“For their own good? Keallach, I saw soldiers rip a child from his parents’ arms! If that is what it means to be part of your ‘empire,’ I’ll be certain to lead the rebels against you.”
Keallach frowned and seemed to take a moment to gather himself. “If what you say is true, I want to get to the bottom of it. It’s not how I want it,” he said, slicing his hand in the air, a red blush arriving at his jawline. “But it is exactly those sorts of things that I seek to remedy. Don’t you see?” he asked, stepping closer to me. “You’ve likely glimpsed enough of Pacifica’s prosperity en route to the wharf. I will gladly show you more of our success here, myself. Eventually, places like Georgii Post will be more like Pacifica. The entire Trading Union will institute laws and have governance that will bring about needed change. Castle Vega. Even Zanzibar, in time.”
I stared at him. He honestly believed it. He thought he was on a righteous, true path. I reached for my goblet and took a swallow. “What of your brother? Why did he not agree with this plan?”
“I have not spoken to my brother in many seasons,” he said. His eyes were on the dark porthole as if he could peer through the night.
“Why?”
He shook his head and sat down again heavily.
“But you happened to choose this night, this ship, to go to him?”
“I’d heard … There are some that say …” His eyes moved back to the porthole again, and he took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Word reached me that Kapriel was unwell. Frail. He’s refused food for some time.” He looked at me, miserable. “Andriana, I wanted Kapriel out of my way. Far out of my way. But I never wanted to see him die.”
Again, I felt the longing, the pain within him. Love for his brother. I was lost in a tornado of thought. Could it be? Had the elders misunderstood about Keallach? Might I be able to broker peace? Bring Keallach into the Ailith fold, even now when he was considered lost to us?
I felt his eyes on me, the desperation, the hope, the desire for connection, and rose quickly, hoping a little pacing of my own might straighten out my thoughts. But then a question stilled me.
“Keallach, where is your knight?” Every Remnant had been paired with a Knight upon their twelfth year. Where was his? I half turned to face him and felt a pang of fear run through him. My eyes narrowed. Fear?
His face darkened, and he looked away again. I could feel pain in his memory. “My knight was killed at the same time Kapriel was sent to the Isle of Catal.” He looked me full in the face. “He killed Kapriel’s knight in the same battle.”
I swallowed hard. “They killed each other.” My words came out in a whisper. Such a waste, such a loss. My Ailith brothers or sisters …
“It was a terrible day,” he said, grief lacing his voice. “And it got worse. My parents would not abide by my decision.”
I stared at him, wondering if he’d be willing to be fully honest. “What happened to them?”
“They … died.”
“You killed them.”
His blue-green eyes shot up to meet mine. “No,” he said with a shake of his head. “No. I did not.”
I frowned. “Then who did?”
He took a breath, then a second. “Another.”
Another. I had a good idea who that might be. “Keallach … When did Sethos enter your court?”
“Sethos was the captain of my father’s guard. I asked him to take … my knight’s place.”
I stared at him, thinking that I might’ve misheard him. My arm cuff seemed to grow colder at the mere mention of the man’s name. “You asked him to?”
He nodded once, his eyes on mine, measuring my reaction, even as pain and grief continued to lance through him.
“And … before you asked him to do so … Were you … friends?”
His lips clamped together as he stared at me. “You’re asking if he influenced my decisions.”
“Yes.”
“No more than I allowed. And now … Andriana, if you could see Pacifica, see my court, see my people, you would see a good kingdom. My kingdom,” he said, touching his chest. “A kingdom worthy of leading an empire. And it’s my doing. Not Sethos’s.”
I turned away and stared at the crackling fire dancing behind a soot-covered screen. Was this the fissure I sought? Had Sethos been the one to influence my brother? Turn him away from the right path? Was this why Sethos had wanted to destroy us before we got anywhere near him?
I turned again to him. “Sethos is of the dark,” I said carefully. “He is our enemy.”
