Chapter Eighteen #3
“Er, no. We know Mary and would rather have her. We can come back.” Jaki sighed as the woman nodded and left down the street.
“We could walk around a bit and try again,” said Lumi.
“Are you cold?”
“No. I’m all right. It’s kind of nice to be out too.”
It figured, after being in a room for so long. “Do you want a drink? There are still a couple of decent taverns, although there won’t be much to pick from. It'll likely be heavily watered too.”
“I’m sure the tavern would be grateful for the money, but I’d rather go see the Temple,” said Lumi.
“All right.”
The Temple was empty after they made their way up the steps. The Mages were probably in the back somewhere and around a fire. No one was praying, and while Jaki knew they had likely just happened to come at a slow time, it almost seemed fitting somehow.
The citizens probably thought the only end in sight was the one where Iceland turned into a barren Kingdom. Plenty must have stopped bothering to pray. Elira’s words were clear on the wall.
And death will ravage these lands.
“The columns used to have white roses that climbed on vines,” Jaki said as he paused by one. “Not anymore.”
“I remember,” said Lumi.
“They were already too hard to grow a few years after we moved to the Castle.” Jaki cast his eyes around to make sure no one was nearby. “They’ll grow again after you're crowned.”
“The Crown is yours.” Lumi raised his head to fully look at him. “Iceland doesn’t need another broken King.”
“You’re not broken.”
“You can’t look at me and say I’m whole and healthy.”
“You somehow managed to act for three years, and you found herbs to defy Tivar.”
“I don’t think I could do that again. I can’t rule a Kingdom.”
Jaki drew him a little closer. “If you still want me, we stay together, and I’m crowned, do you think I’m going to keep you as a person on the side? I’d marry you, and we’d both be Kings.”
“We can’t marry.”
“I told you, fuck what everyone else thinks . ”
Lumi quirked his mouth. “If you expect me to be coronated with the Crown, what are you going to tell the Mages? What will we say when we get married too? ‘This is my brother, but don’t worry about that.’”
“You deserve to be at the top while Tivar rots in a ditch. You deserve to wear the Crown he wanted so fucking badly.”
Lumi thought. “Take it, and we won’t say anything about who I really am.
We won’t have to admit we’re brothers. I want to be Lumi who loves his husband and their daughter.
Not Edur, the dead Prince who came back, fucked his half-brother and uncle, and had a child with half-brother.
If you want to marry me, Jaki, then let me have this as my wedding present.
If people talk about us behind our backs and notice how much we look alike since I’m not dying my hair and fur-” He cocked an ear.
“We don’t have to confirm their suspicions. ”
Jaki leaned against the column as he looked at Lumi. “This is what you really want? To keep your real identity a secret?”
“Yes. You have the proper blood, so it won’t hurt Iceland.”
“We’ll do it your way.” Jaki put an arm around him. “Whatever you want. I should have waited to ask if you’d marry me.”
“Why?”
“I wasn’t very romantic about it.”
Lumi let out a quick laugh. “I don’t care. Come on.”
They started walking to the wall where the poem was. Jaki’s eyes wandered to the frame of roses carved in the stone. It was hard to imagine a stone worker etching in the deep lines. Whoever it was, they’d been dead for centuries.
It was also hard to imagine the Temple had once been a simpler structure.
After Elira had gifted King Rinder the Crown, and Iceland became a real Kingdom, he’d left his original settlement.
Havaska had been started, although it had been so small, one couldn’t even call it a village.
The Temple had been the biggest thing, and Rinder had ordered the wall to be carved with the words of the Goddess.
Things had been changed a little and added over the centuries, but it was still the same place Rinder had once stood in.
Every King had been crowned in the same Temple.
“This poem is wrong,” said Lumi.
“Hm?”
“It’s wrong or…I mean…” Lumi paused. “This doesn’t sound right.”
“What are you talking about?”
“If Jacqueline makes the Crown shine, then Elira didn’t intend for only men to take the throne. Aren’t those supposed to be her words?”
Jaki squeezed him. “The one-man part are what she supposedly said, and I don’t think Rinder would have lied.
Bud must mean the heir, and Rinder only had one son.
I think this specifically refers to him and his son.
No one else. Later, the story must have been changed a bit since the line kept birthing sons, so we ended up believing only a true son of the line could be crowned.
