“Me? Maiden’s mercy, Taran, no. Death killed you. You killed him. That’s how the war ended.”
“You’re lying,” Taran said, appalled. “How are you lying? Why would I attack Death, when I was sent to put down the mortal rebellion?”
“You expect me to know? You never told me! You strolled into our camp a month after the rebellion started and offered tohelpme. I thought you were mortal! The last I saw of you before Wesha dropped me here was when you went to confront Death with my knife in your hand, because the queen’s army was trapped against a line of his fires. You didn’t put down the mortal rebellion, you fought in it.”
Taran wildly shook his head. “No. That’s not possible.” Face darkening, he snatched my knife back up, looming over me. “Killing Death would just return him to the Summerlands,where I live. Turning the mortals against the gods would destroy both worlds. I wouldn’t do that!”
“You’re that certain? That you would never care about what had been done to us? Even if you could see us starving, dying, chased by death-priests. You don’t think there’s any chance you just…changed your mind?”
“If I’d changed my mind, it wouldbechanged. And I know I wouldn’t do that.”
“You never did a single thing to stop me from putting every death-priest in the country to the sword, nor the queen from tearing down the temples. What did you possibly want, if not to help us? You cared about us. I know you did.”
I’d raised my head to talk to him, but Taran prowled over to me, on his hands and knees, knife still caught in his fist.
“Even if you’re lying, if anyone here thought there was a chance you were telling the truth, I would be…buried alive, probably. Entombed in stone forever. For encouraging rebellion against the gods. For spilling the blood of another Stoneborn.”
“You killed Marit,” I pointed out, trying to scoot away.
“Which everyonewantedme to do, and Skyfather still hung me by my wrists at the entrance of the grand arena for aweekto pacify the Allmother. You saw what she did to Napeth just now. For this, nobody would forgive me. Ever. Putting down the mortal rebellion was my chance to be free of what I did when I stole the knives. Killing Death would be—” His eyes were hard and glittering. “You are going to vow to never speak of this again. You are going to vow to forget this vendetta against Death entirely.”
I firmed my mouth. “No.”
“I don’t think you understand. If you want to live until dawn, you are going to make that vow.”
I curled my hands into fists and pushed up on my elbows until we were nearly nose to nose. “I’m not making any more vows to you.”
“A few hours ago you were willing to spend a thousand years naked and feeding me grapes just to get a bunch of wretched crafter-priests and immortals you’ve never met out of Smenos’s dungeon,” Taran said incredulously. “Now you won’t make a vow that will save both our lives?”
“You aren’t even offering me anything in exchange.” He’d had three years to kill me; if he couldn’t bring himself to do it then, he wouldn’t do it now.
“You’re trying to extract something for yourself? Do you have a death wish?”
“Honestly? Maybe?” I was fizzy and intoxicated from the relief of being able to talk about it with him. “That would explain a lot, wouldn’t it?”
The laugh that came out of his nose sounded like it hurt.
“If you launched a campaign of deicide, tortured my secrets out of me, put a stone knife in Death’s heart, and then rowed across the ocean to torment me further, I could almost admire your single-minded devotion to our ruin, but tell me how I am supposedto make it stop. It needs to stop, Iona. What am I supposed to do with you if I don’t kill you?”
“I keep suggesting you take me to Wesha so that I can go home.”
“With your mortal lover, off to plot more inventive methods of our downfall? Why would I allow that?”
“I’ve never done anything to hurt you,” I said, finding a little more rebellion when I needed it. “I built your funeral barge myself. I bandaged your body. I sent you past the Gates with my scarf wrapped around your hands. Who did you think did that?”
Was it so hard for him to imagine, after today, that he’d cared enough about us to sacrifice his life?
“It’s hard for me to appreciate all yourhelp, because Idiedin your war,” Taran said, green eyes blazing.
“Try harder then, because you arestillin my war, and I’m the only one who wants to save you.”
Taran’s eyelids lowered, his expression becoming even more dangerous. The blade on my neck was pressing against my skin hard enough that I felt the burn of a first drop of blood welling up.
His voice was soft. “You know, I thought you were my reward. Sent by Wesha, the Allmother…fate, maybe. And I’d be yours. For surviving everything Wesha did to us both. But now I wonder if she sent you here to destroy me. You’re a wildfire. I’m dying in the flames.”
It felt like a compliment, or at least reassurance that he’d really seen me. I wasn’t a redheaded ornament to play pretty music for him. He knew me.
I was glad we’d finally had a halfway honest conversation, even if this was the last one. This was healing.
