“We are aware of what you can do,” I said.
He eyed me. “Listen, Ronan. I made some mistakes with Andriana …”
It was the only opening I needed. I let out a growl and tackled him to the ground, tearing his arms from Killian and Niero. I managed to punch him twice before my brothers lifted me away from him. Two Citadel guards moved in to help Keallach back to his feet. He sat up, wiping blood from the corner of his lip with the back of his hand and staring at me. “I deserved that.”
“That and more,” I spat, trying to wrench away from Killian and Niero. But they held firm.
Keallach got to his feet and stared at me. “So this hatred boils down to my feelings for Andriana? Or something else?”
“There are many reasons that drive my hatred for you,” I ground out.
“But mostly it’s about Dri,” he said gently. The Citadel guards began to pull him around, heading toward the old grove of trees, but he struggled against them. “Please, Niero. Ronan and I need to have this out.”
The guards paused, and Niero gave a wave of assent. “Release him,” he said. And at the same time, he and Killian let go of me. Again, I didn’t wait. I charged, driving into Keallach, finding satisfaction in hearing his soft groan as my shoulder met his belly. We went to the ground, and again I pelted him across the mouth, and again, until I saw his hands were raised on either side of his head in a position of surrender. I paused, my fist hovering midair, panting as I fought to make out his words. “Mercy, brother, mercy,” he was repeating. His teeth were ghoulish, stained red, and I hated him—hated him with everything in me—but I couldn’t continue to beat him if he didn’t come back at me.
I grimaced and groaned before grabbing hold of his shirt and lifting him to his feet. Then I drove him back into the nearest tree, slamming him into it. His head whipped back and forward, and his eyelids lowered, hooding the orbs so hauntingly like Kapriel’s. “What … is … your … game?” I grit out, my face almost upon his.
His eyes cleared, and he looked back to me. “There is no game, brother. It is as I’ve said. I shall bring no further harm to you and yours. I only aim to help you.”
My fists twisted in the fabric of his shirt, and I lifted him to his toes.
“Ronan,” Niero said, warning in his tone. But I ignored him.
“Brother,” Keallach said, swallowing hard, struggling for air.
“Stop calling me that,” I cried, throwing him to one side.
He skidded through pine needles and cones and underbrush, took a deep breath, and then lifted himself up and turned to sit, remaining down. He’d hit a rock or something. There was a new gash on his cheek, streaming red blood, and for the first time I felt a pang of regret. But Andriana, I reminded myself. Think of all he did—and tried to do—with Andriana!
“Think on the Maker’s ways, Ronan,” Niero said. “Not on our own ways. Not on Keallach’s ways.”
“Stay out of my head, Niero,” I said.
I stared hard at Keallach. “Andriana is mine now. A bound bride. We shared our handfasting vows on the first full moon of Hoarfrost.”
Keallach stilled, clearly stunned. “But you … you are not—”
“The elders gave us permission,” I said, knowing he was going to take issue with the traditional age. “In order to honor what was in our hearts, as well as to protect her from men like you who might choose to try and take advantage of an unclaimed woman.”
His eyes shifted back and forth, measuring me, thinking. He swallowed hard. “It was a wise choice.” He cocked his head. “And your full matrimonial vows are yet ahead of you?”
I squinted, wondering if I’d misheard him or if there was a note of challenge in his question.
“She is yours, brother,” Keallach quickly amended, again lifting hands of surrender to me, as if surprised that I would take offense at the question. “I will not endeavor to do anything to break you apart. I was merely curious.”
“Yes,” I said. “When we reach our second decade, we intend to exchange our full matrimonial vows.”
He nodded, as if this was glad news. News he’d hoped for. “She loves you,” he said. “She’s always loved you. I am glad the elders blessed your binding.”
I put my hands on my hips, still panting from my exertion, and looked to the ground. I had to admit that if I had just met this man today I would not be able to grant him anything but favor, grace. Could it be? Could he truly be changed? Our brother, restored? The elders had searched him and allowed him the night. So had our fellow Ailith. He was right. What drove me was petty jealousy. Fury over boundaries that I felt were mine to hold, and that had been breached. They were human feelings; base, not holy. And I was called to serve a higher power than myself.
