But when he approached, it was to call me by my given name,so I forced a polite smile to my face instead of turning and wrapping my arms around his waist.
“Here you are. Feeling better?” he asked, taking in my diminished hostility.
“A little.”
“Teuta seemed relieved to see you. All the peace-priests will be at this banquet later, if you’d like to come.”
I hummed noncommittally. I hadn’t quite forgiven the peace-priests for enjoying eternal summer while the world burned.
When I didn’t snap at him, Taran relaxed, producing a heavy cloak in a shimmering gray-green and draping it around my shoulders.
“There,” he said with satisfaction. “You shouldn’t wear pink.”
I welcomed the warmth, and he was right, so I didn’t stop him from reaching around me to pin it closed.
“You brought this for me?” I asked, surprised. I’d been anything but polite to him so far.
“I thought you might get cold at dinner.” His hands still rested lightly on my shoulders after he was done arranging the fabric, gentle and coaxing.
“Thank you. Was it Wesha’s too?”
“No, one of Skyfather’s concubines left it unattended, and I decided it would look better on you.”
I closed my eyes and silently retracted my thanks, refocusing on things that mattered. Getting out of here.
“Where were all the other gods this morning?”
Taran ignored my question and ran his palms lightly over the cloak where it draped my arms. “What did you wear before? Wesha’s white? I don’t think that would suit you either. How about blue? A different shade than Marit’s priests wear, perhaps?”
“Taran. Where do you think Death is?”
He ignored me again, instead lifting one hand to brush the edge of his thumb along the knot of my hair. He used to do the same thing whenever I was near.
“Do you ever wear it down?” he asked, idly winding a fingertip into a stray curl. I shivered as his knuckles brushed the bare skin on the nape of my neck.
“No, never.”
“Pity,” he said. “I bet it’s lovely.”
One night Taran had taken all the pins out of my hair and coaxed me into brushing it until I could run a comb through the waves from root to tip. He’d wrapped the ends around his fingers and held on too long, until my light laugh had caught deeper in my stomach, and the look he’d given me had felt like a promise.Oh, that’s what desire means, I’d thought.
“Would you consider it?” he asked, hand still on my nape.
“If you’ll answer my questions, I vow I’ll dress however you want,” I blurted, trying to resist the tightening of my body at the memory of his hands in my hair.
Taran released me and stepped to my front, one corner of his mouth quirking up.
“You should really stop making so many vows. You are going to have to live with them for a very long time.” His smile made my stomach drop. “But alright. I vow it.”
I felt a slight chill of foreboding as the new vow wrapped its way through my bones, but his choices of clothing could hardly hurt me. Wasn’t it a good bargain?
“Where are the other Stoneborn?”
Taran shrugged. “I don’t know.” Before I could object, he amended his answer with an air that suggested he was humoring me.
“Some Stoneborn, Skyfather chief among them, would like to re-form the armies of Heaven and march back to the mortal world. Restore the rule of the temples by force.” He strolled over to theclosest banquet table and took a plate. He smiled at the enormous sea monster, whose claws were formed of steamed crab legs and eyes of mollusk shells. Large prawns on waves of ice stood ready to reinforce it in battle. “The Peace-Queen, on the other hand, thinks that if you’re left to your own devices for a few decades, you’ll remember that you enjoy rain and flowering plants and her blessings of healing, and come to your senses.”
“Marit’s in the first group?”