Keallach sat down heavily and sighed. “I know it must appear that way, to you. You’ve judged him harshly, because of that. But I sent him to seek you out. To bring the Ailith to me. I knew you wouldn’t come willingly so —”
“No,” I said, stepping toward him, frowning. “You still don’t understand. Your man,” I said, gesturing past the guard at the door to where I assumed Sethos was, “is of Sheol.” I leaned in, searching him as hard as I could. Again, the confusion in him was clear.
“Sheol?” he said blankly. “Now you’ve given in to superstition.”
“Trust me,” I said, crossing my arms. “He is. I don’t know how he has remained cloaked to you, a Remnant. But he is, Keallach. And it was the Sheolites who …” My voice cracked with sudden tears, and I swallowed hard. Keallach reached out, as if to comfort me, but I stepped away, alarmed. “It was the Sheolites who murdered my parents,” I spat out.
He visably paled. “Wh-what?”
I nodded. “The night of our Call, they came after me and discovered my parents. They tortured them, Keallach. Tortured …” My voice broke again and tears ran down my cheeks. I angrily brushed them away as I stared at him, furious, wanting to blame him. To find anything in him that verified that he was as much my enemy as Sethos was. But there was nothing. Still, I pressed forward. “What was it?” I asked bitterly. “After you killed your own parents was it so easy to order the deaths of ours?”
He scowled and reached out to grab hold of my upper arms, just beneath the cuff. “Again, such lies! Have they fed you nothing but lies your whole life? Is this evidence of what the Community elders preach?”
I scanned his eyes, so close that I could see brown flecks in one. My head was beginning to pound. Too much empath work all at once, I assessed.
I shook off his hands and sank back to my chair again, trying to make sense of what I was learning. “So you deny it? Killing your parents?”
“Yes, I deny it,” he said bitterly, pacing with one hand on his hip, one on his head. “It wasn’t me. I mean, I was there. And you have to believe me, Andriana … there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t wish I’d found a way to stop it. It …” He shook his head. “It’s a long, complicated story.” He looked into my eyes, and in them I saw his grief, his regret.
I stared at him, grudgingly feeling my walls crumbling a little. “And you did not send the Sheolites to kill us?”
“My guard. Not … Sheolites, as you call them. To find you. Not to kill you.”
“Keallach, they are Sheolites. How can you be so blind? Does your Ailith blood not tell you that they are enemies? Do you not feel it in your bones?”
He stared back at me in confusion.
“If you had been there … If you had seen them. Keallach, they were intent on murder, not capture. I’m sure of it. I-I think.” My thoughts came slowly, as if muddled. I felt the weight of my responsibility in this moment merely as increased exhaustion — another burden to bear. “Keallach, you need to separate from Sethos. Send him as far from you as possible. I fear … I fear he’s influenced you. And done things you weren’t aware of. Perhaps it was his idea to send Kapriel to the Isle of Catal?”
Keallach frowned at me. “Sethos? No, as much as I’d like to pass off the responsibility, it was my own order.”
I thought back to Castle Vega and the Council of Six I’d encountered. Men easy in Sethos’s company. Men who moved among the Trading Union with an air of ownership. “Ke
allach, how did you choose your council?” I picked up my goblet again and sipped, pretending to still be relaxed, even though my stomach roiled.
“The Six?” he asked in surprise.
I nodded.
“They are my most trusted friends, as well as from highly influential families in Pacifica. They have helped me unify Pacifica and make her stronger. Strong enough to lead the entire empire. They shall be my generals when we bring the Union under our wing. Together, we will wipe out starvation and illness. Together, we will all prosper.”
I stared at him. He truly believed in the philanthropy of his mission. That it was for the good of all. But I’d had firsthand experience with his most trusted friends. They were intent on eradicating any competition; hadn’t they destroyed the Hoodite farm?
He took a sip of his wine and gave me a small smile. “I hear you met them, at Castle Vega. That all the Ailith managed to sneak in and disguise themselves as servants.”
“We did,” I said, waiting for the rest of it, my muscles tensing. We’d tried to kill Maximillian on our way out. And failed.