I turned partially away, rubbing my neck and closing my eyes, feeling the deep weariness of the last weeks and months suddenly, as if someone had tossed me one of the nearby boulders to bear.
A hand slipped over my shoulder, and I winced but remained where I was. Niero. “Isn’t that enough for one night,” he stated, more than asked. “Go and rest with Andriana. We shall face this conundrum together, tomorrow.”
I eyed him. “You won’t leave him? He has the power to—”
“I know, brother. Trust me,” he said. And I thought that out of everyone about us, Niero could keep watch on the one I distrusted most.
I nodded, swallowed, and with one more glance at Keallach—beaten and bloody but looking as peaceful as Kapriel—left the circle of light and climbed toward the Citadel.
His expression haunted me. Outwardly, he appeared as innocent as his brother. And that called me to accept him as another of the Ailith … long away, now returned home.
But something just wouldn’t let me rest.
There wasn’t anything specific that I could put my finger on. Only a subtle knowledge that Keallach had somehow, in some way, just won.
CHAPTER
24
KEALLACH
I watched the Knight fade away into the dark, knowing he doubted me, as did the others. But it had all gone as well as I could’ve possibly hoped.
I was in. Or nearly in.
I had them thinking, wondering if my story could be true.
They were angry, but they’d wanted to believe it. Even my brother …
A pang of sorrow went through me. I hated that I was going to hurt Kapriel again, especially since he hadn’t immediately turned from me, as I had expected. But he and the others of the Way threatened everything we had worked so long to build.
We’d seen enough from the hidden necklace cameras the defectors carried before they were discovered. Learned enough from bits and pieces of their conversations when the audio worked. Seen firsthand what could happen when a city like Zanzibar fell. The power among the people of the Way was exploding, and as Sethos put it, the only way to stop them was to destroy them, from the outside in as well as from the inside out.
And now I hovered, just on the edge of breaking inside.
It would be tricky, mastering my emotions so that Dri and Vidar continued to read only what I wanted them to read from me. And to convince Dri of my desire to fully embrace my Call as a Remnant, I had to open my heart fully to these lost brothers and sisters that I knew still drew me from a different angle. As much as I endangered them, they also threatened me, making me truly want to be one with them, forever. I honestly did feel the Call. I did not have to lie when I apologized for ignoring it for so long. It felt exquisitely right to be here, among them.
It just wasn’t possible to stay.
And so I would remain, I decided, tied up, with guards all around me. I would balance on this high wire until I could see a way to quell the rebellion and make as many of us as possible one within the empire.
If I could do this—just manage to convince them to fully take me into their fold—I might escape with much more than I had ever lost.
ANDRIANA
I think I spent half the night trying to think my way thro
ugh the Keallach situation. But I tried to remain still and not toss and turn, fearful that I’d awaken my finally dozing husband. Ronan’s arm was flopped over the side of his cot, but his lips were together, rather than slack, telling me that he was asleep, but barely. I stared over at him, at the way his dark hair draped over one brow and waved across his ears and neck, and how the candle he’d insisted we kept lit this night caused the angles of his cheek and jaw to cast deep shadows on the far wall. I loved him. With everything in me, I loved him. I would never let anything—or anyone—get between us. Didn’t he know that?
I closed my eyes and willed assurance into Ronan. Love. Affection. Dedication. Loyalty. Commitment. I prayed he would dream of me, feeling all of those good, solid feelings. Moments later, his breath became deeper, more rhythmic and settled. It soothed me, too, to think on such things, and gradually I settled into slumber at last.
It seemed just moments later that the alarm bells began ringing.
Ronan and I sat up, together, flinging back our blankets and blinking heavily as we heard shouts from far away and boots running down the corridors. “Everyone! To your positions and fully armed! Attack! We are under attack! This is not a drill!” yelled a boy as he ran by, repeating it over and over, his voice growing dim as he receded down the hall.
