Other books by Lisa T. Bergren
Remnants: Season of Wonder
Remnants: Season of Fire
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Remnants: Season of Glory
Copyright © 2016 by Lisa T. Bergren
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ePub Edition © February 2016: ISBN 978-0-310-73569-4
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Cover design: Brand Navigation
Interior design: David Conn
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CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER
1
ANDRIANA
She should have come with us,” I said, looking over the farm, far below. “They’re coming.” My heart pounded as we watched four vehicles wind down the dirt road toward Galen’s house. To the east, the sun was just beginning to warm the horizon. “She did her best to save you, Ronan.” My eyes flicked from him to Niero—who had literally breathed life into my Knight—and back again. “And we just … left her.”
Ronan took my hand in his. “She wanted to stay,” he said. “To come with us …”
“Would’ve changed her entire life,” Niero finished, brushing past us. “Come on. We need to cover more miles before dawn gives them the edge they seek.” He inclined his head down the hill, as the Pacifican vehicles drew near. I swallowed hard. Had they simply guessed we were there, or had they learned of our presence by some other method? We’d escaped Palace Pacifica and killed a number of the guards and, hopefully, Lord Maximillian Jala, if not more among Keallach’s Council of Six. They’d chased us through the tunnels and now, apparently, had tracked us to Galen’s farm. Galen, oh, Galen …
I stayed rooted to the spot, ignoring Vidar’s empathetic pause and Bellona’s gruff, “C’mon, Dri.” Mom squeezed my arm as she and Dad passed. Only Ronan stayed with me, his hand moving to my lower back. “Dri?”
“I-I can’t,” I whispered. “I have to know … know that she’s all right. We owe her, Ronan.”
“We gave her the chance to come with us,” he said.
“It wasn’t as if she had days to think about it. She has a life here.”
His breath caught and then eased out, as he decided on patience. Galen had been our savior the night before. If she hadn’t taken us in, given us shelter, operated on Ronan’s wound … would Niero have been able to save him? Angel or not, had he built on what Galen started? I wrapped my hand around Ronan’s arm and rested my cheek against his shoulder, remembering how close he’d been to death, how pale he’d been after all the blood loss … and then the ivory tone of Niero’s wings. Wings, I mused. Our captain has wings. It was at once both a surprise and yet something I’d known for a very long time. His uncanny way of knowing what I was thinking, his fierce protection, his skills in leading, and his body’s ability to heal …
Ronan stiffened as the trucks ground to a halt. The sound of the tires against the gravel of the barnyard carried up the small canyon we’d just climbed. I reached forward and moved a branch slightly to the side so we could see Galen leave the barn, wiping her forehead with one gloved hand and carrying a pail, as if just completing her morning chores. I prayed she’d been able to clean up the bloody table and stow any evidence that we’d been there.
“Down on your knees!” the Pacifican guard growled, lifting a pistol toward her. His voice came to us, distant but startlingly clear.
Galen immediately dropped her pail and did as he asked. In the dawning light, their bodies looked like golden-edged forms, far below us.
“Hands on your head!” cried another as the first approached her. Others surrounded the barn and entered cautiously, weapons drawn. Yet more ran to her house to do the same.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?”
She faced away from us, so we couldn’t make out her words.
The man reached her and circled her. It was then that I thought I recognized him as one of the men we’d battled in the palace. There were still great blotches of blood on his gray uniform.
“Fugitives were seen coming in this direction last night,” he said to her. He said something else, but he’d turned again and dropped his voice, making his comments unintelligible.
I let the branch cover us as I glimpsed a Pacifican passing a window in a top-floor bedroom of the house. The last thing we needed was to be spotted. It would be hard enough to escape Pacifica without a significant head start. I could hear the low tones of continuing discussion between Galen and her captor but still couldn’t decipher any words.
“Over here,” Ronan said, crouching and leading me by the hand to the right. We peered out through a pine tree that had a split in the middle.
The men who had gone into the barn and house now streamed out, and two approached the one in charge to report.
“No! I swear it!” Galen cried suddenly.
The man pistol-whipped her across the cheek. “You lie! There is blood on the table! They were here. You treated their wounded!”
“I did not. I butchered a lamb yesterday,” she said. “You can check my shed and see the carcass for yourself.”
“Smart,” hissed the man. But then I saw another man on the outskirts of their circle toss a plastic bag inward. It was the plastic bag and tubing she’d used to put blood back into Ronan.
Oh no … I dared to peek out farther to get a better look.
