Free A Broken Paradise (The Windows of Heaven Book 3) by K.G. Powderly Jr. Page B

to—despite his practiced front of flaunting convention just to please his father’s perverse streak.
    He sighed at the reminder of how he had not always been prone to such liaisons or to wanting to please that side of his father’s no-so-very complex personality. The memories always managed to bubble up to the surface in one way or another, after he indulged in a much-needed break from Spulpa. Whenever they did, only one woman’s face filled his thoughts.
    Luwinna the daughter of Urugim, of the Seer Clan, had been Tarbet’s first love—made all the more attractive to him back then by Rakhau and Kunyari’s disapproval. How I wish I had really been the man you saw whenever you looked at me, Lu. You made me believe I could be better than I really am. I still love you for it. Sadly, only your fathers could have lived up to that ideal. It didn’t take me long to prove that I couldn’t…
    With big aquamarine eyes like tidal pools on a satin beach of red sand, she had actually convinced Tarbet for a time that Q’Enukki’s “Comfort” was “humanity’s only hope.” It pained him to remember—even after so many centuries—though he was sure it would have been an even greater agony if anything robbed of those memories. He could still see her tear-stained face, the day he had finally given her the bad news—the only woman he had ever really loved. Yet he had never slept with her—had never even tried to—never would have, unless consummating their marriage.
    The hopeless realization had come upon Tarbet slowly, over many months. He had never meant to lead Luwinna on. He even went so far as to circumvent his father to ask his powerful ancestor, Adiyuri, to politically sponsor their betrothal—the mistake that had ultimately doomed the relationship. Whereas Rakhau and Kunyari would have just raked him over the thorns, Adiyuri had kindly taken the time to explain to him the facts of life, and had even given him space to consider his choices.
    “I know you truly love this girl,” Adiyuri’s enormous face had smiled down on Tarbet. “If that was the only consideration, I would immediately do just as you have asked. In fact, I will still recommend her—if, after you have taken the time to think about it, you still want me to.”
    “I know there’s a rift between our clans, and a difference in spiritual ideology,” Tarbet had said. “Perhaps a marriage to Luwinna could help heal the tensions—in the Upper Family, I mean.”
    Adiyuri had nodded. “There is wisdom in what you say, my boy. In fact, that is how I will sell it to your father, if you insist on it. But hear me out first. You have lost your older brothers in a series of terrible family tragedies. That places you in line someday for the very archonate itself.”
    “Only if Archon Iyared names you as Appointed One, Sire.”
    “True. But that is all but done, since my Moderate Bloc makes up half the Council, and the Pro-Erdu Radicals almost another quarter, while the Seer Clan loses more influence among the old-line Orthodox every day.”
    “A marriage between our clans could still be a political advantage.”
    “Perhaps in time,” Adiyuri had said. “Right now we are poised on a razor’s edge. The future Archon must be the Archon of all the people—not just one clan. That is where the Seer Clan becomes its own worst liability—and potentially yours. Their vision for the future is hopelessly myopic. You know it as well as I. I see you struggle with it even in the love you have for Urugim’s daughter—true love that it is. The day may come when you must turn on her clan for reasons that are bigger than all of us.”
    “Why?”
    “We of Seti are not the world power we once were, my boy. Nobody wants to admit it, but it is a sad fact. The entire world is aligned against us now—not openly, but in how they see reality. Iyared only inflames the outer tribes more by casting out the Khavilak coalition. They will slide into orbit around Lumekkor,