Someone rapped at our door. “Dri? Ronan?” Bellona cried.
“Coming!” I shouted, pulling on my boots as Ronan pulled a sweater over his head. “Meet you outside!”
“Got it!” she called.
Hurriedly, we finished dressing and took up our weapons, running out the door, not bothering to shut it. We ran down the corridor, to the main hallway, and down the tunnel, making our way outdoors.
In the early hours of morning, it seemed like utter chaos outside. Torches streamed by, held by groups of Aravanders and Drifters and Valley-dwellers alike. Everyone surged west, toward the mouth of the Valley. I realized that they all had stations, positions they were to occupy. But where were we to go? Where were the other Ailith?
Ronan seemed to wonder the same thing at the same time. He reached out to stop a passing Aravander female, fearsomely tall and strong. “Where are you going?”
“To stop the interlopers,” she said, pulling up the strap of her quiver. “They drove us from our land, but we will stop them here.”
I heard the curious sound, then, in the distance. A chop-chop-chop rending the air, like we’d never heard before. “Ronan, what is that?”
“Ronan! Dri!” Bellona called, and we saw her then on an outcropping to our left with most of the others with her. Ronan took my hand, and we climbed upward until we found ourselves in a small clearing with a defensible rim of stone all around, three Citadel guards peering outward over their guns, as if they might be able to see through the near-dark.
“Where is Keallach?” Ronan cried when we saw that he wasn’t with Killian and Niero.
“Still tied below!” Niero muttered, dismissing his concern. “We have bigger issues at the moment.”
Ronan bit his lip, and I knew his wariness as my own. But he said nothing further.
Niero bent and drew in the dirt at our feet. “This is the Valley,” he said, hurriedly drawing two lines that widened where we were and narrowed at the far end, near the Desert. “Last night, Pacificans cut down a couple hundred pilgrims from Zanzibar who were following us home, and infiltrated the Valley. We’ve lost our front two guard posts, and the Aravanders have all fallen back to about here,” he said, drawing two lines about halfway up the Valley.
I sucked in my breath, trying to get my mind around his words. They’d “cut down” pilgrims? Meaning, they’d killed them? In the distance, I heard that odd sound again.
Niero met my gaze. “That’s the sound of a helicopter.”
I gaped at him. A helicopter hadn’t been flown since the days of the Great War, at least that we knew of.
“That’s what they used to kill all those people,” Chaza’el said, eyes wide and haunted. “Shot them from above. They’re dead. So many dead … men, women, and children,” he said, the last word emerging as a whisper. He rubbed his hands down his face, leaving his fingers over his mouth, as if wishing he could forget what he had seen.
“Set that aside for now,” Niero said, taking Chaza’el’s shoulders in his big hands. “Have you seen anything else? Anything else we can do to turn them back?”
Chaza’el paused, as if searching his mind, but then he shook his head.
Niero turned to Vidar. “What about you? What do you sense? Are these just Pacificans coming our way, or are they Sheolite too?”
“Sheolites among them, for sure,” Vidar said grimly. “And more …”
He glanced my way, and I knew. Trackers. Wraiths. I took a deep breath, steeling myself.
Together, we ran down the trail. Niero shouted over his shoulder, “Stay together! Fight together! Remember that you are strongest together!”
I looked back, noticing that every alcove among the rocks was now filled with armed men and women ready to defend the Citadel. I knew that inside they were rolling the heavy stones across and barricading the tunnel, making it impossible for anyone from the outside to enter without assistance. This both heartened me—the hundreds inside would remain safe, regardless of what we faced—and terrified me. It felt like we were locked out of the only secure place I knew.
Under the wing of the Maker is your strongest place to be, Niero silently said to me. We are not alone.
Agreed, I responded ruefully. He was right, of course. Why did I always resort to fear and trembling? I had to be strong in the One who had formed me… who had marked me as Ailith … who had known this day was coming from the start. Praise. Praise was what always got my head and heart in order when I started to crumble.
