“Now you see.” Asher gestured toward me and then out, with both hands. “The twins have always had quite impressive powers. Even before he had his arm cuff, Kapriel was able to summon the clouds and rain and wind, yes?”
“Yes,” I said, remembering the Isle of Catal and both of the twins utilizing their gifting. Thoughts of what I’d seen him do since he received the cuff strengthened me. We could storm into Keallach’s castle, if necessary. Free Dri …
“We must make sure that Keallach never obtains his armband,” Niero said. “If we can make sure that doesn’t happen, we just might have a chance to beat him.” It was as if he’d read my mind.
I lifted my hands to my face and rubbed it. “I know Dri. She’ll likely feel that she betrayed me and be angry at herself. It might give Sethos, or Keallach, the exact edge they need to open that door to the dark she’s wrestled with before.”
“Then we must pray against it,” Asher said simply. “And hope that the Maker makes Dri strong enough to endure the fiercest battle yet. Because if they claim her, it will be a terrible loss for you, friend. But it will be worse for the Remnants.”
CHAPTER
26
ANDRIANA
Fury, dark and cold, flooded through me. He’d kissed me! Had made me kiss him! It was madness. How could I have fooled myself? I couldn’t sway Keallach emotionally when he held physical sway over me. I tried to pull away, but he held on stubbornly. “Just a moment, Andriana,” he grit out, fairly pushing me through a doorway held open by a footman and pulling me through the narrow, secret passageway. The door closed behind us. “We can have words when we are fully in private.”
“This is private enough!” I skidded to a stop, put a slippered foot against his backside, and sent him sprawling. I stood there, panting, a bit stunned at my own actions.
Keallach turned and looked back at me, that wry grin again on his lips. “I suppose I deserved that.” He was immediately up on his feet and moving toward me brushing off his hands.
I let out a sound of exasperation, turned and ran, but the door behind me was locked. I could feel his approach, even as I rammed on the door, yelling for someone to open it. But no one did.
Keallach’s hand appeared above my shoulder, against the door. “Turn around, Dri. You have nothing to fear from me.”
“Don’t call me that,” I said, stupidly trying the knob again, as if it would suddenly, magically open.
“Will you not face me?” he asked, pleading. “I need you, Andriana. Just as you need me. Can’t you feel the pull within you?” He stepped closer, close enough for me to feel the fabric of his jacket brushing against my bare back … and more, so much more. “Give in to it, Dri.”
His use of Ronan’s nickname for me made me angry, and I lifted my arm, intent on elbowing him in the belly, hoping it would jolt him out of whatever he was trying to accomplish here. But my arm froze, and slowly, I was turning, lifting my arm above my head. I tried to bring it down, to slap or strike him, but I couldn’t. He lifted a hand and interlocked his fingers with mine, then used his other to stroke my cheek and across my bottom lip, forcing me to part them.
“You will yield to me,” he whispered, moving his face closer to mine. “You will offer yourself to me in time, freely, without me compelling you,” he said, his breath sweet and warm across my skin. “Because you know you want me as much as I want you with me.”
“No, no,” I said, trying to shake my head and make my lips form the words, but failing.
“Yes,” he whispered back, his lips just barely grazing mine. “Let me show you. Remind you what is true.”
Then I was lifting my chin, pressing my lips against his. It began as our first kiss had, with Keallach compelling me. But as the door opened between us, as I felt the raw need within him, I stayed, caught up in the surprise and joy of a sudden soul-connection that I had so wanted to establish with him. He was finally as open to me as I was to him! My heart wrapped around what I felt within him — the admiration, the easing of loneliness, the excitement of recognition, all somehow funneled into this intense physical draw — and echoed it. Keallach was smart and charismatic, a born leader who only needed to get on course again. I longed to fill the gaping hole within him, to show him what it meant to be filled to all the fullness of joy and love and peace and security. And in kissing him back, in opening my mouth, welcoming his wandering touch, it was almost as if I —
I let out a cry and pushed away from him, eyes wide. I put a hand to my head. “What’s happening to me?” I asked in terror. “What am I doing?”