The Pacifican held the bag above Galen’s head. “This is not the tool of a butcher. It is the tool of a physician,” he said, leaning toward her, and spitting out the word as if it was foul in his mouth. “How many were here? Where are they now?” He grabbed hold of her shirt and pulled her to within inches of his face.
“Where?” the Pacifican snarled. The man shook her so hard that her head whipped back and forth. “Where did they go?”
When she remai
ned silent, he threw her to the ground. She sprawled on her side, arms outstretched.
“Half of you search the hillside!” he commanded the others. “Move! And the other half take a Jeep and search down that road.” He gestured toward a road that splintered off the main drive, to our left.
A group of Pacifican soldiers reached the bottom of the hill and fanned out, searching the foliage and ground for any sign of us. “Dri,” Ronan warned in a whisper. “Now we have to go.”
Reluctantly, I allowed him to pull me away, aware that we couldn’t stay … couldn’t be discovered. But as we entered the path behind the rest of our party, who’d gone on without us, we heard Galen scream. I froze, pulling Ronan to a stop.
Worse was how her voice cut off in a horrific, brief choking sound.
Then all was silence.
No. No, no, no … .
“Dri,” Ronan whispered, pulling me in close as I trembled. “It’s over. We can’t do anything but live for the cause Galen served.” My throat burned with the sobs that I desperately wanted to let loose. It was all too much. Too much. Because she’d chosen to help us, Galen was now dead.
“It’s war, Dri. This is but one battle,” he said. “We’ll make them pay for this. But not today. If we’re discovered here, now, we might never escape Pacifica again.”
I nodded slightly and swallowed hard, closing my eyes and concentrating on my breathing, on Ronan’s welcome warmth and scent, on the gift of his beating heart, his life, and on the hundred questions I wanted to ask Niero. Why hadn’t he done something now, here, about Galen? Why hadn’t he saved her, as he had saved Ronan?
But the thought only brought anger and resentment flooding through me. I needed to concentrate on what was good and right. I dug deep, thanking the Maker that Ronan was with me, alive, as were my parents. My parents … For so long I’d thought them dead. I focused on Niero finding a way out of Pacifica and across the Great Expanse, as I turned to follow my Knight.
Ronan and I settled into a jog, now bent on not letting our pursuers glimpse us as we moved deeper into the forest. We spotted the rest of our crew ahead on the next ridge, waiting, watching. I itched to be with my parents and the rest of the Ailith, fully connected again, along with those we were missing—Chaza’el, Tressa, Killian, and Kapriel.
Just as suddenly as it came, my smile faded, as my thoughts moved from Kapriel to Keallach—the emperor of Pacifica, Ailith brother, my former captor, and Kapriel’s twin. My feelings were jumbled each time I thought about him. How much had Keallach known of what was to come? Of what the Council would demand of me? Had he been absent on purpose?
I lifted my face to the gently falling rain, welcoming the cooling drops and relishing the scent of ozone on the air, which reminded me of the Valley.
Home. Home was where the Maker was calling us.
“You sense that, Ronan? Where we’re to go?”
“Is that our true direction? Or is it just the rain, making us homesick?” he asked. Our trail dipped, and for the moment the rest of our crew was hidden. Ronan pulled me to a stop and turned to face me.
“Maybe both,” I said, pulling him closer until our foreheads touched. There was some hesitation in him, a distance I didn’t care for. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah,” he said, lifting his head from mine. But I definitely felt it. Irritation? Frustration? Doubt? I tried to pin it down. I’d rarely felt such things from him.
“Hey,” I said. “What’s wrong?”
“Dri, I …” He pulled his hands from mine and closed his eyes, sighing heavily. “It’s nothing. We can talk about it later.” “Talk?” I said, edging closer to him again, lifting my lips toward his. “Are you sure that’s what we need?”
His eyes stilled, but he did not lean down to meet me. He put his hands on my shoulders. “Yes. We need to talk. Definitely before we kiss. But now is not the time.” He set off down the trail again, and I quickly followed.
“Ronan.”
“Leave it alone, Dri,” he said, flicking his hand out and away. “We’ll talk later.”
My heart clamped in fear. What was happening here? Why was I feeling a widening chasm between us, when we were finally reunited? “Why not now? Ronan!”
He turned so abruptly that I almost ran into him. “He saw you, okay? Chaza’el. He saw you kissing Keallach.”
I swallowed hard. It didn’t take an empath to detect the bitter pain and anger in his tone.
“Oh,” I said, feeling the heat rise in my cheeks. Of all the things that Chaza’el might have seen, he had to see that? “Ronan, I’m sorry. Keallach—I think Sethos has some sort of spell over him. He would fade out and be distant once in a while.”
