Page 83 of Dead Crown
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.”
“You expect the Temple to be torn up? People worship here!”
“They’ve torn it up before.”
“Only to replace the floor. I doubt anything beneath the top layer or two has been touched in centuries. Overall, the Temple is preserved.”
“We need to look deeper. It’s said the settlement here was quite small even after Leifur’s rule was underway. It still wasn’t what you’d call a village.”
“Lumi, I don’t get what you’re after.”
“With so few here, it’d be easy to hide it if there was more to this.” Lumi pointed at the wall. “You have to come up a lot of steps to reach this level.” He waved a hand at the empty space. “Leifur could have had the base builtupto hide more of the poem. Preserved, he knew whatever else there was would remain hidden. I know you think I’m crazy, but I think we should look. If Leifur wanted to hide something, he would have done it before the place became too populated and threatened those in charge of laying the stonework to never say a word.”
“Uh…”
“This place has never been knocked down to the foundation. That’s still the same wall, and in those times, some fairies were born with the ability to preserve things. This place is preserved with a magic that no longer exists. They’ve added a bit here and there, and that’s it. It was the perfect place to hide the truth because there would never be any need to tear it apart and start over or do extensive repairs. You said I could have whatever I wanted.”
Jaki hadn’t thought he’d ask for the Temple floor to be torn up.
“The rose border-” Lumi pointed. “It’s not a rectangle either. Why aren’t the words a little higher instead of ending so near the floor? Wouldn’t it be pleasing to the eye to have the poem carved higher and in a completely rectangular border? If I’m wrong, I’ll never ask for anything again. I thought of thisbecause of Jacqueline, what we know of Elira, and how our Kingdom doesn’t match any other. Not once has she threatened the destruction of an area because someone without a penis was wearing the Crown.”
“You have a point.”
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