“Come now, love,” he said, smiling at me, catlike, moving in to pull me close again. “You’ve acknowledged it at last. This is good! Right. You understand now that the Maker has brought us together to —”
“No, no!” I said, pushing him away, turning my head to the side as he moved in to kiss me again. “Stop! I thought you said you didn’t want to marry me!”
He stilled and his eyes focused on me. He shook his head and pinched his temples as if trying to sort out his own feelings. “I didn’t,” he said, his eyes clear, desperate. “I mean … I wasn’t … Listen, Andriana, I’m so sorry.”
I gaped at him, equally desperate to sort out what was truth and what was lie.
“Highness, may I be of service?” Sethos asked, appearing at one end of the hallway. Had he been with us all along? How much of what I thought was Keallach’s power to compel me had been part of Sethos’s sorcery? And now my enemy was stepping in again before I gained the upper hand with Keallach.
My breath caught when I saw Keallach’s eyes were dilating, his pupils so large that his eyes became almost black. And he was moving me again. Compelling me to wrap my arms around his neck and pull him close. “What are you doing, Keallach? Stop! This is not what I want! It’s not what you want! You are my spiritual brother! Not my … my …”
“What, Andriana? Your … lover?” His tone dropped, low and sultry again. It was as if Keallach — my Keallach — had disappeared, and Sethos’s Keallach had replaced him. “It’s so adorable that you cannot bring yourself to say it. But it’s just a matter of semantics, right? You were willing to entertain a relationship with Ronan, were you not? Another of your ‘brothers’? We are not biological kin. We only feel the pull of one another. Which just makes this feel better than I’d ever imagined it might be.” He moved in again, fast, and I could feel the full force of his compelling, his attempt to open the gate between us again and flood me with feeling.
Maker, bind his gifting. Keep me safe. Help me to think!
Instantly, I felt my will harden again, as I steeled myself to resist him. I was such a fool! Relying on my gifting alone, my own strength, when what I needed was the light in this house so full of the dark.
“Keallach, listen to me,” I said urgently, reaching out to him with my own gift, even as his hands roamed my back in far too familiar a fashion.
“Oh, I’m listening, love,” he whispered, leaning down to kiss my neck, holding me still so that I could not physically fight him.
“I know this thing between us is confusing,” I said, closing my eyes, talking fast now, trying to will away the pleasure of his touch, his kiss. “I think Sethos has some sort of control over you. A spell maybe.”
“She speaks madness, Highness,” Sethos said dismissively, watching as Keallach planted kisses down the side of my neck. But his eyes were smug slits of satisfaction.
“Maybe it’s because you’ve never met another female Remnant,” I said. “Maybe he’s found a way to use this pull between us for his own foul purposes!”
“This does not feel foul,” Keallach murmured, his breath on my skin sending shivers down my arms.
“But you were born for so much more than this, Keallach. Here, you will only know a measure of the power the Maker created you for. And he,” I spat out, looking angrily toward Sethos, “will only seek to control it.”
Keallach’s head came up and he faced me at last. I
could see him struggling to think and watched his eyes, his pupils dilating and then diminishing. I was able to move again, breaking through —
“Leave this place, Keallach. Leave it behind you. Join the rest of the Ailith — they can help you as they have me. Help you sort things out. Then, there, you will gain what you long for most. What I feel within you here,” I reached out then and touched his chest, “instead of what you attempt to do with me here,” I said, reaching up to gently touch his forehead.
“Highness, really. I must interject,” Sethos said as I touched Keallach, but I ignored him, even when it felt like sparks were flying from his eyes toward me. I only concentrated on the Maker, calling to him with everything in me.
