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He tilts his head toward me, and I can barely see his gray eyes beneath the mask. “I don’t want to risk it.”
I don’t even have to explain what I’m talking about. He knows. We both know that we could put all our questions about the prophecy to rest if he just took off a glove and touched me. It would change the game in a second.
But neither of us want to change the game that fast. Who knows, maybe when push comes to shove, when Death grows tired of fucking me, or tired of losing the war, he’ll take off the glove and grab me by the throat and watch me disintegrate under his bare fingers. Then we’ll both have the answers we’re looking for.
“One day you’ll have to,” I tell him softly. “You know you will.”
He gives a subtle shake of his head. “Maybe not. Maybe the war never comes. Maybe it comes and we win. Maybe Louhi is defeated, the uprising is squashed, and we can just go on as we are. Maybe in the end, the prophecy won’t matter at all.”
I appreciate him saying that, saying he doesn’t want to risk killing me. It’s the little things. Honestly, even though we’re married and screwing each other every chance we get, I always, always, keep in mind that he is the God of Death and could do away with me if he wanted. The things that Vipunen said, about how in the end I can’t rely on Tuoni to protect me, that stayed with me and I think about it often.
He will become my king, but I will never be his queen.
I clear my throat, wanting to switch the subject.
“So, if Sarvi is staying here, why isn’t Lovia coming with us?” I ask. “Shouldn’t she be at a meeting of the Gods? She is one.”
Death shakes his head. “You know I love my daughter, but she can’t be trusted.”
My eyes go wide. What does that mean?
He shrugs, having read the look on my face. “Her mother is Louhi. This meeting isn’t just about you, Hanna, it’s about the war. Louhi, Rasmus, Salainen. The uprising. It’s all of it. I don’t like putting my daughter in a position where she has to turn against her mother.”
“Yeah but…”
He grunts. “No buts. I know you’re new to this game, but it’s always been this way. I love her, you know I do, but she still loves her mother.”
“No way.” I shake my head. “Not her. I’ve seen her mother.” I shudder, remembering Louhi’s cruel demon eyes, the way her tongue felt as it tried to choke me to death.
“Family is complicated,” he says with a tired sigh. “Love doesn’t go away just because you find out your mother isn’t who you thought she was.” I feel his eyes latch on me. “Does it?”
I open my mouth to speak, then clamp it shut. I want to argue, but then I realize how foolish that is. For one, he’s right, I’m new to the game, I don’t know what the family dynamic is like, how it’s evolved over centuries instead of the months I’ve seen it. And for two, well…I did love the mother who raised me, even if she never loved me back. It’s a messy complicated kind of love, which always made me stay off social media on Mother’s Day because of all the adoring posts from everyone else, posts that made me feel like there was something wrong with me for not having that relationship. But it’s still love, and it hasn’t turned off since I found out she’s not my birth mother.
I guess I can relate to Lovia in that way. I just assumed because she was here living with her father, doing the proper duties of the Gods, that she was on his side, not Louhi’s. But maybe it’s not about picking sides at all. Maybe that’s what makes it so complicated.
“Bars up!” Death commands and I twist around to see the entrance to the caverns. Between us and the open, roaring sea is an iron gate that sinks into the surf. Slowly it comes up, lifted out of the water by gears, and the boat glides beneath it. I recall Bell telling me that Death had put those bars in so that she wouldn’t escape when she was kept in the waterways, back when she was a full-sized mermaid.
Man, that is fucked up. I can’t help but study him, even though he’s wearing the mask and I can’t get a read on him. How is this the same person who turned a mermaid into something the size of a Barbie? How lonely do you have to be to keep someone else as a pet?
I don’t bring this up now, of course. I have the rest of my marriage to figure him out. Right now, I need to concentrate on the meeting of the Gods.
