POV: Lyra
Sometimes the weakest piece solves the puzzle.
I've been listening to them argue for long enough that the argument has completed its natural arc and arrived at the wall it was always going to arrive at, and the wall is the same wall it's been since the parley — the divine lock, who holds it, who survives the holding.
Everyone has volunteered.
Not formally, not all at once, but in the accumulation of the conversation since the King named the third anchor. Draco volunteered through the wolf magic insulation argument that the King shut down. Lucen through the silent version of the same argument running in his expression. Kai through the disruption logic that produced the most absolute no I've ever heard from Aphrodite. The King through implication, through whatever the "another who could hold it" statement contains that he hasn't finished delivering.
Everyone has been refused.
