The importance of authenticity: His true power returns when he sheds the foreign influences and reconnects with his roots.

The importance of authenticity: His true power returns when he sheds the foreign influences and reconnects with his roots.---- The Priest-King loses his connection to his power and his land by embracing foreign objects and practices (the throne, crown, clothing, marble floors, and even the blood ritual itself). His brother, the High Priest of the Dark God, helps him realize that true power comes from being rooted in his own land and identity.----It all started with a dizzy spell. One minute I was the Priest-King, crown on my head, performing a ritual, and the next, I was almost on the floor. My ornate crown clattered away, making a racket. Just as I thought I was going down, a hand grabbed my arm, pulling me back up.

It was my brother. I hadn’t even heard him come in, which was more unsettling than nearly fainting. He guided me back to my fancy chair with an annoying pat. His dark eyes scanned the room, taking everything in: the bowl, my bleeding wrists, and the crown still wobbling across the room.

“Well, Brother,” he said, “I came to tell you about my own troubling vision, but it seems it’s already come true.”

I was furious. “You – you cursed me?”

He scoffed. “Oh, nonsense.” He looked around my grand throne room. There was nothing else but my throne and the stand for the ritual bowl. He snorted, then squatted down like a common farmer. “I think you’re taking your job a bit too seriously. You’ve always acted like you had a stick up your… well, you know. But honestly, I thought you would understand by now that no one, and I mean no one, wants your title. We all know what it costs.”

I tried to snap back, but I couldn’t find the words.

I hate the way he looks at me, like he can see right through me. Maybe he can. He’s always known when I’m telling the truth or lying, and even when I say nothing, he seems to understand. “Ah. You don’t. You never have. Brother, you didn’t know? I knew from birth that I was chosen to be the High Priest of the Dark God. I knew you were chosen to be our Priest-King, just like our cousin was chosen to follow the War God and lead our armies. And your future son will be chosen as the High Priest of the God of Light, now that our father has passed on. Or maybe my future son. Or daughter. Those things are still a mystery. But I can see, even without my special sight, that you’ve lost your own ability to See.”

I wanted to whimper, but I was too weak.

My brother frowned and reached for me, touching my bare wrist. I wanted to pull away, but it took all my strength just to stay upright. His frown deepened as he saw how much of my blood was in the bowl.

“How many times did you try the ritual? Two? Three?”

My lips formed the word “four,” but I couldn’t make a sound.

But he saw. “Brother, you’re crazy. No wonder you’re about to collapse. Here, you need to lie down. Let’s get you on the floor first, then – ugh!”

I felt a jolt that sent him stumbling back. Where did that come from?

He returned, breathing hard, his dark eyes wide in the moonlight. He was staring at my throne with disgust. “Brother, you have to listen to me. I’m going to grab your legs and pull you off that throne. And you must let me. And then – we’ll see.”

He was using the Voice of Command, the kind our cousin had a lot of. Oh, how I envied both of them for powers I didn't possess.

“I heard that. And you deny your own power, that neither of us have, and wish we did? We need to fix this. First, moving you. Here, put this pillow under your head-”

What?

I didn’t have time to think. A pillow was shoved at me, and my hand clutched it. My brother pulled, and I slid off the throne. I wish it had looked graceful, but I ended up hitting my head on my pretty marble floor. I actually found enough strength to curse, which I couldn't do before.

A touch, a soothing feeling. Damn his healing powers!

“You have them too,” he shot back. “More than mine, if you’d use them. What has gotten you so confused that you can’t see what’s obvious? You weren’t like this before we were chosen.”

We were brothers, and you were chosen by the Dark God, who can’t be trusted.

“Ah. You’ve never realized, then, what my job as High Priest truly means? The Dark God is the god of pain, suffering, chaos, and disorder. While you, of course, stand for the opposite. Did it occur to you, who are not a half-god, that I can’t be one either? My role is to be a go-between. It’s about calming things down. It’s about making things less bad.

