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"Is he always so rude?" Lucion asked, once the door was closed again and Cull was gone.
"Only when he's been shot," Parton answered, and Lucion looked a little ashamed. The truth was that Cull was often abrupt with his words, but Parton thought that was more to do with lack of regular conversation than any intentional rudeness. Today had felt different. Today, he really had seemed hostile, as though he didn't like Lucion at all. After last night, that was understandable. Parton just hoped that Cull could forgive Lucion for those crossbow bolts, because it would be good to have the two of them friends.
Parton went to the space Cull had deserted on the bed and sat down so that he could face his friend.
"You want me to go to Solar?" Parton asked.
"I'm going to be married in the spring, and I'd like you to be a part of the ceremony," Lucion said.
Of all the things he might have said, that was one Parton would never have expected. It didn't seem possible, and Parton felt something like a twisting in his stomach at the thought of Lucion, his Lucion, standing before a shrine with some girl. It was a picture that kept warping and shifting in Parton's mind because he couldn't imagine how such a thing could ever make Lucion happy. He didn't want his friend to spend his life trapped in some sham, but what could he say about that? Corron had sent Lucion away to purge his attraction for men from him. Perhaps it had worked. Or perhaps Lucion would spend the rest of his life miserable and lonely and riddled with guilt because of feelings he tried to deny.
The thought of Lucion marrying some girl seemed horrible to Parton, not because of any jealousy or lingering hope of what might have been between them, but because Parton had now experienced a taste of a true relationship between two people who did care for and feel attracted to each other. Now that he’d experienced this relationship with Cull, as fledgling as it was, he didn’t want Lucion to settle for anything less.
Unable to form a more enthusiastic response, Parton asked, "What's she like?"
"She?"
"Your intended bride."
Lucion gave a laugh, "You of all people should know better, Par. His name is Sheller, and he is a poet."
Lucion said that last part with a little smile and a fondness in his eyes that seemed genuine. The tense knot inside Parton loosened a little. Perhaps this wasn't some terrible fate for Lucion after all, but something he had truly chosen. At the sight of that smile, it was far easier to smile back and say, "Congratulations." But then he had to ask, "But how is it possible to marry a man?"
"We'll be married in the Andelly fashion. It's a ceremony between equals without specific roles for man and woman, so there is no difficulty in two men performing it. I want you to be a part of it, Par. I want you to be my cup bearer."
"Yes," Parton said, "I mean, I suppose. I have no idea what a cup bearer does."
"The Andelly religion pays a great deal of attention to water, and the water of life is seen as a key part of the marriage ceremony. Each person involved in the marriage has a cup that they drink from and ask their intended to share with them. There are a lot of very formal questions I have to remember, but all the cup bearer has to do is hold the cup until the right point. It's usually a role taken by the father or some other family member, and I will ask my father, but we both know what his reaction will be."
Corron would be furious. He had considered even a kiss to be evil. Lucion proposing to marry a man would be an abomination in his eyes, and Corron would consider marrying using the ceremony of another religion blasphemy.
"I take it your father's plan to make you more obedient to the spirits and their worship failed," Parton said.
"Quite spectacularly. We spent a great deal of time being given readings from holy books and from essays written by spiritual leaders, but then we had a class in which one of the tutors explained some of the rituals of other countries. It was intended to make us see how ridiculous those other religions were, how backwards and wrong, but I spent the entire lesson wondering how it could be that if worshiping the spirits as we do is so obvious and right that so many other people should have misunderstood. Surely they would realise that their prayers were going unanswered and that their rituals achieved nothing. It made me curious, so I started attending the ceremonies of other religions."
Parton was unable to hide his surprise at that. Lucion had been one of the more diligent in the village about attending the shrine, saying the right prayers, and performing the rituals. Parton had always suspected that Lucion had been trying harder than everyone else out of guilt for his attraction to men. The idea of him attending ceremonies for other faiths was astonishing, but Lucion met his surprise with a smile.
