He was out on the lawn in front of Wesha’s palace, stripped to the waist and skin faintly glistening in the fading light of sunset, practicing with a jeweled dagger. He’d spent hours a day at this since our return, the rest of them practicing the blessings of the other Stoneborn as fast as I could teach them.
Taran was getting ready for war, at least. He moved with more grace, more power than any mortal could, and there was joy in the lines of his body as he discovered it again. Two steps to the side, turning faster than my eye could track to meet one imaginary blow, ducking and spinning again to catch a second. His beauty still caught me by surprise sometimes, even after years of it, still took the breath from my lungs and made me freeze to capture the image in my mind.
There was a solid chance he was showing off, but I was a performer too, and I did like a show.
When he stopped the exercise and stuck the dagger in the earth, I clapped like I would for a brilliant aria. He swaggered over with a self-assured grin.
“I know that face. You want something,” he said, rubbing his sweaty forehead against my cheek to make me squeak and laugh as I pushed him away.
“I do,” I admitted, keeping him at arm’s length with a palm on his chest…and fighting the urge to sweep that hand down his stomach and explore how the rest of it felt against my palm.
“Let me guess. You want to go sit with me on the northern terrace, where the first stars of the evening will appear over the tops of the cypress trees at dusk,” he said in a grandiose voice.
I tipped my head back and smiled at his good mood.
“Now that you mention it, sure, yes.”
“And you want to play something beautiful on the kithara for me, because it’s been days since I heard you sing and I’ve already stolen dinner for us.”
“That too,” I agreed.
“But that’s not all. You want to pull back your lovely hair with a new rope of pearls to match your blue linen gown, because Marit will never miss them,” he said, casting a disparaging eye over the nondescript wool smock I had on.
“No sign of Marit, then?” I asked, imagining that was the real reason Taran had gone looting in the sea god’s vacant palace.
“Not yet. I suppose the Allmother’s busy,” Taran said, glancing at the smoking Mountain with a little chill. He shook himself. “What did you really want, or should I keep guessing?”
I almost didn’t want to ask him now. I wanted to have that dinner with him and flirt and pretend that nothing would change here, except perhaps what he felt about me.
“Would you take someone—someone who wasn’t me—to the Painted Tower?” I asked instead of doing what I wanted.
Taran took a step back, letting my hand slide off his chest. He paused, not because he was considering it, but just to indicate politeness.
“No,” he said, without askingwho.
I firmed my jaw. I hadn’t really expected otherwise, but it had been worth checking. I changed my request.
“Then I want to talk to Genna.”
“Alsono, but out of morbid curiosity, why?”
“I need to get as many of Genna’s priests away from here as possible before Death returns. I can’t make them take the threat seriously.”
Taran scoffed. “I don’t even steal food from the Peace-Queen, and you want me to steal her priests?”
“She doesn’t need all those priests. They only came when the war started—she can send them home.”
“Somehow I managed without you around for all these years, but perhaps Genna’s grown attached to her priests too.”
“Taran!” I kept trying, even though he was impossible when he was in a mood like this. “Genna has the heir to the mortal throneservingher.”
He looked unimpressed. “You’ll recall that until recently, she hadmeserving her. It’s survivable.”
“But Genna forced her to take vows after she was sacrificed. You, of all people, ought to sympathize.”
“What does my sympathy do for her?” Taran asked stiffly.
“Let me ask Genna to let her go. If Genna wants mortal worship restored, returning the queen’s daughter would go a long way toward convincing the queen to lift the ban.”
