Alchan snapped. “Because if you knew everything, you would know that no male has ever claimed the power of the throne. It’s not our right. A king has died for that greed once before, and I will not go and die to Lariana and her fury when I have people to rule!” Alchan stood and glared down.
Luykas saw a king projecting his power, a male who was being asked to do something that went against everything he knew and believed in.
“My job as a king is to produce a female heir. I should have done it ages ago, I know that, but I also wouldn’t become a monster to do it, and I had no choices outside of that. My job is to hold the throne until a female heir of the royal bloodline is of age to claim it. To sit on the throne is to sit in the Hall of Queens and be judged by the goddess Lariana herself. No male has ever proven worthy because we can’t be. The females of my family are made in her image. I am not, and I will not pretend to be. I can only do my best.”
“I’m sending Mave to the Mountain,” Varon said softly, looking up and directly at Alchan’s eyes.
“No,” Alchan hissed. “You will not get her involved in whatever scheme you’re cooking up, Avatar Varon. Just a fucking priest. I can’t fucking believe you. A thousand years of secrets and lies.”
“Those secrets and lies convinced you to follow your heart,” Varon snapped. He stood, but he didn’t go far from Nevyn, their tails still joined. Luykas had forgotten it was Nevyn talking because it didn’t sound like him. “I saw the bond between you and Rain before you even knew it was there! I saw the bond Luykas had to Shadra before either of you decided to bring it up. I’ve been keeping your secrets for far longer than you can imagine. Schemes? No. Plans. Why? Because I love my people. I love them enough to ask you to do something that has never been done. And before you ask where my love for you is, it is this. I love you enough, Alchan, I waited until the last possible moment to ask this of you. The last possible moment. The power of the throne, becoming the Avatar of Lariana, could help us win this war more than anything else. It could give us a real chance, my friend. I would never ask you to do something like this if it wasn’t what I truly thought was best, but we are running out of time.”
“You saw?” Luykas sputtered, still trying to understand the first half of that speech. He remembered Varon’s words that day, the strange day when his secret maternal connection had come out.
I see your bond to the Andinna and to your brother is deeper than your bond to the Elvasi and your mother.
“You saw,” he said strongly, knowing now what those enigmatic words meant. “I remember something about how I thought you saw too much sometimes.”
“As the Avatar of Amonora, I can see real representations of the bonds between people. I can see ones that should maybe be strengthened and ones that have rotted and are unsalvageable, even though they refuse to fully break. That’s one you and your mother share. It’s rotten to the core, abused, but since it’s a blood relation, it won’t ever fully break. I see you love Mave, and…you deeply care for her other husbands. I see the bond between you and Alchan is unbreakable. I quite literally see too much sometimes. Much more than people would like me to.”
Luykas ran a hand over his face. He’d never known, never even begun to suspect.
“I might have missed this in my education over the years, but what is the problem with sending Mave to the Mountain?” Luykas asked softly, wondering why his brother was so quiet. “Other than the fact that we need her here.”
“He doesn’t want her to go pray at it,” Alchan snarled. “He wants her to climb it, but I’m still trying to reason out why.”
Luykas’ stomach twisted, and he got up to get a drink, hoping to settle it. He didn’t like that. Oh, no, his wife was not going to climb that fucking thing. He would die before he let her get on a horse to go in that general direction.
“Simple. She and Kristanya have some sort of connection. It’s been around longer than we’ve