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"We both know that you could get the same information from any priest in this wing who does believe in you. Nari could've easily converted someone - like me - to handle that without being tied to the brat. Everything I've heard is just enough to make sense, but not enough to answer all the questions. Why did you take a good man and make him suffer like this? How long will he be tied to that woman? What happens to him when he's not? Or her? I have questions, Zeal, and you are avoiding them."
Zeal just dropped his head and chuckled. "I knew I should've encouraged more respect in my priests. It would've been easier if they kissed my ass the way they do my idiot brother."
"Just an interesting enough tidbit to change the subject," Grath countered. "It still doesn't answer the question."
"I cannot see the future!" Zeal finally snapped. "I can only guess, just like you. People make their own choices, and there is no predestined path to know in advance. I may know a lot, and I can see even more, but I cannot tell you what will happen tomorrow. I can only plan for it."
"Then what are you planning?" Grath demanded.
Zeal surged off the bed and into his face. "To live."
Grath stepped back and I pushed between them. "He's doing the right thing, Zeal. He's caring, just like you wanted."
Zeal's jaw clenched. "He's questioning me."
"You never asked us to follow blindly," I said gently. "You taught us to chase our desires and give into our rage. You trained us to be proud. Of course he's questioning you. He's giving in to the temptation of having a god available to answer."
Zeal leaned back, but his eyes never left Grath. "I cannot teach them all. Anver will learn more from the students in his classes than anything else. Sometimes, the experiences are worth more than the knowledge."
"What is he supposed to learn?" Grath asked. "Because you have put him in a position where he is abused, day in and day out. Sometimes, it's the big things like his ward slapping him. Mostly, it's the little kind. The kind that stick with a man for the rest of his life."
"I know," Zeal breathed.
"He thinks he's broken!" Grath snarled. "No one told him that it's ok to not be sexual. No one has shown him the value of emotions over physicality. Not once has he heard that intimacy and sexuality are not the same. Instead, he's been pulled apart, piece by piece, until he's so sure that what he feels is wrong, and willalwaysbe wrong!"
"I know," Zeal said again.
"Then why!" Grath demanded. "You accepted an asexual man for this temple - a place filled with nothing but sex, lust, greed, and rage - and then you 'forgot' to shield him from the confusion that comes with that?"
"He has to live it," Zeal said.
"For fucking what?!" Grath roared. "So you can get your kicks? So he can be destroyed in the process? Is he your fucking punching bag or something? You go out of your way to protect Nari, to think about Talin's needs when she was hurting, but Anver? You sit here, pretending to be his friend while he's slowly drowning in the environment you've designed. And you can only say youknow?"
"I need him to know pain," Zeal finally said, his eyes moving over to me.
"I do," I assured him. "Every time I look at Nari, I do."
"Not yet," he countered. "You know a small ache. Anver, for you to reach your potential, you have to know what it means to lose everything."
"So you're planning to slowly but surely strip him, huh?" Grath asked. "And you want me to be a part of this?"
"I want you to show him how to rebound," Zeal said. "I want you to teach him that there are more kinds of love than romance. I want him to understand how important it is to have a shoulder at times, or a hand to lift him up. To see how someone can ask for nothing back and yet still help. I need him to hurt so he can heal, because Ineedhim, Grath. He is my lost one - not my Chosen. He is the fifth head. He is the key that unlocks it all." Zeal's mouth snapped shut, and he turned, looking like he was about to leave, then added, "And he's my friend. I've never had one before."
"You're being a shitty friend," Grath told him, but his tone was a little more sympathetic.
"I'm a god," Zeal reminded the man. "I'm also dying. We all are, because you have forgotten that we're not men. We're not women. We six were born from the body of a tyrant to protect the people left behind. We are made from hope and live on faith. We're so much like you, and yet so very different."
"I'll break," I told him, reaching out to clasp his wrist. "Blindly, Zeal. I already promised you that. If you need me to break, then I will break."
For a moment, he didn't move, most of his back facing me. "It's not easy being a god. I want to protect you, not hurt you."
"And I'm strong enough to take it," I promised. "I also think of it as me taking care of my closest friend."
"Anver," Grath warned, "he's using you."
"Ofcoursehe is!" I shot back. "And he has never found the words to describe what he knows. I get that. I'm also willing to take a risk, because the one time I tried to play it safe, I fucked it all up."
Zeal immediately turned, palmed my face, and his mouth followed. The kiss was hard, making my lips part, and his tongue delved inside, swirling around mine before I even knew what was happening. He was kissing me. Not for a reason, but because he wanted to. I leaned in, relaxing into his touch.
