“No,” Tressa said rising, reaching for another platter. “Your first impulse was right, sister. Let us take it now, before we even take our fill. To those who can’t even reach the gates of this mansion. To the sick, the weak, the hungry …”
Keallach and Vidar made half-hearted attempts to sway us, but we ignored them. As one, we knew this was the next, right step, and all of us gathered up every smidgen of food and all the jugs of wine and carried them out, past the others in the next rooms who gaped at us and then gradually followed suit. Together, we moved outward to the street and divided naturally along the labyrinthine avenues and alleyways, handing out plums and apples and bananas and slices of meat and chunks of bread. Ronan was with me for a time and then he was not, but I wasn’t worried. I sensed only pleasure and peace among the people. Joy and praise. Excitement. Gratitude.
And as I continued to hand out all I had, I realized I was no longer hungry. Feeding others fed a deeper part of me. Finally, my platter was empty except for one last slice of cheese and one chunk of bread. I set the silver platter on a low wall and smiled as a little boy tentatively grabbed hold of it. “Go on,” I said. I knew he’d just finished the apple I’d given him. “Take that platter. Sell it and use the proceeds to help you buy food for yourself and others over the coming weeks. Agreed?”
He nodded excitedly. I scooped up the bread and cheese before he made off with it too, and then looked around, wondering whom the Maker would have me feed next. This alley was deep in shadow, and yet I knew I was where I was supposed to be. I took a few tentative steps, smiling as people passed by the mouth of the alley singing and laughing. It was so vastly different than the last time we’d run through this way, battling back such horrific evil, with Sheolites kidnapping children and trackers who hunted us. Now the streets were awash in peace. I took a few more steps and saw her … a small child, curled up in a ball against a gap in the wall, her knees pressed against her chest and her dress much too light in the face of a night that, even now, whispered of Hoarfrost snowflakes.
I knelt before her. “Hello, little sister. My name is Andriana. What is yours?”
“Dolla,” she said through chattering teeth.
“Are you sick, Dolla?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “Only cold.”
“Why are you not with the others?” I asked. “Have you not heard the singing? The celebration?”
“I, my, I … can’t. I am not one of them. I have no family.”
“Hmm,” I said. My first instinct was to reach for my cape and give it to her, but I realized I’d left it inside. I glanced around, toward a sputtering street torch in one direction and into the gathering dark in the other, but the child and I were momentarily alone. Feeling nothing but the urge to ward off the obvious chill the trembling child felt, I pulled my sweater off and then pulled it over her head, helping her to press her tiny arms through the long arms until her small, grubby hands peeked out the ends. In one hand, I placed my last chunk of bread, and in the other, my last slice of cheese. “You do have a family, Dolla. You are one of the Way, if you claim the Maker as your own. He sees you and loves you, little one, as a treasured daughter. Always remember that, whatever comes.”
She nodded, her big, brown eyes intent upon me, even as she bit hungrily into the cheese. Her mouth fell open, and she chewed more slowly, as if exploring the new taste of it. As if she never wanted to forget it.
I sat down beside her. “Did you ever meet a man named Asher here, who once ran a school?”
Her face whipped up toward me, half of her searching me, as if to see if I might be playing some sort of cruel joke, and half of her alight with hope. “Asher! Is he here?”
“Yes,” I said with a smile. “He has returned, along with his friend, Azarel.”
“Azarel!” she squeaked. “It is true, then,” she said, scrambling to her feet. “The time for the people of the Way has come! I was so scared! Last time, when people of the Way came …”
“It ended poorly,” I said soberly, looking up at her. In the meager light cast from the street torch, the bones of her face stuck out in stark contrast to what the normal swell of childhood’s bounty should be. I reached out and took her empty hand, not wanting her to fear for her bread. “But the Maker is ushering in a new day, a new time for the Way, Dolla. Do not be afraid to serve him.”
She nodded eagerly. “Can I go to him? To Asher?”
