Page 82 of Jailer to the Death God
I’m angry with him for keeping things from me—things that affect my life as well as his. But I understand why an immortal god who has been alone for millennia might find it difficult to confide in someone. So I focus my anger where it belongs—on Macha—and I take a deep breath, and I step nearer to Arawn. His shadows flow around my legs and body, a humming coolness. They’re not entirely unpleasant, though I feel an increasing dread if I look at them too long.
“You can’t love me,” I say gently, touching the death god’s arm, sliding my fingers around his wrist. “I understand. Maybe we can be—just friends.”
“Friends who fuck?” he says darkly.
A quiver runs through my lower belly. I desperately want to sayyes. “No, we should probably leave the fucking out of it, if we don’t want to become too—entangled.”
“I can’t have sex with anyone but you. I don’t want it from anyone but you. Which means I can never do it again.” He snatches his pants from the floor and pulls them on, jerking them into place around his hips. I squirm back into my lacy red dress, trying to ignore the liquid slipping down my inner thigh. His wetness and mine.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him.
“I will be fine,” he growls. “I’ve gone without it for generations. I am a god, not some feckless human male obsessed with carnal pleasure.”
“I have to warn you—not having sex won’t ensure that you don’t fall in love with me,” I tell him.
“I know,” he retorts. “I’ve watched the outworkings of human affection, obsession, and lust for—”
“For generations, yes. That doesn’t mean you understand any of it.” I’m still holding his arm, still touching him, and I shouldn’t—but the contact is comforting to me, despite his gloomy mood.
“How do I control my emotions?” Arawn is staring at his wrist, where my pale fingers lie against his green skin. “How do I keep from loving you? Or—or how do I stop it, if it has already begun?”
I search his face, wanting what I can’t have, what I’ve no right to ask of him, when so much is at stake. An entire realm could be placed in jeopardy and subjected to the will of a mad goddess, if Arawn allows himself to love me.
“Has it begun?” My voice sounds fainter and more wistful than I intended. “You swore to Macha that it hasn’t, that you didn’t—you don’t—”
“I will tell you how I feel,” he says urgently, gripping both my hands so suddenly my stomach dives and flutters. “And you will tell me what it is.”
“All right,” I breathe, nodding.
“When we are in a crowd, I look for you.” His thumb rubs over the gold ribbons binding my left hand. “The sight of you settles my heart—the mere assurance of your presence is like the anchor for a ship on a raging sea—security and safety. When all else is unpredictable, you are there, hopeful, indomitable, beautiful, strong. And yet, strong as you are, I have a deep-seated need to protect you from any harm to your body or heart. My bones, my flesh, my magic, my soul—I would place all of it between you and danger. I crave the brush of your skin, the light of your eyes. When I’m buried deeply inside you, I am closest to being my true self—my better self. The work I am doing with you, for you—it is the noblest, most worthy thing I have ever accomplished in my millennia of existence. When I think of being apart from you, of never tasting you, kissing you, or speaking with you again, I feel as if I am sinking into a great void. It feels like a fate worse than death.”
He stops, his green eyes brightly pained, sweetly passionate. I suck in a slow breath through my teeth, trying not to burst into tears.
“First, I will tell you that what you describe—it’s exactly how I feel about you, too.” I swallow. “And second, yes. That emotion you’re trying to define—it’s the kind of love everyone wants to have, the kind of love all of us are seeking, all our lives. Some mortals die without ever finding it. Others find it, but it’s not returned. To find that love in a person who returns your devotion—that is the most exquisite magic two people are capable of creating together. And it cannot be stopped, except by cruelty or betrayal, or death—and sometimes not even then.”
Arawn draws a shuddering breath and pulls me against his chest. His heart is a hectic drumbeat.
“So what you’re saying then, little doe,” he murmurs, “is that you and I, and the entire realm of Unlife, are well and truly fucked.”
Arawn frees my guards from the sleep of death, and we return to our chambers. I sleep nestled in Arawn’s arms, and in the morning I fight the urge to order the demolition of Beirgid’s temple, in retribution for the goddess’s role in the plague. But we need the goodwill of the people during these troubled times, and it isn’t the humans’ fault that their goddess spared them when she incited this terrible sickness.
Since my carriage was damaged, the High Priestess lends me her personal coach—a gaudy, gilded thing that I have to admit looks quite fine, especially when we roll into the royal city late that afternoon. A pair of well-dressed criers, also borrowed from Allenaye, ride before our coach, alternately trumpeting and shouting our arrival—and proclaiming the news of our marriage.
Citizens pour out of doorways, their bodies and faces wrapped against the cold and the plague. They cheer for me loudly, but their most vociferous cries are for Arawn.
While we were gone, the people have begun to see the results of Arawn’s work—more recoveries from the sickness, and far fewer deaths. He is hailed as their savior, and the crowds who nearly rioted a few days ago are screaming their gratitude now. I make him look out the wide carriage window and wave to them as we pass. Some of the people fall to their knees and bow at the sight of him.
“All this, and they don’t even know you’re a god,” I mutter to him. “Imagine how they’d react if they knew.”
“With slightly more terror, I suspect,” he says dryly.
We pause for an hour in one of the city squares so Arawn can lay his hand on those who have fallen ill since we left. A few angry, weeping mothers, whose children died in our absence, push forward and shout at me, so I leave Arawn to work while I speak to them.
“We had to go,” I tell them, my own eyes brimming at the sight of their grief. “We had to try and save some children in other towns, too. I know that doesn’t make it better. I wish I could fix all of this, bring back everyone we’ve all lost. Your little ones are in a good place, a beautiful place. I believe that with all my heart.”
Even as I say it, my heart sinks. Last night, after we returned to our room, Arawn told me more about Macha—about her lingering in his realm while he’s absent, and about her threats to torture the new souls entering Annwn. I hope she hasn’t made good on those threats. I hope the children who passed in the last three days are safe.
Once I’ve pacified the mothers as much as I can, after Arawn is through with the plague victims, we return to the carriage. Word of our wedding has had a chance to spread even farther throughout the city, and the carriage is showered with winter blooms and bits of colored rags—the best my people can do to show their joy at the union.
