“I’m sorry,” I said, letting my anguish crack my voice. “Please let me help. I could suture this. Or do you—do you want me to try to heal it? I’ve never done it before, but I could try. Genna’s blessing for closing an incision. It’ll hurt.”
I was reluctant to make the offer. His injuries didn’t look internal, so it wouldn’t kill him if I fumbled the intonation, but healing was exquisitely painful, which was why it was done in tandem with a maiden-priest who’d keep the patient asleep. That had been me and Taran, after every battle—standing together over the wounded, his hand under my elbow to hold me up while my voice faded to a whisper. I remembered it deep in my bones.
Taran had more confidence in my abilities than I did, because he looked down at the angry gash in his chest and exhaled before pushing his face into his shoulder to brace himself.
I put my hands on his body and sang his part. Just the way he would have done it.
After a few measures, the cut began to close, forming a red lineand then fading thin and pale. It wasn’t perfect, but after ten minutes of chanting, his insides were no longer visible from the outside. Once he was no longer bleeding, I could breathe again.
“Let me see the rest,” I said, tugging at the waistband of Taran’s trousers.
He really must have been in pain, because he didn’t even make a crack about not being in the mood. He slipped off the rest of his clothes and lay facedown on the bed, so that I could sing each square of skin from livid purple back to smooth marble. It took nearly an hour, and it must have been agonizing, but he curled his fists over his head, making no sound.
As I sang, I rubbed his shoulders to break up the bruises, urging stiff muscles to soften under my fingers. Even once the blessing was over, I kept speaking, a stream of meaningless reassurance through tears.You’re alright, it’s over, don’t worry, you’re safe.He pushed himself up the bed enough to put his face in my lap, a wordless request to keep my hand moving in a circle between his shoulder blades. For me, it was a relief just to be able to hold and touch him as much as I’d wanted to.
Who had ever loved Taran over the course of his long life, except for me? Had anyone even been gentle with him?
When Taran rolled over and tugged me down beside him, I draped myself over his chest and stroked his face and hair with my hands, reassuring myself that every precious line of him was fixed. I nestled into the length of his body and matched my heartbeat to his. When he tilted his head back to kiss me, my nose rubbed into his cheek as our lips and tongues met, and it felt natural, despite the novel press of his naked body against my clothed one. I’d held him just like this before, because this was nothing but care to me. Gentle. Intimate.
I’d only pulled away to take a breath, not stop, when the expression on his face surprised me. It had harder edges than I’d expected,knowing and a little sad, even as he traced the curve of my mouth with a fingertip.
It bruised my own heart when I understood—he’d been trying to coax me back into his arms for weeks, and this was how he finally got me there.
“Oh, no, Taran. No. This isn’t how you get this,” I said, withdrawing far enough to frame his face with my hands. I couldn’t let him think he could buy me with his hurt any more than I could be bought with gifts. “Don’t ever do something like this again, do you understand me?” I tapped his collarbone, right where the Huntress had sliced into him. “I will call down Wesha’s blessing of night, or I will help you fight our way out, or I willjust die, but I will never want you hurt on my account.”
I said that because I couldn’t saysometimes I thinkI still love you, you terrible lying bastard, please be more careful with yourself.
The glittering wariness in his face held for three more heartbeats before dissolving in pained confusion. Taran sat up and pulled on his trousers in silence, then drew his stained cloak over his unbroken skin.
“You only get one mortal life,” he eventually said. “And I’m one of the Stoneborn. What am I immortal for, if not for this? Don’t think too much about it. Tomorrow it will be like it never even happened.”
“Tomorrow it will still have happened,” I said, recovering a bit of my anger. “You should have let me kill her.”
Taran huffed out a small laugh. “It is really interesting to me that you thought that was an option, but let me remind you that killing the Stoneborn is strictly not allowed.”
“Says who? The Allmother? She didn’t do anything when you died, when Death died, when Smenos was murdered! If there are no consequences for doing something, then itisallowed.”
The Allmother’s laws protected men as well as immortals, and I’d yet to see anyone ask the Stoneborn to answer for a single dead priest. Laws that were never enforced were no laws at all, as far as I was concerned.
“Believe me, there would have been consequences if my priestess killed the Huntress in her own house.”
“Only if anyone found out we did it,” I said, giving Taran a serious look.
Taran shook his head in amazement. “Were all maiden-priests this bloodthirsty?”
I shrugged, managing to find the humor in my proposal to eliminate any witnesses when Taran pulled out one corner of his mouth in a crooked smile. “Surgeons, you know…”
Taran laughed and reached for me, and this time he kissed me more deeply. Possessive, with an intentional graze of teeth against my lower lip. “I probably shouldn’t find that so attractive,” he said, knocking a knuckle against my chin. “Seems likely to get me into trouble.”
Always did,I thought, but this time it made me smile too.
Taran looked ready to settle in the bed and rest for a while, but I cocked my head at the door apologetically.
“While we’re on that subject, I set fire to Smenos’s workshops before I came in here looking for you. We should probably leave before they put it out.”
Blinking, Taran tipped his head back in dismay. “Remind me not to leave you to your own devices ever again.”
I nodded. That would be fine with me.
