I swallowed hard and gripped his shoulder when he tried to leave. “But you forgive me? Kapriel,” I whispered, “I must hear it from you.”
His eyes searched mine. “I’ve already forgiven you,” he said. And then he pulled me into a fierce embrace.
We left then, me once again wiping tears from my eyes with the back of my hands, as if I was a boy, not a man. Never had I thought it truly possible. Complete acceptance. Complete reunion with my twin. Sharing this Ailith bond in full, as well as our blood bond. Truly, it was as holy an experience for me as receiving my armband. Maybe it was because of the cuff, I considered, that I could now feel it in full.
Niero led us out and around the boulders, waving to scouts and armed guards who gave us the all-clear sign but watched our progress with curiosity heavy in their eyes, as if they longed to follow us. Ivar, Ronan and Dri’s trainer, emerged on the path ahead, as if he’d been waiting there. Stupidly, I realized that he had—that he was here at Niero’s invitation and would be a part of our training. I shoved away a surge of defensiveness, as if the man would be inclined to be against me. The Ailith had a holy bond with me, which was reason to offer me uncommon acceptance, but would all followers of the Way feel the same? I would just have to prove myself to those who found it harder, I resolved. I’d show them all, in time, that they hadn’t made a mistake. That it had been a good choice, to allow me to be one with them.
In time, we passed through a small grove of aspens that were about to lose the last of their golden leaves, and then through a shallow valley of pines, emerging in a small meadow full of dormant, brown grass that reached our knees. Ivar removed his backpack and tossed me a wooden sparring sword and Kapriel another. Then he pulled out two for Niero, one for each hand. He unstrapped a wooden staff from his back, apparently his customary weapon. But this one didn’t have a blade on one end and a metal-fortified end on the other, as was customary. It was a sparring staff.
Ivar saw me eyeing it. “You want this or a sword?” he asked.
“The staff is what I am most accustomed to,” I said. “But I can use either.”
His gaze deadly calm, he handed over the staff, as if unworried about what I could do with it. Niero watched. He knew Sethos often carried a double-tipped staff. Did he judge me for favoring a similar weapon?
Niero faced off with me, and Ivar with Kapriel. “Ordinary mortal rules at first,” Niero said with the glint of a smile while weaving two sparring swords in the air, as if getting used to their weight. “Then we shall allow you to bring in your gifting.”
“And you?” I tossed out to him as our wooden weapons met between us. “Will you keep to ordinary mortal rules?”
“The best I can,” he said, smiling slightly. He lifted his chin. “Whenever you are ready, prince.”
He hadn’t even uttered his last word when I struck, surprising him a bit, I think. But he quickly rallied, and we set into an earnest session of sparring, which grew in intensity the longer it went on. We were well matched. Niero was bigger and stronger than I, but I was quicker and lither. I drove him, bit by bit, toward a rock I’d spotted behind him. With a well-timed block, whirl, and drive, he stepped against it, and I surprised him by driving forward, throwing him off balance and using the staff to trip him at just the right moment. He fell to his back, eyes widening in surprise, as my sparring staff pointed toward his throat.
“And so now you shall kill me?” he asked.
“Of course,” I began, but that was when I felt his boots on either side of my ankle. With a quick move, it was my turn to land on my back.
He managed to knock the wind out of me and rolled atop, pinning my chest with his knee, one practice sword at my neck. “Pride goeth before the fall,” he quipped. “A proverb especially important for the highborn to note.”
“Noted,” I gasped.
He let me up and offered a hand, but I ignored it, my ego truly stinging a bit. I looked to my twin as I rose. He wasn’t doing much better—lifting his hands in surrender as Ivar brought the broad side of his sword against his belly.
Frustration and anger roiled within me. We were better than this! Why shouldn’t we unleash all the Maker had granted us if this was a true practice session for battle?
“Because you are not to call upon your gifting in frustration and anger,” Niero said, putting the tip of one wooden sword to the ground and the other to his shoulder.
I looked to him in surprise.
“Yes, I can read the Remnants’ thoughts. On occasion,” he said, lifting one brow.
