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“There’s a reason we don’t do them,” Ur replied.
“That could sever all of him,” Lexa said, shock ringing through her tone.
“Exactly,” Ur said. “I need night and darkness as is. Why would I risk that?”
Luc looked up from his cower near the floor, then stood and stared at his father. “If we do nothing, he dies. Aurielle dies. And his power returns to the cistern until a new night and darkness ascends, leaving you to deal with night and darkness in the Vasmost anyway.”
“The yoke is inconsequential–”
“Maximora,” Luc interrupted. “That is their godblood.”
Ur swallowed and looked down at Nix. “What you’re asking… Lucian. I can’t.”
Luc keened, a horrific sound of frustration. “What can you do?” he shouted. “Just take power?”
“Luc.” Lexa glanced up from her place next to Nix. “This isn’t your fault.”
“Yes, it is!”
She continued to smooth Nix’s hair. “When we visited Cumbria,” she started.
“Who cares about that waste of a soul?” Luc huffed, turning his back on her. Though even as he said it, he recognized that without him, there was no Scarlett. Without Scarlett there was no Brinna. He heaved a huge sigh, the frustration dissipating, to leave fear and grief in its wake.
“I walked away,” Lexa continued, “thinking about was how horrible it was for him—and for his daughter—because he was stuck in his grief, stuck in the past.”
Luc turned back toward her.
“He ruined lives because of it. Ruined his own.” Lexa leaned down and whispered something Luc couldn’t hear to Nix in that gentle way she’d always been with him. Then she looked back up. “He’s stuck right now, isn’t he? Nix.”
“We all are,” Luc replied, initially thinking about the hedge, then realized it wasn’t only the spell that had done it. He’d done it himself. Perhaps he wasn’t Cumbria, but he’d gotten stuck in his shame and guilt, hiding it only by Roaming. And like his mother had tried to tell him, he’d ignored the possibility to be more because of the world he’d imprisoned himself in, believing it was what he deserved.
He looked at his father. “Give me my powers back,” he said quietly.
“You can’t do?—”
“No. But you can grant me the power, because I agree to take your place. And you will do this, because I ask for it.”
Ur’s jaw relaxed. “You understand–”
“Yes. I fucking understand. Do you want me to beg you? I will, for Nix. He deserves this from me, and maybe I don’t deserve to take your place or to be god of day and light, but I will fucking do everything in my power to do what is right by Nix. And this is right. For Nix. For Aurielle.”
Lexa hummed, her hand sliding over Nix’s dark hair once more. “I wondered, Luc, when you would decide to step into who you were always meant to be,” she said, then looked at Ur. “Father, I think you have what you want.”
“Lexa, we need the Oracle, the one who knows about theoblitorium,” Luc said.
She dissipated where she sat, leaving Luc alone with his father and an unconscious Nix.
A moment later, Luc’s power filled him—a warm, quiet return like that of an old friend. Rather than say something he might regret to his father, he skirted the couch and knelt at his brother’s side. “Why are you always hurt, Nix? I’m beginning to think it’s a pattern, baby brother.”
Only by four minutes, he imagined Nix replying.
Luc smiled.
“Lucian,” Ur said, crouching down next to him.
Luc met his gaze.
“I didn’t want you to beg me. I wanted you to understand you are the right god to take my place.”