“It didn’t sound like he was distant around you.”
“No, you don’t understand. He’d seem distant, and then he’d compel me. Force my body to do things I didn’t wish to do.”
“Things?” he said, eyes narrowing.
“Kissing. Just kissing,” I rushed on. “I think Sethos was behind his desire to take me as his bride. When we talked about it, he denied it. But the Council … they thought our union would help them bring the Trading Union into the Pacifica Empire. And our shared Ailith blood … they wanted to capitalize on it, as well as on my gifting. I don’t think …” I lifted my hand and massaged my forehead. “I don’t think that Keallach was fully engaged in the plan. Sethos was making him compel me into such kisses, probably hoping I’d believe I was falling for him, that there was an attraction I couldn’t deny—and maybe that’d make me more amenable to their whole plan.”
His green-brown eyes searched mine. “So you don’t find him attractive?”
I hesitated, unwilling to lie but trying to find a way to spare his feelings, and that’s all it took. He whirled and set off down the path again. “That’s what I thought,” he tossed over his shoulder.
“No! Ronan! I mean, yes, I think he’s handsome. That’s the honest answer. But am I more attracted to you? Yes!”
He paused again for a moment, panting, and grabbed my forearm, as if in warning. “It’s all right, Dri. I know it’s confusing, and you’ve been through a lot. Let’s just let it go now, okay? Until later.”
I clenched my teeth, seeing what he did—we’d nearly reached the rest of our group.
I came up beside Ronan as he told Niero and the others of what had happened. I remembered Galen’s horrible last cry and wished I could forget it.
“We should go back and bury her,” Bellona growled.
“She is gone,” Niero grunted. “With her Maker. What remains is not worth the risk.”
I frowned at him as he turned to go, and we all reluctantly followed. It was true. The eternal part of Galen, her soul, was gone. But it did seem wrong not to honor her life, her gift to us.
“Galen would understand, Dri,” Vidar said, interrupting my thoughts. “We need to put more ground between us and those who hunt us.”
“I know,” I sighed. “I just … well, you know.”
“I know.” He looked up at the others, moving off down the trail, clearly wondering why Ronan wasn’t waiting for me. But then his dark eyes shifted to Niero. “So, how did I not sense it before? I mean, he’s been right there in front of us the whole time.”
I smiled and shrugged, relieved that I wasn’t the only one in on the secret. “Guess he wasn’t ready to be revealed. Does anyone else know?” I remembered Niero’s finger to his lips, silently asking me to keep his confidence as Ronan had come to and Vidar had roused. Apparently, Vidar’s gifting allowed him to see beyond the veil now.
“Not yet,” he said with a toothy grin, gesturing for me to go ahead of him. “And I kinda like it that way. Just our little secret—yours, mine, and Niero’s. Ronan didn’t suspect anything? Even with his wound?”
“No. I’m not sure he even remembers getting stabbed. He seems more preoccupied with what Chaza’el saw of me and Keallach,” I groused.
“Oh, that. I wondered why you two weren’t making y
our normal googly eyes at each other.”
“We don’t make googly eyes.”
“Oh, yes you do.”
I sighed, knowing that would be an endless argument. “So what do you think made Galen do it? Help us?”
Vidar let out a low whistle. “She was remarkable, wasn’t she? All I can figure out is that she’d been touched by the Way. Somewhere, somehow. And the Maker encouraged her to help us, just when we needed her most.”
I nodded, considering his words. But even as we spent hours hiking in a northeasterly direction, my mind remained on Galen, her body now likely abandoned in the dirt in front of her barn. I puzzled over the sacrifice she had made for us, which then led me to think about all the Aravanders who had died by my side, by the side of other Remnants, all because they were called to serve.
Keallach, too, had been called. And if the call was that strong for others, how could he possibly still ignore it?
CHAPTER
2
ANDRIANA
We spent the night in a cave, huddled together trying to ward off the chill. We didn’t dare to light a fire, and the Knights took turns watching for the bird drones that might be searching for us. We’d learned the hard way—Pacifica’s reach was long and deep. They had caught me as we fled the Aravander camp, and I had been taken to Palace Pacifica. We didn’t intend to be caught again. As we hiked, my eyes moved to Niero, and I wondered why he hadn’t saved me that day. He had protected me before and breathed life back into Ronan. Could he not have swept in and pulled me from Sethos’s grip? Would that not have been a good time to do his angel thing? I ached to have time alone with him to ask him some of the hundreds of questions in my mind and heart.
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