Page 18 of These Godly Lies
Anna doesn’t need to ask which. When it comes to them, there is really only one.
Eira’s scowl could curl paint. “I thought I said to sit? I won’t have my neck suffer because you can’t be bothered to take your seat.”
There’s a retort teasing his tongue, Anna can see it in the way his eyes narrow and his lips thin. He manages to chew on the words until they leave him as something different entirely. “Very well,” he says, complying to her demand and sitting in the chair opposite of Anna’s. She can feel his boot gently toe hers beneath the table. “What news?”
“It’s about The Tree,” she starts, suddenly looking unsure. Anxious. “They say it’s dying.”
Khiran’s denial is immediate. “Impossible.”
“I believed so, too. Had it not come from someone I trust, I might have written it off as a rumor.” Her eyes meet Anna’s. “But the word came from Silas.”
Anna inhales sharply. “You still see him?”
Eira nods. “We’ve come to an understanding, him and I. We save more together than we do alone.”
Khiran laces his fingers, resting pale knuckles against his mouth. “It can’t be true. Those were his exact words?”
“He says its limbs are barren of the leaves to shade it. That it looked more skeletal than alive.” She leans back into her chair, fingers drumming on the tabletop. “There have been rumors circulating for centuries, but I never paid them much mind. Now, I’m not so sure.”
His face darkens. “About the fruit?”
“So you’ve heard them, too,” she hums.
Anna frowns, her brow creasing as she looks between them. “What about it?”
Sighing, he runs a hand through his hair. “I had heard whispers that the fruit was tainted in some way, but it could still just be that. Whispers.”
Anna has heard several stories about the tree from which her immortality stemmed. Sometimes Khiran tells it like that—a story. Other times, it will feature in a memory he recalls for her. He has always described it as mighty, but she’s never thought to wonder about the logistics. “Does it not have periods of dormancy?”
Eira shakes her head. “Never. Not in all the thousands of years I have seen it.”
The silence that falls between them is heavy with questions. Hesitantly, Anna gives the most pressing one a voice. “What does it mean?”
The look Khiran and Eira share, the quiet searching, answers her question before he can. “I don’t know, but it has to be a sign that something has changed.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Sometimes, he fears her heart as much as he loves it. Fears the way it puts others first and herself second. There is nothing more terrifying than knowing she would put herself at risk to save him.
CALIFORNIA, UNITEDSTATES
SPRING1957
Jiro is waiting for them when they get home.
Khiran’s favorite reading chair, a deep leather wingback, has been dragged across the room and placed right in the entry. When Khiran opens the door, the first thing they see is Jiro’s frame sunk into the leather. He’s gained weight in the year he’s lived with her, but he still manages to look dwarfed in that oversized chair with its polished brass nailheads and lion heads carved, mid-roar, from the armrest. It’s a physical reminder that, regardless of how mature he feels, he’s stilla child.
The second thing she sees is her shotgun—the one she kept in the closet for hunting grouse—across his lap.
He holds it with both hands, ready to snap it up to his shoulder. His finger is painfully close to the trigger as he stares at Khiran. “What are you?”
From his lips, the question feels like a wound. The distrust in his eyes feels like salt. “Jiro—”
“Immortal,” Khiran says, cutting her off before she can string her feelings into words. He gestures to the firearm, voice steady but firm. “If you feel safer holding a gun, so be it. But know that while it hasn’t a chance of killing me, itwillhurt, and I will beincrediblydispleased.”
Jiro wavers, a moment of hesitation, before the flash of uncertainty is stubbornly snuffed out by resolve. His grip flexes on the stock. “So, what? You’re some kind of god?”
Khiran’s answer is carefully neutral. “Something like that.”