“Of course,” I said, rising. “I will take you to …” But she was already sprinting away, my sweater’s edge dangling around her calves. I laughed and wondered if she would be able to find him, but I figured the Maker would show her the way.
I rubbed the back of my neck, shivering a little in my T-shirt and realizing that the crowds had departed for their homes, leaving this section of town very quiet. That was when I saw him. As Dolla passed by, his silhouette was clear with the street torch behind him.
“Keallach,” I said, stepping toward him, feeling an odd lurch of my heart. He swept off his furlined cape and began to wrap it around my shoulders, but I blocked him. “No, it’s okay. I’ll be warm enough until I get back.”
“Don’t be foolish,” he insisted, pulling the cape around my shoulders again and tying it at my neck. “You are shivering nearly as much as that little girl was.”
My hands dropped, almost as if they were beyond my will, and I realized he spoke the truth. I hadn’t felt the chill of the night as I served others. But I did now. And his cape, so thick and soft, still warm from his own body, readily warded off the cold. He took an inordinate amount of time tying the knot. Maybe it was because he was staring at me, as if silently begging me to look into his eyes.
“Keallach,” I began, slow alarm building within me, and yet I felt frozen, unable to say anything more. I was distantly shocked as he cupped his warm palm against my cheek, urging me to look upon him again. And when I at last met his gaze, my pulse quickened.
“That,” he said, inclining his head toward the spot where Dolla had been, “was the most selfless, beautiful thing I’ve ever witnessed.”
He leaned in then, kissing me softly. It wasn’t like the last time we’d kissed in the palace. This was a longing, a hunger that my heart noted and, in turn, wanted to assuage. There was a fire building within me as his kiss deepened.
It was the chill of my armband that snapped me out of my dreamlike reverie and brought me back to myself with a start as he pressed my back against the wall, even as he pulled me closer.
“No,” I said, finally finding my voice and the sudden strength to push him away. “Keallach, no. What is going on here? What are we doing?” I cried.
He staggered back from me, looking dazed and startled himself, then his brow lowered. “Dri, I’m sorry. It was the wine tonight, the joy of the day. I—”
“No!” I said, fumbling at the knot of his cape, suddenly desperate to get him—anything of him—off of me. How had I allowed … But I hadn’t allowed it. Not really. My arms had been—
“Keep it, Dri, keep it! Wear it back to the mansion,” he muttered, closing his eyes, deep regret wafting through him.
Regret, I registered. Sorrow. Fear. And as those emotions emerged from him, I also noted that my arm cuff was warming. He looked at me with his beautiful eyes, nothing but pain in them, and fear that he’d just destroyed everything he’d so carefully built.
“Keallach, what was that?” I spat out, still angry with him, even as I felt for him over his pain and confusion. “Did you just compel me?”
“It was nothing,” he said, shaking his head in agitation. “Echoes of my old feelings for you.”
“Old feelings,” I said. “Feelings you aren’t to allow to reign any longer, now that I am Ronan’s wife. And you, my sworn Remnant brother.”
He let out a hollow laugh. “You, of all people, should know that feelings are a hard thing to master.” He straightened slowly, looking into my eyes. “Andriana. You were the first one, you know. The first one who made me remember …
called me back to the Way I thought was lost to me. If it wasn’t for you … I’m so grateful for you, Dri. So grateful.”
I swallowed hard, recognizing the growing heat rising between us, the spark in the air that I found tantalizingly hard to ignore. And in turn, the returning chill of my armband.
I grit my teeth. “This is the remains of Sethos’s spell, nothing more.”
“But Dri, I need to—” he began, his voice heavy with agony.
“No. Don’t say it,” I said, putting up one hand, and with the other, finally managing to untie the knot and free the cape from my shoulders. I handed it over to him as the drizzle became a drenching, icy rain, but he would not accept it. His guilt shifted to anger.
“Take a moment to search yourself, Dri,” he said, water dripping down the chiseled lines of his cheekbones and jawline, down his neck, which had such an attractive hollow just there … “You feel it too. This pull between us. This pull that is more than the spell that Sethos wove. Any compelling that you may wish to blame.” He reached out to take hold of my waist again. To pull me toward him.