I can also do this, when the Maker allows it.
“When the Maker allows it?” I asked, blinking in surprise as his words rang in my ears. “When would he not allow it? Why?”
He lifted his chin, pleased at my ability to hear. “No one ever knows why he does what he does. We can only trust in the goodness of his will.”
I considered that and then went back to what he’d said. “You say I should not call upon my gifting in anger and frustration.”
“Correct, because that centers on you. That is what made your gift a low gift, in Pacifica. But here, you will transform it into what it was meant to be—a high gift. You are not to call upon it out of your own desire to accomplish something you alone want,” he said. “You are to call upon it out of a desire to serve the Community or, at the very least, your fellow Ailith. Otherwise, it is nothing more than a parlor trick, right? A spell, of sorts. A sorcerer’s spell.”
We stared at each other. I knew he spoke of Sethos. Of his means of manipulating me.
“He used your gifting for his own purposes,” Niero said quietly. “Didn’t he? By convincing you to use them for your gain.”
I grimaced, remembering Andriana. How he’d made me … I turned my face away from Niero in shame.
“If you do not operate out of pride,” Niero said, “but out of total service to and trust of the Maker, Sethos shall not be able to infiltrate your armor again. He is strong, but the One we serve is stronger. Always remember that.”
I nodded, and we squared up again for another round of sparring. When I succeeded in a mock-death strike against his throat, he gave me a calm look. “Good. Now practice calling upon your gifting. Not for you. But out of a desire to serve your newfound Ailith kin.”
I narrowed my gaze. “But I could kill you.”
One side of his mouth quirked into a mocking smile. “I have been called as a guardian of the Remnants. I do not fear your gifts. Simply practice calling upon it, as if I were your enemy, threatening your new brothers and sisters.”
I thought of Andriana. Ronan too, I quickly added in my head. I thought also of Tressa and Killian, Bellona and Vidar, Chaza’el … and paused.
Sorrow is all right, Niero coached within. It’s an emblem of compassion. The opposite of pride.
I thought about how I was sorry I’d never truly known Chaza’el. Never seen his gifting in action. I turned toward Kapriel, as he bent over laughing with Ivar on the ground. I hadn’t heard him laugh in some time, and the sound of it brought a swirl of joy to my heart. A surge of love and a desire to be fully restored with my brother for years to come. To be one with the Ailith until the end of my days … My arm cuff began to warm, and I breathed in, feeling as if my lungs were expanding, my muscles doubling in size. It was such a pure sensation that I actually lifted and looked at my arms, expecting them to be bigger. They weren’t, but it was then that I realized that this was a holy strength I sensed, my gifting coming to fruition. Sethos had always told me I was gifted, but he’d bound me in ways I had not recognized.
“Pretend I am he. Pretend I am Sethos,” Niero grunted.
I lifted my hands to the pines that bordered our meadow, and then waved toward the angel who dared to spar with me. A thousand pinecones came pelting toward him.
I lifted my hand at the last second, and the wave of them hovered midair, then dropped to the ground. I stared in surprise. Never in my whole life had I had such control. Short bursts, yes. B
ut sustained? Nothing like that. I lifted my hands, staring at them, wondering over the odd force that seemed to be heating them even now.
“Excellent control,” Niero said, a smile lifting his lips, “for one so new to his gifting. But don’t fear for me. The Maker will not allow me to die here, in this. Show us what you can do, Keallach. Explore it.” He gestured toward Kapriel and Ivar, and the two took cover near a boulder, watching us intently.
I turned back to the trees. I thought about the Ailith, about needing to make a path. About the desire, so deep within, to lead them. To someplace good. Someplace safe. I lifted my hands straight out from my body then separated them.
There was a cacophony of noise as six giant trees fell, pulling up massive root balls as they went, a neat line between them. A path, I thought, eyes wide in wonder.
Pretend I am coming up behind you, Niero said, within.