I thanked the Maker that we were together. I thought on Niero’s words—together, we were a pretty potent force. And then I thanked the Maker that dawn was breaking, that we didn’t have to combat our enemy in the dark of night. But it was early yet. The shadows were deep. My ears pulsed as I tried to hear anything, sense anything ahead of us. But all I heard were our footfalls, our combined labored breathing, and in the near distance now, the helicopter.
We passed Keallach, on his feet and straining against the ropes that held him. “Let me come with you! I can help!”
“Help?” Ronan cried over his shoulder. “You are the one who brought them here!”
“I didn’t! Don’t you see? Sethos and the Council now count me as a traitor!” he called, but we didn’t respond. I knew it was probably unfair to put the blame entirely upon him, that our enemies were here because of our success in Zanzibar—we were getting too strong, drawing too many to our side—but I remained silent.
Farther down the path, we passed people heading toward the Citadel, already carrying wounded across their shoulders back toward safety. The injured from the front posts. Tressa moved among them, praying healing over each of them. Killian pulled arrows from the shoulders of two and bent to dig out a bullet from one man’s thigh with the tip of his knife, then set to bandaging it. I tensed. We were clearly getting closer. Two groups of Aravanders met up with us: one with eight fighters and another with twelve. We paused to catch our breath and hear their reports.
“They’re at least a hundred strong,” said Jezre, the Aravander queen’s husband. “They’ve fanned out in groups of three, flushing everyone inward to the Citadel, thwarting our efforts to get around them and trap them between us. That helicopter,” he said, tilting his head toward the Valley mouth, “accompanies them, sweeping from one edge of the Valley to the next. We are doing our best to kill the people manning the guns aboard her but have failed so far. Those guns—they’re more powerful than anything even the Drifters have. And they appear to have endless rounds of ammunition.”
“Give me a shot,” Vidar said, pulling his machine gun around his side. “I will take them out.”
“Or me,” Kapriel said, stepping forward. Azarel was with him.
He closed his eyes and bowed his head, his hands in fists. At each side of the Valley, over the mountains, I saw clouds beginning to swirl and felt the first tug of real hope. Sethos thought he had the advantage, with his flying machine, but we had the means to take it down, one way or another.
A group of Drifters came over the hill before us, hauling wounded between them and over their shoulders. There was blood, so much blood, everywhere. Tressa moved toward them, touching every one she could, and we watched each of them regain consciousness, blinking heavily. But after so much blood loss, they’d need more time to recover. “Take them toward the Citadel,” Niero said. “The passage is closed, but we’ll want to get them inside as soon as it’s safe to open it again.”
“They’ll be upon you soon,” a Drifter grunted, picking up his friend again. “Take defensive positions!”
We looked about. “There!” Niero said, pointing to an outcropping of rock that would give us protection on three sides. “Half of you there, and the rest among the trees to the far side. If it feels like we cannot push them back, retreat to the boulders beside the Citadel. Do you understand me?”
We all nodded, already in motion. We knew that if we had to we could get to the Citadel and climb ropes that those above would cast down for us. But that would be our very last resort. Without a good lead, they’d simply shoot us as we climbed.
Kapriel went to the outcropping with Vidar and Bellona, Azarel, Killian, and Tressa. Niero, Chaza’el, Ronan, and I moved out together, our task to flush groups from the trees toward the others, where they could take them down.
Niero was moving toward the right when Chaza’el whispered hoarsely, “Not over there,” and I could see his eyes were wide and dilated. “That will be deadly. This way.”
We followed him, partially hunched over, readying ourselves to roll left or right to avoid any arrows or bullets coming our way. We could hear the helicopter, its ominous sound edging closer and closer from our right. Above the trees, the clouds were building, deepening, darkening, and swirling. Lightning flashed. Thunder rumbled. If we could just buy Kapriel a bit more time, the helicopter would be no match for him.
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