“Maker,” I breathed. And with the last of my strength, I took hold of his wrist, turned, bent, and yanked him over my hip and to his back on the cobblestones.
I put a knee on his chest and leaned down so I could look him in the face. He heaved for breath, looking partially stunned and partially like this was exactly what he wanted to happen. Like he knew he deserved it. “This ends here,” I panted. “Never again,” I said, watching as rain dripped from me and onto him. And yet I found it oddly tantalizing, as if the weather itself was weaving us together, one raindrop after another streaming down my face and onto him. “Never again,” I bit out.
“Never again,” he said slowly, each word an agony. “You’re right, of course. So, so right …” I watched as raindrops ran across his lips, until I was leaning closer, thinking how much I wanted just one last kiss from him. To be certain. Sure that this was right. That he wasn’t the one that my heart wanted most …
Until I was kissing him, and he was wrapping his hand in my wet hair and then rolling me over onto my back, kissing me deeper. “Andriana,” he moaned between kisses. “How I’ve longed for you, Dri.”
“No,” I said, feeling the chill of my armband, remembering myself again and now sick at heart, trying to press him away but finding I had no strength. “No, Keallach, no,” I said, moving my head as his lips moved to my ear and down my neck. “Please, stop,” I whimpered, feeling unaccountably weak, unable to move other than to allow him more space for his sweet kisses along my neck. “Keallach. Keallach.”
“Andriana, don’t stop this,” he said, his arm wrapping around my lower back, pulling me closer, up to match the arc of his own body.
“Stop,” I said. “Please, stop. I am Ronan’s,” I said, my voice gaining strength. “Ronan’s.”
“In name only,” he soothed, his lips moving along the soft flesh beneath my jaw. “You have not yet consummated your vows. There is time to make another choice. Many seasons yet, to see what might unfold.”
“No,” I said. “It is done. I have made my choice. Keallach, please.”
“Please, Andriana, don’t back away now,” he said, wrapping his fingers through mine, pressing my hands above my head, to the cold stones.
Of Georgii Post.
A city belonging to the people. People of the Way.
The Way … The Way …
“Maker,” I breathed. “Maker!” I called. “Give me strength!”
A hand reached down and yanked Keallach bodily from me.
I blinked against the rain, feeling both the cold shock of it—without Keallach’s body or his cape shielding me from it—as well as the heat of my arm cuff. I knew, then, that we were surrounded by angels.
But Niero was the only one I could plainly see. He shoved Keallach back until he was against the wall, his huge hand at the prince’s neck, strangling him. “What are you doing to her?” Niero ground out, his jaw muscles pulsing, the veins in his arm sticking out. “What have you done?” His wings unfurled. I felt his righteous fury. I knew then his deadly intent.
I rose, rushed to them, and grabbed Niero’s arm with both hands, trying to pull it away as Keallach gasped for breath. “No, Niero! No!”
“He carries with him the stench of Sethos still. He is not free of his old master. He was using his low gifting against you again!”
“Yes!” I agreed, panic rising. “But when I’ve succumbed to the dark, you’ve granted me grace, time and again, have you not?”
I felt him falter a bit, then press harder, choking Keallach.
“Niero!” I cried. “Let him speak. Don’t you see? He is not fighting you! Yes, he used his low gifting. But he isn’t using his higher gifting now, is he? I feel his sorrow, his anger at himself.” I was angry at him too. But if he died here, now… “Niero, we need him. With us. To battle what is to come.”
“You and Dri are both the strength of the Remnants, and the weakest links,” Niero gritted out, his face an inch from Keallach’s.
“Yes,” Keallach gasped. “Help us. Help … me.”
His words made Niero’s breath catch and then his eyes narrowed to slits. He took Keallach’s throat with both hands, lifting him up until he was on his tiptoes.
“Niero,” I wept, “don’t do this. Is the Maker really … is he really calling you to end Keallach’s life?” I choked out, unable to stand straight, feeling the weight of my terror and sorrow.