Keallach’s eyes casually drifted over my neck and shoulder and arm for a moment, and then back to my face, and his smile grew, forming deep dimples in his cheeks. “Max thought I should find you again and we should be betrothed. A daughter of the Union, married to the emperor. Both of us Ailith. It would help ease our cause, among the commoners.”
I frowned and he laughed, lifting his hands, choking on a new sip of wine. He managed to swallow and then said, “Forgive me. I only meant to tease. Clearly, I am not to your taste.”
His eyes were merry, and I shook my head. “It’s not that. It’s just …”
His smile faded, and he looked almost sad for a moment. “Just … Ronan, right?”
I shivered. There was some emotion just beyond where I could reach in him … something that made me pause. And I had the clear thought that it wasn’t good that he knew how deeply I felt for my knight. That I didn’t just love Ronan as a brother, but that I loved him.
“When we get back to Pacifica,” he said, rising to pour more wine from a carafe, “I will bring you to the palace, and you can give the Six another chance. I think you’ll find them quite likable, when you aren’t fearing discovery or harm. I think your fear gave you the wrong idea about them.”
I thought back to the men, cavorting about in the courtyard with half-dressed women. Drinking wine as if it were water. Leering at me. All so hungry for power. “Perhaps,” I lied.
He pursed his full lips and tapped them. “You are an empath, are you not? That is your gift? That is what Sethos judged you to be.”
“I am. What is your gift?”
He ignored my question. “And so you sensed something in them that made you dislike them?”
“Yes. And trust me when I say that I had ample outward reasons too.”
He shifted his head back and forth and tapped his lips, as if still trying to sort it out. “Castle Vega is where people let loose. Trust me, they are far more refined when at home in Pacifica. Gentlemen.”
“Gentlemen?” I said with a laugh, the archaic word sounding odd on my own tongue, and especially so when applied to the men I’d met.
“Yes,” he insisted, irritated.
I took another sip of my wine and, with some surprise, found my goblet empty. “It is my opinion that a gentleman is a gentleman, even when no one else expects it of him.”
Keallach stared at me so intently that I wished I had more wine so I’d have something to do with my hands.
“What do you think I am like, Andriana?” he asked softly, setting down his goblet. “When no one has expectations of me?”
I felt his burden, then. Understood that expectations followed him everywhere. I blinked at him, trying to steady my vision. There seemed to be two of him for a bit, then one. “I … I don’t know.”
He leaned forward, took my hand in both of his, and stared at our fingers intertwined. His palms were warm and dry, comforting. Dimly, I thought I should pull away. But I couldn’t summon the power to truly care or figure out why.
He smiled softly. “You are as lovely as the Six say, Andriana. And it is my hope that I will someday prove to you that I am a gentleman, wherever I am.”
I looked back at him, and three of his tentative, tender smiles danced before me, rotating in a circle. “I … I … Perhaps I had too much wine.”
“One glass? I doubt it. You are simply weary after so great a journey. Come. I will show you where you can sleep for a while.”
He pulled me to my feet and then rested warm, strong hands on my hips when I swayed, unsteady. My head was spinning. “Keallach, I … I …”
He swept me up into his arms, which just made it worse. I was floating, flying, colors imploding in my brain like fireworks. We moved, and the lights turned into a swirl of light. I heard him murmuring in my ear, comforting me, and then felt him lay me down, felt the whisper of cool night air before a soft blanket covered me, warding it off, then heard the click of a door behind him.
And by the time I recognized that I lay atop soft, silky sheets and had sunk into the recesses of a feather pillow, I thought of protesting, of forcing my head clear and making my way to Ronan.
But it was no use. My head spun faster and faster.
It was over before it began.
RONAN
“Once again, divided from your precious Remnant,” Sethos whispered, smiling at me as I struggled to break free. We were in a small room belowdecks. Two men held me, one on either arm, with another behind me, as they worked to chain my wrists. “You are not so good at staying by her side, are you?”
“Better than you are with Keallach,” I returned. “You leave him vulnerable and often alone, I see.”