I looked to an old fallen log ten paces ahead, and with a wave I sent it over my shoulder, barely ducking. I could smell the scent of rot and wet decay from the dirt that fell as it passed me. I brushed the dirt off my shoulder. Belatedly, I worried about Niero and turned, but I saw that he was halfway across the field, that I’d completely missed him.
You’re slow, he taunted. I’m Sethos, remember?
My eyes narrowed. I stared at him, pretending he was Sethos and bent on killing my brothers and sisters.
I brought down the trees behind him.
Again, my heart pounded as the branches shook, settling in a giant swath of green.
“Not bad,” Niero said in my ear.
My head whipped to the side. “It’s fortunate for you that you are not of this world.”
“Indeed,” he agreed. “But I believe it will take both you and your brother to trap another who shares some of my own angelic gifting.” He waved Kapriel over to us and explained his thinking to him and Ivar.
And then we set to work, contemplating various scenarios and practicing execution. By the end of our session, I was so weary I contemplated lying down right there in the meadow and sleeping the night away. Kapriel looked the same, wavering on his feet so much that Ivar pulled one of my brother’s arms across his shoulders and wrapped a supporting, strong arm about his waist. “I think it’s time to call it a day,” he said.
“Agreed,” Niero said. “But we return at dawn.”
“At dawn?” I croaked.
“There is no time to dawdle, Keallach,” Ivar said. “Because Sethos and his ilk might be the ones to wake us at dawn. You and Kapriel must build upon your gifting. For the good of the Remnants, as well as the Community. We’re all depending upon you.”
“And you were born to serve together,” Niero said. “So newly reunited, it is best for you to spend every waking moment contemplating that thought and practicing, in big and small ways, how that connection might be best utilized. Understood?”
“Understood,” Kapriel said.
“Understood,” I echoed. But as I walked beside my twin on the way back to the Citadel, I was plagued by the thought of the chip inside him, and inside Dri too. Even now, I could imagine Sethos or Jala watching the blinking emblem on a screen and knowing that Kapriel was outside of the Citadel. Vulnerable.
I glanced nervously to the skies and listened for the warning chomp-chomp-chomp of a helicopter blade. And yet for the first time, I knew I had the capacity to truly fight back in a way that would help all the Ailith, as well as my new people.
If Sethos wanted to come, let him come.
But somehow, some way, I had to find a way to keep him from Kapriel and Dri.
CHAPTER
30
ANDRIANA
It didn’t take long for the twins to ease into sharing leadership of the Ailith and, within days, of the people. Keallach worked hard at deferring to Kapriel, building him up, encouraging him to assume ultimate command, knowing we would be troubled by anything else. He accepted Kapriel’s decision almost every time when they disagreed, or he came up with a compromise. He did not act as an emperor, but rather as a co-regent, as they were born to be. Gradually, the elders began to defer to them, seeking their counsel and direction on strategic decisions, as if it had been divinely ordained. Niero and Cyrus spent late nights with them both, talking politics and devising plans that might bring us to the swiftest victory.
It was as if Kapriel had been waiting for Keallach to return to him before assuming his rightful position. Before he’d been rather reserved and careful in sharing his opinion. Day by day, he became more forthright. More princely. And we all admired him.
It was Kapriel who decided we would have a formal funeral service for Chaza’el and the rest who had died. As we said tearful good-byes to our dead on funeral pyres in the same sacred field in which Ronan and I had taken our vows, our scouts kept an eye to the skies, but we had newfound confidence in facing the powerful helicopters, knowing that, with the twins at our side, we would have our fair chance in battle.
We stood beside the wrapped form of Chaza’el, who had been placed on a short funeral pyre, serving as his family, much like other families gathered around their dead on the field, each waiting to set torch to dry tinder. Three women with long, metal tubes this time, instead of triangles, stood beside Cornelius at the center.
“From dust we came, and to dust we shall return,” Cornelius said.
The women hit their deep bells, sending a somber sound that matched our mood out across the field. Once, twice, thrice.
“They are dead to us, but very much alive in the Maker’s presence,” Cornelius said. “When we join them, we shall be reunited. Grieve for them now, dear ones. But rejoice in the promise of our future reunion.”
