“I did warn you,” Taran said after a few minutes.
“You…did.”
This is an orgywould have been a more helpful warning. But I did appreciate the effort.
Taran needlessly bent down to adjust my hand on his arm, although he was used to helping me balance at this point.
“Genna’s power isn’t as obvious as Diopater’s,” he said in a low pitch. “But this is why she’s queen of the Stoneborn—they all cometo her and set aside their little squabbles and rivalries while they’re here. And she wins them over, makes them see things her way. She’s the real ruler in the Summerlands.”
I made a faint noise of unamused understanding. What was a lightning bolt compared to the allure of a really good party? If eternity ever stretched too long, there would still be the novelty of some new embrace in a corner of Genna’s palace. Maybe everything else fell into routine.
“You sound like you approve,” I whispered.
“It’s better than Diopater’s method of solving problems, don’t you think?”
I didn’t answer, instead considering a knot of revelers who stumbled almost naked toward a woman who was giving a giggling toast to a small crowd while wearing only a lopsided wreath of orange blossoms.
Didn’t these people—and most of them were immortals, minor herding gods and flower spirits, but still people—know there was going to be a war? Couldn’t they see the smoke on the Mountain? Didn’t they see the empty spaces in the City, feel the ground thinning and the Summerlands shrinking? This wasn’t real peace, this was pretending. They ought to put their clothes on and find the weapons they put down after the last time Death attacked.
But that wasn’t what I found painful about the scene.
This wasn’t what Genna’s cult was supposed to be for. Hiwa ter Genna had expected to spend her life judging inheritance disputes and matchmaking for merchants’ daughters. If anyone had ever suggested she’d keep the peace naked, on her knees, she might have questioned those principles of nonviolence.
Hiwa came and told me the first time she’d kissed a boy—also the first time she’d kissed a girl. She’d looked happier than anyone here tonight.
“I’m sure they’d rather do this than the laundry or thecooking,” Taran added, nodding at a peace-priest who was teasingly braiding a violet into the beard of a green-skinned immortal. The man didn’t look unwilling, but if Genna had commanded him to be here and entertain her guests, he probably wasn’t allowed to frown.
“Are you? Sure?”
It wasn’t an accusation, but Taran still fell silent.
He wasn’t sure.
“Genna’s priests have to obey her,” I said softly. “Even if she asks them if they want this—how free are they to say no?”
If I thought about it that way, what was going on here was just as monstrous as what had been done to Smenos’s priests. Smenos had used his priests’ bodies once, for sacrifice. Genna used them over and over.
After another moment of stormy reflection, Taran tilted his face down to me, dark eyebrows lowered. “Do you want me to quit asking you, then?”
That hadn’t been the point I was making, and he looked so concerned that I answered quickly.
“No, I don’t mind.”
That was a less-than-full-hearted endorsement, less than the full truth, and my vows twisted uneasily until I amended my words. “No, I mean…I don’t want you to stop asking me.”
There was nothing stopping me from saying no to Taran. And I still wanted, someday, to be able to sayyes.
He relaxed at my reassurance, began to nod at people he knew, but the further my mind traveled down this road, the worse it got.
“Did anyone ever ask you?” I said when he noticed that my face was still grim. I couldn’t look at these beautiful, ageless creatures without imagining a small, raven-haired boy living in this palace with no other children. Later bound to Genna’s will just as much as her priests. Lixnea had called Genna’s service hard—I had a good idea of how he’d spent it.
“I don’t remember.”
Certainly true, but not the real answer. He didn’t know.
He sighed and tossed his head back when my expression hardened. “Please,please, Iona, do not start something tonight. No fires, no rebellions, no accusations. I don’t need you to feel sorry for me, much less defend me three hundred years after the fact.”
“I would have though. Defended you. Someone should have.”