One wrist was chained and the other was nearly clasped when he struck, ramming his fists to my side in two swift punches that made me double up, and gasp for breath. Tears streamed from my eyes. He’d aimed directly for the wound I’d sustained in the Wadi.
He wrenched back my head, holding my ponytail in his hand. “You shall never threaten the emperor again,” he grit out.
“I’ll make you a deal,” I said, panting, trying to get on top of the pain. “You never threaten Andriana again, and I’ll try to leave your boy alone.”
He let go of my hair with a sneer. “What are you really doing here in Pacifica, Knight? Tell me.”
“We did,” I said, lifting my chin.
“You came all this way merely to see Kapriel. To talk to him,” he mocked, pacing a bit before me, chin in hand.
“Exactly.”
“And where are the others?”
“What others?”
“The Remnants,” he said, turning to face me, his dark eyes narrowing. ”The other knights.”
“I don’t know,” I said.
He punched me again, connecting with the lower left of my jaw so hard that I wondered if he’d cracked all of my teeth. My head swung to the right and he was pulling back to give me a second blow from the other side. But I’d anticipated it, and turned just in time so that when his fist connected, it was with skull rather than cheek, as our trainer had taught us.
We all clearly heard the sounds of cracking bones. My vision tunneled and I fought to keep conscious.
Sethos roared in complaint, cradling his broken hand in the other and staggering far enough for me to reach up on the chains, lift my body, and kick.
My boots caught him, one in the throat and one in the chest. My left arm had given out at the last second, the agony in my side weakening me. I looked up in time to see Sethos reel back and hit the far wall, bouncing off it and nearly going to his knees before he regained his equilibrium. He shook off the men who rushed to his aid and slowly straightened.
My armband was colder than ever, practically ringing with frigidity. But I could clearly see the evil in my midst. “You are poison, Sethos.”
“And it’s a pity that I can’t lead you to poison’s end, Knight. Al
l I can do is extract the information I seek. But someday soon, I shall have your life.” He stepped toward me, but not close enough for me to reach him with a kick again. “Bind his legs,” he told his men. “We will have the truth from him, one way or another.”
The malice in the room was palpable as he carefully bound his wounded hand, and casually waved his other to indicate he wanted his men to beat me again.
I continued to fight unconsciousness. Blood dripped into my eye. Another cut seeped blood into my mouth. Sethos came closer and pulled my head upright, holding my hair again. “What will it take, Knight? Shall I bring your pretty little Remnant down here?”
His eyes glinted when I glared at him. “Ah, yes. She’s the key to opening your mouth, isn’t she?”
“You’ll find that she’s stronger than I,” I said. “Within.”
“In some ways, yes,” he said, releasing me and then pacing slowly before me again, chin in hand. He lifted one brow. “And in other ways, not.” He turned to face me. “I tire of our games, Ronan. I’ll ask one more time. Where are the others?”
“I do not know,” I said. It was the truth. I only hoped to the Maker that they were somewhere aboard this ship. Protecting Dri. And poising to free me. But I’d seen enough to know. We were outnumbered. We’d have to surprise them. The longer they tortured me, the farther out to sea we went, the more relaxed they became, the better our chances.
The thought made me smile.
I didn’t see his fist. Only heard his growl. And then his good hand connected with my jaw again and I was spinning, spinning, knowing it was impossible, feeling the distant tug of chains, still holding me, but spinning anyway.
Until I felt and saw nothing at all.
CHAPTER
3
ANDRIANA
I awakened and felt the lift and drop of the ship. Oh no, was my first thought. Too much time had passed since I last remembered anything. Far too much time.
I gasped and sat up, eyes wide, looking all around me, my heart thundering in my chest. The captain’s bedroom was as finely appointed as his sitting room, full of lush fabric, an ornate oval mirror in the corner — that swayed on its hinges with the rise and fall of the ship emitting an irritating creak — an overstuffed chair, and a highly polished side table. I scanned it all for signs of Keallach, thinking he had to be here somewhere. But I found no evidence of him.
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