Again, the bells sounded.
As was our tradition, that was all that was said. Niero lowered the torch to the tinder, and fire rapidly spread around the perimeter of the wood, soon licking up the dried branches beneath Chaza’el’s body. The heat was intense, and Ronan pulled me back a step, wrapping me in his arms as I wept. For as much as Chaza’el had seen, beyond what we could see, I reveled in what he might be witnessing now, in the afterlife. I was happy for him, but the sorrow I felt in his loss went to the very marrow of my bones. We hadn’t been close, but he’d been family to me, my brother in every sense of the word. And to send him off now, before our mission was complete, seemed wrong.
It made me feel vulnerable, as if part of our protection was gone. And it made me feel weak, as if part of the structure that made us Remnants had disintegrated. What might we have been, in time, if our lost brother and sister had managed to join us? I glanced over to Cyrus, who had sorrowfully confessed to us that it was Pacificans who had brought them down. Murdered them. How powerful might we have been with them beside us? And how much loss could we withstand and still face the battle ahead? My eyes shifted to Tressa, weeping beneath Killian’s arm. To Vidar, wiping away a tear with the back of his hand, his customary smile and quip absent from his lips. Then to the twins, standing stoically together, Keallach with his hand on a staff, Kapriel’s on the hilt of his sword. Keallach appeared shaken. Was he feeling this jolt of familial loss as we were?
The fire fully engulfed the pyre, as it did the countless other pyres across the field. The women began ringing their bells in a rhythmic toll, beginning slowly and gradually gaining speed until the pyres collapsed in on themselves, wood falling on top of the bodies as if claiming them again, welcoming them back to the earth.
The bells tolled in swift succession, their somber sounds filling my ears and seeming to somehow echo the black smoke that rose to the cloudy sky and then disappeared.
Then, all at once, the bells ceased, their last notes hovering in the air.
Only the crackle of the super-hot fires, the sniffling of men and women, the quiet weeping of the bereaved, now filled our ears.
It was over. We turned and processed in silence down the hill, through the smoke that drifted across the dried grass.
My tears spent, I heaved a sigh and was thank
ful for the quiet skies, that it was the ceremonial bells we heard, not Aravander alarm bells. Zanzibar had moved out in full force from the city and had mobilized as many of their Drifter minions as possible to erect a desert post, guarding the mouth of the Valley over the last week. Apparently, that had set Sethos back a bit to consider strategy. Whatever drove him to leave us alone, I thanked the Maker for it. We needed this time to grieve Chaza’el. To come together in his honor. And somehow, the thought made me think he’d seen this brief respite coming, which made me smile.
Ronan and I walked a few paces behind Keallach and Kapriel. I thought I’d feel more wary of Keallach, more watchful around him, worried that he might abuse his newfound power. They appeared as princes now, wearing thick, white capes trimmed in animal fur. The capes had been a gift from the elders two nights ago—a costly gift, but we all liked it. Visually, it united the brothers and presented a stark contrast to the blood-red capes the Sheolites and trackers favored.
The two were in earnest conversation, and at one point Kapriel lifted his chin and smiled at his brother, placing a hand on his shoulder as they walked.
“It’s as if they’d never parted,” Ronan said, face a bit skewed in wonder. Fat snowflakes were now falling from the dark clouds above us, and I pulled my own thick Aravander cape more tightly around me. “As if there was never bad blood between them.”
“It’s as it was always meant to be,” I said, glad for it with every measure within me. “The power of the Maker to make wrong, right.”
“Indeed,” Ronan agreed.
When we reached the Citadel, we saw twelve men and women return to their task of trying to leverage a boulder to one side, helping to create a renewed barrier at the entrance. The missiles and Sheolite dynamite had created a small crater that had once been a field of boulders, blocking any direct, mass attack. Together, the group hung on and pressed down on the thick post they used as lever, but after a moment, it cracked, as if in outright refusal to budge the belligerent stone. Several of the workers let out sounds of disgust, and I saw there were several other beams that had also broken.
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