Niero held Keallach up against the wall, wriggling, desperate for seconds that seemed like hours. And then he let him fall, his hands swooshing out in an arc, as if he were washing him away. Keallach fell heavily, gasping for breath. He reached for me, but Niero took hold of my arm and yanked me away from him and down the street.
When we’d turned the corner by the next torch, he swung me around to face him, a hand on either of my arms. “Andriana,” he whispered, a tone I found more frightening than when he shouted, “you must find it within you … how to discern what is truth, and what is a lie.”
“I know,” I whispered in return, half crying. “I know,” I repeated, the tears now flowing. “But I can’t. Back there … with him … it was as if I lost myself.”
“You did lose yourself,” he said, shaking me a little, staring down at me with fierce consternation. “Everything about you that was true and righteous. You allowed yourself to be sucked into what was primal and sinful. You are more than that, Dri.” He released me, and I shuddered as I felt his disappointment. “Over and over again, we go through this,” he said, pacing back and forth before me. “When it comes to battle, you must rely on what you know, not what you feel. The enemy will continue to use all that is good in you”—he paused to put his finger to my chest—“a gifting the Maker gave you himself, as his own, righteous weapon. But you can choose not to allow the enemy to use it.”
“How?” I shook my head slightly. “I don’t know. Tell me.”
“You know. You’ve always known. You simply must choose,” he said sharply.
My head whipped toward his, his words sifting through my mind again. Choose, Andriana. Choose for right. Choose the Way. Choose strength. Choose wisdom. Choose a love that never fails, not a love the flesh pretends.
I closed my eyes and lifted my face to the cold, stinging rain. The Maker would never leave me without the weapons I needed to fight these lingering evil spells of Sethos that haunted both me and Keallach. He had given me Ronan, whom my heart loved. The man whom I desired. A man I wanted to share my bed with, when the blessing ceremony occurred at the right time, in the right season. Surrounded by family, both blood and spiritual kin.
Not give myself to another on a city street, as if I knew no sense of value, hope, or strength within. He’d tried to warn me. Called to my heart, sent a chill through my armband. But I’d ignored it, choosing to give into old, intriguing desires.
My teeth clenched, and I straightened, my hands in fists as I turned to face
Niero. “I have failed my Maker and my vows for the last time. My enemy will never use me for his gain again Help me, Niero. Help me find the armor I need for my heart and this battle to come. To see it through to the end.”
He stared at me for a long moment. Then a slow smile spread across his face. With gentle hands, he took hold of my cheeks and bent my head for a single, benediction kiss on the forehead. “Consider it done, daughter of the Way.”
CHAPTER
34
ANDRIANA
I knew what I needed to do. As soon as Niero released me, I turned and ran back to the mansion. I passed scores of people, reaching out, calling to me, but I was single-minded.
Vidar and Bellona looked up as I passed. “There you are,” Vidar said. “Ronan was looking for you.”
“Where is he?”
“Niero told him to wait for you in the receiving room.”
I thought about that as I ran through the corridor to the sprawling receiving room that had held scores of people when we arrived, but now was empty. Save for Ronan. He was pacing back and forth in the corner of the first alcove, rubbing his hands together. I pulled up short, heartsick over what was to come.
“Oh, thank the Maker,” he said, rushing toward me, taking my elbows and pulling me in for a hug, wet as I was. “I lost you in the crowds. It felt safe, but … I’m sorry. I should not have let the moment distract me from looking after you. Look at you. You’re soaked through. Let me—”
“No, I owe you an apology, Ronan,” I said, gently squirming out from his embrace. I tried to swallow but found that my mouth was dry. He stood there before me, brows lowered, concerned. “I was out there,” I began, gesturing toward the door, “distributing the last of my food, when I saw a tiny girl. She was barely clothed, and you know how cold it is out tonight.”
His green-brown eyes shifted over me, across the bare skin of my arms, covered in goose bumps. “So you gave her your sweater …”
“Yes.”
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