I don’t agree with the Dark God. I have to stand in the way and stop them from destroying the world we know. I was chosen because of my abilities. I can look into the dark things of the world and not flinch. I can help, I can prevent pain, I can punish. Which also feeds the god, in some strange way. They are pleased even when I mess with their plans. I don’t understand it, but it’s what I was born to do. You stand for the people of light. I stand by those broken by the dark. I wish you had understood these things years ago, because it would have caused a lot less pain. My god is truly pleased by the confusion, though I am not.”

I couldn’t stop the tears. I wanted to believe him.

“But, for the problem at hand. Here. You must drink this to get your health back, and you must trust me not to poison you. Take comfort that if I wanted you to suffer or die, I could have done so by now. But you are my brother. Here. Drink.”

I wanted to say no.

“Drink.”

Damn him. So I drank.

I felt better within moments. I could sit up, take the bottle, and finish it.

Meanwhile, my brother was checking out the throne with a disgusted look on his face. “Where did you get this ugly thing? Without the pillows, this looks as uncomfortable as sitting on thorns. Why did you get rid of father’s chair?”

“Uh. Um. Well, it didn’t seem grand enough after the last group of rich merchants came through. I had it made with foreign gold hammered over imported sarran wood. Same as my crown, gold from across the sea.”

“Hmm. Normally gold is protective, but…” He pulled out his dagger, made from ore he dug and forged himself. He slowly pushed the tip forward. Right before touching the gold arms, a spark jumped. He held the knife, but there was a burn mark through the beaten gold into the wood. A spicy, but harsh smell followed.

His eyes slid to mine. “Never thought to have the throne checked for curses, did you? I’m right here, you know. It’s part of my job, even. Hmph.”

He stood up and walked over to the crown. Same move, same spark. Then to me, to my clothes. Same result.

He cursed under his breath. “Brother, why have you surrounded yourself with things from other lands? Even the marble floors under our feet are from far-off places. No wonder the rituals no longer work for you if you can’t even touch your own land during them!”

I could see the sense in his words, even though my mind was still foggy.

“Well. I may not be the Priest-King, but it’s time to make some changes. Come.” He helped me to my feet, and I leaned on him like we did when we were kids. We went through a hidden door I didn’t even know he knew about, and he settled me – somewhere. Secret and safe. And then he left.

I heard him shouting orders in the Voice of Command.

My poor servants weren’t used to my brother when he was really fired up. They scrambled to obey, and things changed fast. Foreign clothes? Burned. Marble floors? Immediately ripped up and taken away to be sold elsewhere. Foreign trees in the gardens and courtyards were chopped down and replaced with the rare and beautiful flowers and fruits from our own land.

He even came back to strip me bare and dress me in simple homespun cloth made by the oldest women in the city.

And damn him if I didn’t feel better.

I could feel the power swirl, shift, and return. Through the soles of my bare feet, touching the soil of my beloved land.

I had forgotten.

I had lost it in my search for new and different things.

By next morning, my brother had found some prince in the north somewhere to buy the marble slabs. There’s nothing wrong with things being foreign, but it wasn’t for me and my brother. Not anymore.

He’d taken my throne and crown. He broke the curses, chopped them up, burned the wood, and melted down the gold and jewels. The jewels were back in my treasury.

He also took the bowl. I heard he paused, staring at the dark liquid, and chuckled, shaking his head. He got rid of it properly. I should know, since it was still mine. But I can forgive him, because after all, he is the High Priest of the Dark God. Temptation comes with the job.

At his urging, I made my own leather crown from one of the old bulls from the sacred herd. I swear the poor thing was waiting for me because it toppled over as soon as I came to the field. After soothing many, many worried priests, we made many sacred things out of its hide. The meat, though tough, was made into a feast for the whole city.

Cleansing rains washed the land. Things bloomed again, out of season, but beautiful all the same.

My brother and I faced each other across the table again, in the changed palace. Or in his temple. Or in other places. If we are to be the balance, like he hinted, then balance we shall be.

The bowl was returned, and I cleaned it as soon as I could. It sits behind me in the throne room. The wooden floor is now striped tanas wood, from the mountains around the city. The throne is made of rare therata wood, from a secret place only I and a few others know. It’s prized, but more importantly, it’s ours.

I can stand in the sun now and not feel the cold.

And my brother, lurking in the dark shadows, is pleased.