More importantly, it would get more priests out of harm’s way,once Death and his allies were free again. They were defenseless here.
“And how am I supposed to explain why you know that?” Taran said, rolling his eyes.
I nearly said,you figure that out, you’re good at lying, but he really hadn’t done much of that recently, so I sighed and waited. I just had to push him. I had to remind him. He wasn’t the person Genna had tried to make him into.
“You think you can gaze up at me with big brown eyes and I’ll do whatever you want again?” he asked scornfully. “My memory is short but it isn’t that short.”
“No,” I said. “I think you’ll do it because you’re a good man, and youdocare what happens to people, and you always did.”
The noise he made wasn’t an agreement, but he didn’t dismiss the idea out of hand either. It wasn’t until he’d stalked away, all ideas of dinner and a beautiful evening put to the side, that I realized with a little glow of excitement he hadn’t tried to ask for something in exchange for any of it.
I nearly raisedthe question of Elantia and the other peace-priests again, because Taran didn’t say anything for days, but one evening he handed me a pile of white fabric and told me to dress myself like a maiden-priest. We were both expected at Genna’s court.
“I know that as my priestess, you think of nothing but how to best secure my comfort,” he said, worry making him flippant. “So as you consider what you want to say to Genna, please remember that I would find itvery unpleasantto watch her liquify your bones because you shared your positive opinion of the mortal rebellion.”
Even though I’d asked him to set up the audience, I took a cuefrom his edginess and stiffened in instant apprehension about speaking with the Peace-Queen.
“What have you told her about me?” I asked as I put on the wool dress and bleached linen apron for the first time in months. It felt strange to dress as a maiden-priest now; I’d never felt the Maiden’s presence in my life less.
“Don’t worry about that. If she asks you a question, don’t lie to her. I told her you served Wesha until Death destroyed your temple, and then you came here for me. She has no reason to object to that. But also remember that Genna will liquefymyfavorite body parts if she thinks I was complicit in any of your more unfortunate life choices,” he called from the other room.
Wonderful. Cowbirds were better parents. They at least didn’t attack their own young.
“So what do you want me to say?” I asked, coiling my hair up tightly, the way I had every day that I’d worn these clothes. I barely recognized myself in the mirror as the acolyte who’d walked into the temple at Ereban years ago.
“I don’t want you to say anything! But if you could support the idea that I have been diligently attempting to keep both the mortal world and this one from tumbling into chaos”—with this he came into my room, scowled at my bound hair, and began pulling the pins out—“perhaps we might both make it home tonight in one piece?”
“So she knows…” My voice trailed off as his hands brushed out the waves of my hair, his heat palpable against my back. We were framed in the mirror, me in the plain white dress, him behind me with a jeweled pin on his horrible golden cloak. One of us was still in disguise, but which one had changed?
The maiden-priest and the Peace-Queen’s son. He looked more the part than I did.
“What?” he asked when he saw me watching his reflection in the mirror.
I looked away. “Just thinking that you must have stolen some poor farmer’s clothes and thenrolledin the dirt before I met you.”
“Was I really convincing as a mortal?”
“Well, you convinced me.”
“Did I have an exciting backstory?” His fingers rested on my hair as he appeared interested in the idea for the first time. I was reluctant to say more, but I couldn’t think of a good reason to refuse.
“No, you didn’t ever say where you’d come from.”
“You must have thoughtsomething.”
I sighed, wishing I hadn’t brought it up at all. “You knew all the blessings of Genna, but you were too old not to be ordained. I thought you might have left her temple because you wanted a home and family.”
This answer seemed to satisfy him, and he got up to return with the silver combs he’d attempted to give me during my first week here.
He toyed with my hair under the guise of putting the combs in, and I closed my eyes at the pleasure of his fingertips on my scalp. Nobody but Taran had ever cared if I looked nice, so long as I was clean and neat, and I’d missed his knuckles stroking along the side of my neck.
Look at this scarf I got you, nightingale.
You found it! The only color in the whole world that goes with my hair.
Do you want a dress to match for our wedding?
“Did you ever want that, or was it strictly‘justice or death’from the start?” Taran jarred me from the memory, raising a half-mocking fist in salute.