“Please, Keallach,” I said, resting my hand on his chest again. “I know you feel the Call. You’re confusing your draw to me with the draw you’d feel toward all the Ailith. Come with me! You’ll see! You’ve let Sethos convince you to use your gift in a way that the Maker would not sanction. Come join us —”
Keallach suddenly pulled my hand from his chest, holding my wrist away from him as if I’d burned him. His nostrils flared as he stared at me, anger building within him. Then he took a deep breath, lifted his eyes to look at the ceiling, and rubbed his temples with the other hand.
“One of your headaches again, Highness?” Sethos asked, now right behind him, his fingers curved like talons.
“Forgive me, Andriana,” Keallach said, lowering his gaze to meet mine again, and I could feel the throb behind his painfilled eyes. Had Sethos given him that headache? “We will continue this conversation tomorrow,” he said, then essentially handed me off to Sethos.
“No. No, Keallach! We need to finish this. Tonight!”
He ignored me, speaking only to Sethos. “See her to her room, will you? I need to lie down.”
“Of course, Highness,” Sethos said soothingly, as I gaped after Keallach in horror. He was leaving me with the sorceror? Did he not remember what that man had done to me the last time? Sethos turned and dragged me toward the far end of the passageway. “No! Keallach! Don’t send me with —”
But I saw then, with a glimpse over my shoulder, that he was gone, already out the other end.
Sethos let out a breathy laugh and pulled me through one doorway after another, clearly taking me out a different way than Keallach had brought me in. I tried to focus, to pay attention to glimpses of rooms, windows, but I was so tired now myself that I could barely walk. Each step felt like it was weighted by stones, and my own head began to throb. Was it Sethos? Could he cast a spell that caused headaches?
“Maker, be with me …” I said, then tried to kick Sethos’s legs out from under him.
Sethos growled and slammed me against the wall, his long fingers digging into my throat, lifting me to my tiptoes. “Do … not … utter … that name … here.”
I was choking, clawing at his hand, pretending like I was losing control, panicking, but in fact, uttering the Maker’s name had sent power coiling through my veins and cast out the headache.
As Sethos smiled and leaned in, examining me as one might a bug pinned by the tip of a knife, I reached out and dug my thumbs into his eyes. He bellowed and released me immediately, and I fell heavily to the marble floor. “Maker!” I spat out. “Maker! Is that the name you fear, Sethos? Is that the name you don’t want me to utter? The Maker’s? The One who was, and is, and is to come?”
Hands on his knees, Sethos panted and stared at me with hatred. Then he whirled, and his fist connected with the side of my cheek and ear and sent me sprawling. When my head cleared enough for me to remember to look, I turned and saw him coming for me. I used my arms, trying to drag myself away, get my knees under me, but my head still spun. His boot was on my back, pinning me down then, and I dimly heard other footsteps running down the hall, felt the chill in my cuff grow frigid. Sheolite guards.
“Take her to her room,” Sethos said.
The guards bodily lifted me, avoiding my attempts to snag a knee. My dress left me half-bound with all its fabric. I succumbed, knowing it was best to leave further battle until later, when I was stronger. Maker, make me stronger, I pleaded silently. We went up the stairs and down my third floor hall, and the guards essentially tossed me inside my room. But this time, I managed to keep my feet and turn to face Sethos, fists clenched. I saw that Lord Jala had joined us. He was leaning against the far wall, arms folded, waiting.
“Leave us,” Sethos said to the guards. “But remain right outside the door.”
“No! You leave me, Sethos. And you too, Lord Jala. Have you not done enough this night?”
The guards disappeared out the door, quietly closing it behind them. Sethos moved toward the window, looking out. Maximillian Jala stayed where he was.
“Why not give in to Keallach’s charms, Andriana?” Lord Jala asked, his tone soothing, reasonable. “If you would but give in a little, and the emperor give in a little, you two could rule together in fine fashion.”
“I remember well what happened to the last one who was to share the throne with Keallach,” I bit out. “I’ll end up in a cell on Catal!”
“It is different for brothers to try and rule together than for a husband and wife.”
I let out a scoffing laugh. “I am not going to marry Keallach!”
“No?” Maximillian asked, lifting a dark brow. “Why not?”
