversation didn’t carry, but Marit was speaking with Genna, wine goblet in hand and a puddle of seawater at his feet. Drunk again, with a large cask of wine abandoned on his wave-capped throne.
None of them looked like Taran, who’d looked like a person, not a power. He had been a person who told bad jokes, a person who hated onions so much that he picked them out of his food—a person who used to rub my temples with his thumbs when I got a headache. The man who claimed to be one of the Stoneborn stood behind Genna’s throne, his arms folded behind his back and his posture wary. Her part-mortal bastard didn’t get a throne, I supposed.
A priestess in Skyfather’s purple cloak stepped out in front of the assembly and lifted her arms to voice the universal call to prayer. Down in the pavilion, the Stoneborn were still idle, and there was some dissent among the priests.Shouldn’t we keep waiting? Is anyone else coming?But the other priests began to shuffle into rows, and Teuta followed me to the highest row in the rear.
“Does he know?” she whispered to me once the voices of the other priests gave her cover.
“You mean, does he know that I…” My voice trailed off when Teuta lifted a cautioning finger to her lips and shot her eyes into the crowd. At the very edge, up in front, one wore a red robe and bronze lion mask. A death-priest.
I held Teuta’s gaze and shook my head minutely. No, Taran did not know I’d led the mortal rebellion he’d been sent to put down.
“He knows Wesha sent me here. That’s all.”
Teuta smiled in relief. “Good. I don’t think anyone else will recognize you, dressed like that. Taran won’t…well, I’ve never heard of him harming a mortal. Unless they somehow crossed the Peace-Queen, that is.”
That was a pretty largeunless. Genna had, after all, forced heryoungest daughter into marriage with Death and sent her son to wipe out the mortal rebels. I considered myself and the Peace-Queen at cross-purposes.
“But he still might murder me the next time I object to one of the Stoneborn slitting a child’s throat?” I asked, my whisper growing heated.
“No. The Allmother forbids human sacrifice,” Teuta said firmly.
The Allmother was not here. The largest throne in the center of the pavilion was crowned with the symbol of the Mountain, and it sat empty, as it had been for centuries. In the epics, we’d learned that she slept, still recovering from her labors in giving birth to the Stoneborn. She awoke only to erupt in anger when her laws were transgressed. But she hadn’t saved us in the long years that Death terrorized the mortal world.
“I’m so glad to hear that,” I said bitterly. “Has anyone told Death yet?”
“This is not the place for blasphemy, Iona! And Taran ab Genna is not going to condone human sacrifice. He’s the one who saved the rest of Marit’s priests, after all.” Teuta nodded at the god who was cracking the tiles of the pavilion with every step, seawater flowing in his wake. Genna leaned back to say something to Taran, pointing at the sea god, and Taran waded out from behind the throne.
“What happened to Marit’s priests?”
“You see how Marit is…like that? After Taran had been gone for a year, trying to stop…trying to restore the rule of the temples. When he didn’t come back and didn’t send word, Skyfather ran out of patience and wanted to send a wave to destroy the rebel cities. Marit wouldn’t do it—he was afraid Taran would be drowned too.”
“Interesting priorities,” I muttered, glaring at the sea god as he reeled drunkenly around the stage, Taran in careful pursuit.
“You have to understand, they can’t see the mortal world from here. Wesha won’t let them close to the shore. All they knew is that the mortals had turned against their priests and withdrawn their worship. It made them furious, even Marit. But anyway, Skyfather was so angry at Marit for refusing to wipe out the rebels that he tossed him into a well.”
I grimaced, thinking of all the ships that had docked with empty nets. The storms that preceded the mudslides that had finally destroyed Ereban. The high priestess stoically continued the story when I remained silent.
“Marit’s Stoneborn, so he didn’t die, but since it was fresh water, he couldn’t escape either. He stayed down there, screaming day and night, until Taran came back and fished his friend out. But Marit had gone as mad as a hornet in a jar after two years in the well. Once he was free, he was beyond reason. He cracked the foundations of his own palace, flooded half the City. When his priests tried to flee…most of them drowned.”
Down on the stage, Taran had failed to pry the wine goblet away from Marit, and the sea god was drunkenly gesticulating as the water at his feet began to flow faster. Genna and Diopater rose to their feet as the waves lapped at their ankles. Even cloaked by the golden illusion that wrapped their bodies, they appeared unhappy with the situation.
Teuta nodded when Taran put an arm around Marit’s shoulders and said something into the sea god’s ear.
“That’s how Taran killed him. He gave Marit a glass of poisoned wine, then put a stone dagger in his heart. And once the Allmother brought Marit back, he was better. A little. Taran stopped him.”
My stomach dropped at the conclusion of Teuta’s story, but something in me, not the nicest part, perhaps, but the part that had watched Death’s temples burn, saidwell,good. Taran was stillthere. Some kernel of the person who’d gone to war against a god who’d become a tyrant. I just had to find him.
Satisfied that I was reconciled to my new role when I didn’t say anything more, Teuta knelt down with the rest of the priests and began to sing along with the prayers that continued unimpeded by the wet drama below. But I would not be singing any more praises of the Stoneborn who’d wanted to drown us. The ones who’d listened to Marit drowning for two years.
I slipped away as soon as Taran finally lured Marit out of the arena, off to start looking for my way home.
10
The air inthe banquet hall was frigid but shouldn’t have been cold enough to keep the snow under my boots from melting. Skyfather’s power, even though he was nowhere to be seen. This hall was filled with empty tables set for hundreds, and ice crept up the inside of the blue marble pillars despite the summer weather outside. I’d wandered out of the arena with no particular destination, but when the rest of the City proved vacant, I’d returned to the arena and found this meal set and abandoned in an adjacent palace.
I’d never seen ice sculptures before. The ones decorating the banquet tables all depicted Marit’s heroic feats—slaying sea monsters, commanding the waves. The monsters were constructed entirely of fresh seafood, which would have made me giggle if I weren’t so battered by the past week’s events.
I chafed the gooseflesh under Wesha’s pink dress as I heard a familiar step behind me. My heart lurched at everything that was familiar about him. The way he walked. The way he breathed. I wanted so much for him to be alive, to be my Taran, to take my hand and call me his nightingale.
