“Yes. I would have told him to run instead of making that promise. He has enough red in his blood that he might have made a life for himself in the mortal world, and Wesha surely owed him the passage. But he didn’t think Genna’s service would be so long, or so hard, I suppose.”
“You mean—you mean Genna forced him to put down the mortal rebellion?” I asked, heart leaping in my throat.
With a trace of pity, Lixnea shook her head. “No, he agreed to go. After hundreds of years where Genna spent him like coin for all he could purchase her. It was difficult for me to forgive her for Wesha—I still haven’t forgiven her for Taran.”
Seeing my dismay, the Moon goddess stood up and inclined her head at the party. The music was louder, spilling out over the dark water of the lake.
Now I knew so much more than I had when I stumbled into the Summerlands, but not the few things I’d followed Lixnea outside for. I had a sudden hunch that she’d done this on purpose, distracted me with this sad story from long ago, instead of telling me what the Stoneborn might do next.
“Wait. I was going to ask you about Death. You must have seen what he did to the mortal world after his exile. Do you know where he is now?”
The Moon goddess’s face fell back into shadow as she stepped to the edge of Wesha’s garden. “I’m afraid I can’t part with any of my secrets about Death—it would be entirely contrary to my nature. But you might ask Taran, who still knows more about Death and the Maiden than anyone else.” She gave me another smile, half malice and half compassion. “Before he asks you whatyouknow, Iona Night-Singer.”
14
I snagged a glassof sweet wine the color of the harvest moon from a black-robed priest with kind eyes and drained it immediately. He smiled and offered me a refill, and I took that too. I thought getting as drunk as Marit sounded like a good idea—and unlike him, I was less dangerous when emotional and intoxicated.
How old are you?I asked Taran when I’d known him for a month. He was cagey about his background, and I had come to suspect he didn’t have an honest claim to his name. A runaway acolyte couldn’t profess to be the “son of Genna,” the way all priests were called sons and daughters of their patrons, and anyone with his talent should have been ordained before his apparent age, which I estimated at a little older than my eighteen.
Guess, he replied, grinning broadly. I had not yet noticed that his smiles warmed me like sun on bare skin, but I smiled back. This was the only fun I had, most days. A few moments with Taran while everyone else was asleep.
Twenty.
Taran had smirked and pointed one finger toward the ceiling of the abandoned cowshed we were sheltering in for the night. Older than twenty.
Twenty-two.
Someone older than twenty-two would have been married and a father already, especially someone handsome and strong like Taran. Even with no family or trade, some farmer’s daughter would have caught him and brought him home.
Taran laughed and pointed up again. Older than twenty-two. I gulped.
Twenty-five?
Taran laughed harder. He didn’t look twenty-five. He didn’t have sun damage around his eyes or scars on his hands. But he laughed at my wide-eyed dismay, finger still pointed at the ceiling.
I opened my mouth to guessthirty, but I closed it again. For reasons I didn’t care to examine, I did not want to know that Taran was thirty, when I was only eighteen.
Twenty-seven, I decided but didn’t guess out loud.
I’d lost count of the days, but I was fairly certain I was twenty-two as I made my way across the dance floor on the buoying float of the wine. Several of the revelers tried to pull me into the whirling, ever-changing knots of dancers, but one moon-priest with long black braids put an arm around my waist and warm lips to mine before spinning me on my good foot and pointing me toward the performers. My head spun too, but I welcomed the opportunity to join the other musicians and feel like I knew what I was doing.
The moon-priests cleared a space at the front of the stage and passed me a lute. I was prepared for a challenge—an obscure hymn of Lixnea’s, or a composition that would tax my rusty skill with the instrument—but instead the flutist trilled the opening notes to a simple ballad, a hundred years old but perfectly suited to my range. I smiled with gratitude and prepared to send my voice to the rafters.
How healing, to find myself the right tool for a task. So much easier to sing than to lead an army—or love someone complicated.
I wore one of the dresses Taran had stolen for me. The softfabric clung to my body in a green so dark it was nearly black, with sleeves that fitted down to my fingers and a fluted hem that swished around my ankles. I felt almost pretty in it: not overwhelmed by the symbolism of Wesha’s thick white wool or overshadowed by the gems on her castoffs. From the corner of my eye, I caught the gleam of Taran’s gaze where he watched me from a knot of his admirers. Locked on me like the point of a compass needle.
Were there hollows in his soul where our vows once tied us together? Was there something in the shape of him that remembered me, the way the Moon claimed that Death yearned for his bride?
At the end of the set, when the flutist yielded his spot to a piper, I excused myself and wove back to a padded bench at a table in the corner of the room, planning to sit and enjoy the music for the rest of the evening. Still, I wasn’t surprised when Taran peeled away from the crowd a few moments later and claimed the seat at my side.
“I overheard at least two brewing plots among Lixnea’s people to steal you away from me,” he announced, pride on my behalf only outweighed by his self-satisfaction.
“You still don’t have me,” I said, smiling anyway.
“A distressing thought.” He gave me a melting look through his dark eyelashes, an expression no less effective for being practiced. “I didn’t know you played the lute too. I’ll get you one.”
Three hundred years of punishment did not seem to have made any impact on Taran’s respect for the property of others, because he was obviously planning another theft soon. I hoped he didn’t steal from our hostess.