I’m assuming it was passed down orally at first, so I can see little things being altered, and people started to think this poem referred to everyone. ”
“I don’t know…”
“Why was the word mankind often used to represent all fairies a while back instead of fairykind? Not everyone is a man. It’s just one of those things they used to do.”
“One man, one crown, one bud, one clan,” Lumi muttered. “It’s still wrong.”
Jaki peeked in the sling where Jacqueline was dozing.
“How? There’s one ruler, one living Crown, the single rosebud that was on the tree to represent the birth of the heir, and all of Iceland is supposed to be united.
” Clan was an older word used to represent a Kingdom, a particular group, or a family.
Lumi tilted his head. “One Crown? That’s it?”
“Er, yes?”
“So we’re not permitted a copy? Mother had a smaller and slightly different version of the Crown. Every Queen or King married to the heir had it. If any King had ever been in a poly relationship here, they would have had a third made.”
“I think one Crown means it’s only the one she made that will live,” said Jaki. “If it was lost or something, we couldn’t make a copy and expect it to work properly. The copies are just so the spouse has something to wear for the image when they’re coronated.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” Lumi insisted as he stepped and pointed at the wall.
“I never questioned it before. I didn’t even think about the wall itself.
Jacqueline proved we were wrong about only males taking the line.
Even the Valentine line never had such a rule, and they’re all born with scar markings.
There’s no fairy type like that. They’ve always birthed a male first too. ”
“But it’s likely a coincidence, and maybe the markings are just a thing as a sign of a blessing or…”
“Maybe there is a particular reason for them only having males, but it’s not because Elira didn’t value women. She was a woman, but saying only men can have the Crown here isn’t like her. You said that too.”
“Yes, and our line never had a Princess of Cleel blood touch the Crown while it was dead. Jacqueline is proof that Elira didn’t expect the women in our Royal Family to be less important. We’ve always had a boy to take over, and that’s the way it worked out.” Jaki shrugged.
The back of Lumi’s cloak moved as he started swishing his tail. “Rinder might have been killed.”
Speculation existed about it, but it wasn’t something anyone could prove.
Rinder’s son, Leifur, had been born in the same home as Jaki and Lumi.
Or perhaps it was better to say the same bit of land.
Back then, there had likely been a wood or stone house on a hill.
At most, they’d had an old-fashioned hall.
The plot of dirt had never been moved, and the Tree had always been there.
Elira had brought it as a gift to Rinder once he’d had a child with his wife.
In those days, it was more likely that the Tree had been planted in front of their home.
It was inside now. Over the centuries, they’d built around it and worked with the terrain.
Elira’s Tree needed no water or sunlight, so they’d never worried when they enclosed it.
It had been a gift to represent continuing life.
The history around that time was blurred. Supposedly, at some point after Elira had vanished from the realm, Leifur had gone somewhere with his Father and returned with his corpse.
Some said outlaws had done it, and it seemed the citizens of the time believed it. Even when Elira walked the realm, some of her children had committed crimes against their own siblings.
Leifur had gone on to rule with no issue as far as they knew.
Later writings said Leifur had killed his Father to gain the throne earlier.
Rinder had been buried in his tomb. It was a special place he had chosen himself in the far north where he’d wanted to rest in view of the green sea and its ice.
Except he hadn’t planned to enter it so soon.
“Elira also never threatened the death of a whole Kingdom,” added Lumi.
“I know.”
Lumi pressed his lips together as he glanced around at the border.
“Either she didn’t care if Iceland possibly ended in disaster at some point, this is a fucking lie, or it’s not complete.
Winter was one of her favorite things, and I don’t think she’d want this Kingdom to have the chance of ending like this.
She would have made sure the people knew women could rule.
Elira often created things to have meaning or a moral for us to learn from. ”
“Okay…” Whatever line of thought Lumi was following, Jaki had a feeling he wouldn’t be deterred too easily.
Lumi came up to him and spread his hands. “What’s the moral behind this?”
Jaki thought for a moment. “Don’t treat women as inferior?”
“No.”
“I think that would be a good moral to ensure one side didn’t try to enslave the other side in a way,” said Jaki.
Lumi looked at the stone squares that made up the floor. “I want the floor removed by this. I want us to look deeper.”
Jaki leaned forward. “What?”
“I want to see what’s under it.”