“Because … because …” I winced and closed my eyes. I wanted to say I didn’t love him. But I did, as I loved all the Ailith. “He is not the one who holds my heart.”
“No, that is the one they call Ronan,” Sethos said quietly.
I cast him a fierce look over my shoulder, but Lord Jala continued to speak. “There have been many monarchs over the centuries who find that a genuine fondness for each other is as successful an ingredient for co-regency as any passionfueled love.”
“Not that that ingredient is truly missing either,” Sethos put in. “At least from what I just witnessed in the passageway.”
My cheeks flamed. I bore his accusation silently, feeling it like new slices across my own bludgeoned heart. I’d betrayed Ronan. Given into Keallach … or Sethos … Self-loathing filled me.
“You are lost to Ronan,” Sethos said, sidling closer. “Our spies tell us that he has moved on to protect the other Remnants without knights.” He lifted a device before my face, flipped it open, and an image was before me. But this was more than a picture — the people shown were moving.
I drew back, frightened at first, but then leaned in, hungry to see every bit of my beloved kin that I could. I searched each face and tears rose in my eyes. They were all there. Even Asher and Azarel! Laughing, hugging, slapping one another on the back, clearly celebrating. Even Ronan. I froze. He moved as if he didn’t have a memory of me. There was no telltale slump of his shoulders, no long look to the horizon, as if he was wondering about or worried for me.
Lord Jala shrugged as Sethos clipped the device shut. “Either they’ve given you up, or they believe you belong here too. Does it not make sense that your path always led here? Where you could do the most good? Where you could shape an empire? Is that not the ultimate Call on an Ailith’s heart?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head, my mind spinning. And yet inside, my heart was muttering maybe. Maybe it’s true. From a distance a realization came to me, that my enemies were working on me when I was at my weakest and most exhausted. I sank into a chair and put my head in my hands. “Go away, both of you. You seek to bind me with your lies.”
“It is truth, Andriana,” Lord Jala said gently, leaning toward me. “Try it, test it. You’ll find it is truth.”
“No,” I protested. “You only want it to seem like truth to me. I do not belong here,” I said woodenly. Did I belong anywhere? Even with the Ailith? When I was so easily tamed by Keallach’s gift? So readily captured by Sethos? What sort of fighter was I? I was weak. So weak …
Sethos was at my other side then, and I had the oddest sens
ation that he seemed to grow stronger with each breath that passed between us … as if he was sucking in my air, leaving me more and more faint. “You think yourself invincible. You rely too heavily on the emperor’s draw to you. But keep in mind, we have already killed two of your unmet Remnants. It’s only a matter of time until we close in on the rest and see them to their natural end too. But there is no need for you to die with them, Andriana. No need for your bright flame to turn to cold, black ashes.”
I couldn’t manage to summon a response. What is wrong with me? I’m so impotent, pathetic —
“It will be easier for all if you simply give in, Andriana,” Lord Jala said. “It can be as Keallach said. Together, you will bring peace to the empire. You’ve experienced the worst of the Trading Union. Help us to introduce the best Pacifica has to offer and change all that.”
They were relentless. They’d only keep coming, keep coming, keep coming, until we all bowed down to them or died fighting them.
“I am not interested in power.”
“Aren’t you?” Lord Jala asked lightly. He knelt in front of me, reminding me of Keallach. “You can do great things with power, Andriana. Good things. For you and everyone you love.”
I looked away.
After a long moment, he sighed and rose. “This will be done easily, or it will be done with great difficulty. But Keallach has chosen you, and I now see the wisdom in his choice. So one way or another, it shall be done.”
I dragged my eyes to meet Lord Jala’s. Then Sethos’s. They meant it. They intended to see me betrothed to Keallach. On shaking legs, I rose, fists clenched. “I shall refuse him. In Pacifica, by the emperor’s own edict, no man forces a woman to wed him. Keallach’s as much as told me that himself.” I prayed he hadn’t misled me.
Season of Fire Page 24