"Solar is a lot more varied than Shrind," he went on. "Mostly, there are shrines to the spirits, but there are small groups of worshipers of other faiths, so I went to talk to them. My favourite were the worshippers of the Lord of Fire. Their ceremonies had these huge bonfires, and they had what they call fire dancers, who had these long staffs and they set light to the ends and spin the staffs around their bodies, like something at a festival. A lot more fun than my father's tedious prayers. I was allowed to walk on hot coals for one ritual."
"Didn't that hurt?"
"Not really. It was just a few steps, and the ground around it was damp, so my feet were cooled as soon as I stepped off. It was... exciting. Sheller and I considered getting married in one of their ceremonies since they don't have any gender restrictions either, but their marriage ceremony involves branding each other as a proof of eternal devotion." He made a face at that. "So we decided the Andelly ritual was better.
"But how can you get married using a ceremony from a religion you don't believe in?"
"I'm not sure I believe much of anything anymore. All the lessons at the school didn't really answer my questions, they just told me to accept everything that I was told. I don't know what's real. The fire dancers believe in their lord just as firmly as my father believes in his spirits, so who can judge who's right? I'm going to live my life and the spirits and gods can sort it out for themselves, if they're even real."
Parton still felt uncomfortable hearing such words of blasphemy, but there was no sign of anger from the spirits, no supernatural response to strike Lucion down for his words and prove him wrong, just like there had been no show of force when Cull had expressed his disbelief.
"Cull doesn't pray to the spirits," Parton said. "He says they never answer."
Lucion shrugged. "They certainly never answered me."
"Have you talked to your father about this?"
"Not yet. I wanted to talk to you first, to have some support when I went to face him, but I found your house empty. I asked Ivy and got the stories from the village, and then I set out to find you. My father certainly knows that I've returned home by now, but I haven't gone to see him. I need to."
He was clearly reluctant, and Parton wasn't any less so. He didn't want to go back to Shrind, to face the people who'd hurt him, but he hoped that this time he would have some more of them on his side. All those whose guilty consciences had drawn them to leave gifts at the lightning tree might behave better this time around. Perhaps they would listen.
"What really happened to you?" Lucion asked.
Perhaps he was stalling, wanting to put off the confrontation with his father for as long as possible. Parton could understand that, so he told his story, filling in the gaps of what Lucion had already learned. He told about the terrifying nights when they’d first heard the howls in the woods and how the elders remembered what used to be done, back before the howls went quiet.
“Your father said that the village used to leave a sacrifice to the monster. He said he would let the spirits decide who should give their life to save the village, and he put all our names into a pot. At least, he said he put all our names in. It was mine he read out.”
“And no one questioned this?” Lucion’s reaction was as horror-struck as Parton might have hoped. “No one suggested fighting the monster or lighting fires or just waiting to see if it was necessary?”
“There were some debates, especially between the elders, but you know how you father is when he believes he’s right. He had some of his farm hands take me into the woods and tied me up.” Parton considered leaving the next part out, but Lucion deserved to know the truth. They had never had secrets between them before and he didn’t want to leave secrets between them now. “He cut me open, so that my blood would draw the monster. I would have died if Cull hadn’t bandaged me up.”
Lucion looked towards the closed door when Parton mentioned Cull. He didn’t say anything. He hadn’t said anything when Parton had talked about the cuts, just pressed his lips together tightly, as though trying to stop them spewing forth the anger on his face.
Parton kept talking, explaining about how he went back and tried to tell them the truth about Cull, about how Corron had called him a witch and how he had stirred up the crowd to violence and cast him out.
It was satisfying to see the anger on Lucion's face as he heard about what his father had done, and the rest of the village. It was the reaction Parton had wanted at the time and never received.
"We're going back," Lucion said, once Parton had finished speaking. "They need to be told that they can't just ignore what they did. They can't hide it behind stories of ghosts and monsters." Perhaps Parton's fear showed on his face, because he added, "I'll be there this time. You won't be alone."
