Page 42 of These Immortal Truths
Anna blinks, her hands pausing in her scrubbing. Mary’s hands are on her hips, her disapproving scowl an exact replica of the one she wears when she catches children doing things they shouldn’t.
It’s an excellent likeness, but not quite convincing enough. Anna straightens, pushing a damp curl from her face. “You know full well that I’m perfectly fine on my own, Khiran.”
His scowl slips, the image of the god-fearing woman drifting away like smoke. He sighs, petulant, but there’s an amusement dancing in his blue-green eyes that makes him look a little bit proud. “I’m at a loss. I studied that pitiful woman for three days. How did you guess?”
Anna turns back to the river and her laundry. “Perhaps you should have expanded your studies—they know me by Grace here. Also, I’m fairly sure Mary prays for my kidnapping on a weekly basis.”
He raises a brow, settling on a large boulder to her right. “Decided on a new name, have you?”
Anna shrugs, scrubbing at the cloth. “It makes it easier. I have totell so many lies about myself—where I’ve come from, how old I am. Having a different name makes it easier to keep track of who I’m supposed to be this time around.”
A frown furrows his brows, his head tilting. “I’ve never considered that. I suppose I’ve never stayed in one place—one form—long enough to have to concern myself with it.” His nose wrinkles in distaste. “How irritating.”
She laughs under her breath, working on a particularly stubborn stain. Irritating is certainly one word for it, though she thinks it might reflect how spoiled he is in that aspect. All things considered, she doesn’t put that much effort into her personas. At heart, she is still Anna.
He watches as she wades across the creek up to her knees to lay out the scrubbed linens on some of the flat, sun-drenched rocks. “I’m surprised to find you here,” he says, bending a knee and resting his elbow there. “I can’t imagine you … fit well.”
She scoffs, more amused than offended by the indelicateness of his statement. “They’re much more … stringent than I think even I expected.” She straightens, placing her hands behind her hips and stretching her spine. A few pops skitter along her lower back. She looks across the creek, into the untouched bits of forest. “I just … I wanted to see for myself. Before it changes.”
Because, she knows, itwillchange. The settlements will grow, their efforts to force the word of God to the tribes will spread by conversion or massacre. The heartbreak in Khiran’s eyes, the loss he felt, at the destruction of a civilization she will never see, has stuck with her. She knows he’s bracing himself for the possibility of something similar happening here, too. How could he not when history has shown him all the ways humans destroy each other? When he’s seen the way empires reach out and swallow smaller ones to fill their vaults and stores? Again, and again, and again. Anna wants to remember what it looked like before it twists into something else entirely.
Khiran’s eyes soften, following her gaze. “A worthy reason to force yourself into a mold you don’t fit, I suppose.”
She wrings out one of her dresses, water dripping down herforearms and over one of the larger patches of pale skin. “I don’t think I’ll be staying long,” she admits, shaking the dress out and laying it beside the other laundry. “The sermons Father Daniel gives … they’re hard to listen to.” She places a hand over the visible patch on her arm. “One look and they’ll have me branded as being marked by the devil, no matter how many of their babes I’ve delivered.”
“They are an overly zealous bunch, aren’t they?” Khiran hums, gaze dropping to her arm. “There are other places you can go, you know. Other communities you can live in.”
The natives. She meets his eyes, but the flare of hope is smothered as quickly as it catches. Anna shakes her head. “They’d blame them, if I left. They’d twist it into a kidnapping; claim it as proof that everyone on this land save them works at the devil’s hands.”
Khiran’s look is long and weighted. The reflections of the water dance over his skin. “They already believe that, Anna.”
She wilts, running a damp hand over her face. “I know, but I’d hate to give them an excuse to justify their bigotry. That’s not the imprint I want to leave.” Sighing, she cranes her neck to look up at the sky. The clouds are full, white and pristine. “It’s been four hundred years,” she murmurs, “and I still don’t understand how people can hate so violently.”
“I hope you never do,” he says, so honest it aches. When she looks, he’s staring up at the same sky as if there were answers hidden between the wisps of cloud. “You wouldn’t be you if you did.”
The smile she gives him is soft and lined with gratitude, and they fall into a comfortable silence. It’s only when she’s wringing out the last of the laundry that he speaks. “Why Grace?”
“It’s common,” she answers, hands pausing as she considers. “But also … it’s one of the few things from the pulpit I’ve been able to relate to—divine grace.” She shakes her head, resuming her task. “I wish they spoke more of love and kindness than of the devil.”
“The devil strikes fear.” He says it as if it explains everything. In some ways, Anna believes it does.
She lays out the last sheet in the sun, before wading back to the bank where Khiran lounges and finds a boulder beside him to sit andwait for the laundry to dry. Watching the clouds move between the break in the trees, a stray thought strikes her. “What name would you choose for yourself?”
Chin resting on his palm, he looks down at her, a perplexed frown puckering the smooth skin between his brows. “I’m not sure I understand your meaning? I’ve given you my preferred name.”
She shakes her head, realizing how she misspoke. “Name is the wrong word, I suppose I mean title? The world has so many names for you. What wouldyouchoose to be called?”
Understanding shines as bright as his amusement. “Bold of you to believe I didn’t choose those.”
She raises a brow, skeptical. “Did you?”
His smile is sly. Teasing. “What about you?” he asks, folding his legs beneath him. “What illustrious title would you choose for the mortals to call you by?”
“None.” She blanches. “I’m not a god.”
His brow ticks up. “No? Then what are you?”
Anna shrugs, feeling awkward under his stare. She wishes she had more laundry just to busy her hands, but instead her fingers fiddle with the ring on her finger. His ring. “Just …” She trails off, fights to find the words. “A girl who ate a peach.”
