Season of Glory

by Lisa Tawn Bergren

  “You are so generous, Dri. It’s part of what I—”

  “No,” I said, putting up my hand to stop him as he moved toward me. I knew if I didn’t get this out, I might never tell him. And if I didn’t, Niero would. He would demand it. “I mean, yes. I gave the child my sweater, and the last of the food. But when I rose to follow her back, I saw that I wasn’t alone.”

  His brow lowered farther but he lifted his chin, lips clamped shut, waiting.

  “Keallach was there,” I said.

  I saw the muscles of his neck and jaw tighten.

  “And at first he didn’t do anything but give me his cape.”

  “A proper thing to do,” Ronan said tightly. “But then?”

  “But then he kissed me.”

  Ronan stared at me as I held my breath. “And then?”

  “And then I flipped him on his back,” I said, proud of myself for a moment.

  He watched me, and I knew that my emotions must have been playing across my face. He reached out and tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear, his movement measured, deliberate. “And then?” he whispered.

  I turned halfway from him, folding my arms in front of me. I blinked rapidly, as if watching it play out again in memory. “And then I was … pulled in. We kissed again.”

  “He compelled you,” Ronan said bitterly.

  “Yes,” I said, nodding. “And no,” I added, shaking my head in misery. “Honestly, Ronan. There is a draw between me and Keallach. There always has been. And tonight … It was all mixed up. I can’t blame him entirely.”

  “But there wouldn’t have been anyone to blame if he hadn’t compelled you,” he said, lifting my chin. “Everyone struggles with sinful desires, momentary thoughts along dark paths, Dri. But if someone else forces you to keep that path open, rather than dismissing it …” He shook his head. “How did you stop it?”

  “I called upon the Maker and Niero arrived, yanking us apart. He … he almost strangled Keallach.”

  “Good,” Ronan sneered, pacing away, then back to me, his movements now stiff. “Good!” he repeated, angrier now. He put his hands on his hips and closed his eyes, obviously seeking a measure of control.

  “I’m so sorry, Ronan. I have no excuse. There is something between us that … something dark that emerges now and then …”

  “Please,” he said, lifting a hand and closing his eyes against the pain my words had caused him. “No more. I don’t want to know more except for this: He did compel you, as he did before? Right?”

  I remembered how my hands had remained at my side for so long and how I was surprised by my own willingness to return his passion. How Niero accused him of using low gifting. “Yes,” I whispered.

  I shook my head and closed my eyes, rubbing my palms into them for a moment before looking at him. “I promised Niero today—and I promise you now—that it will never overtake me again. The Maker warned me of it, used my arm cuff to sound the alarm. But I was slow to recognize it. I won’t be next time. I promise you.” I took his hands in mine and moved closer to him. “Please, beloved. Forgive me. With the aid of the Maker, it shall not happen again.”

  He considered me, and though there was a measure of pain and betrayal, there was a larger measure of love and forgiveness within him. He pulled me into his arms. “With the aid of the Maker, the aid of your handfasted husband, and the help of Niero to back us up, I think you have a good chance of honoring that promise.”

  I nodded, tears welling in my eyes. Then I shook my head. “I do not deserve your forgiveness.”

  “Hey,” he said, lifting my chin. “It is the hallmark of the Community, yes? We all falter and fail one another. But if our intent is to change our ways, to strive to do better the next time, how can we keep from offering what the Maker himself gives us?”

  “But this has cost you,” I said. “I can see it.”

  He gave me a gentle smile. “It is only pride that makes this hurt,” he said solemnly. “And you, wife, are worth any price I have to pay. Any price.”

  I swallowed hard and then pulled him close, wrapping my arms around him, laying my cheek against his chest. “You are such a fine man, Ronan. So unbelievably good to me.”

  “I only give what you are due.”

  His words confirmed what my heart had pledged. I loved this man, through and through. He was my best friend. My husband, for all intents and purposes. My future lover. My only future lover. Someday, the father of any children we might bear. The Maker had brought him to me and kept him beside me, despite such hard truths.

  I would not fail him again.

  KEALLACH

  I was still struggling for breath when Dri left Niero’s side and the mighty man returned to face me again, with nothing but rage and suspicion in his eyes. He lifted me roughly to my feet, keeping one hand on my shoulder. “You shall be held accountable by the Ailith. The Maker will lead them in the way of wisdom. The dark still lives in you, and it is much stronger than it’s ever been with Andriana—testimony to your many seasons with Sethos by your side.”

  “But is the Maker not stronger yet?” I said, angry that he was so ready to believe the worst of me. I belonged here, with them. I knew I did. I reached up to rub my forehead, trying to figure out what had happened between Dri and me. “I don’t know what happened, Niero. Honestly. I’ve been committed to the fact that I must uphold and honor the vows that Dri and Ronan have taken, regardless of how I feel drawn to her. And then … it was only for a moment …”

  “Save your words for your Ailith kin,” he said, turning me around and dragging me along beside him. My legs moved reluctantly, seeming to know what I was just coming to figure out—I was to face a sort of moral trial. Similar to when they all voted to allow me to accept my cuff.

  My cuff, I thought with alarm, fighting the urge to reach up and rub it. It had become precious to me, granting me more power than ever before, warning me of danger—a danger signal I had ignored with Dri. Would they … could they take it? It seemed impossible. But if the Maker had a way to fuse it to my skin, I knew he must have a way to remove it too.

  Or maybe they would elect to try to kill me. I swallowed hard as we turned the corner. Let them try. They are strong, but my gift is stronger. Niero is only fortunate that I held back or—

  “Such dark thoughts, my prince,” Niero muttered. “Trust me, even with your impressive gifting, you do not want to take on an angel of the Maker’s dominion.”

  I frowned. I hated that his power allowed him to know what I was thinking. “I am merely preparing myself for what is to come. Thinking it through. Not intent on acting on every thought.”

  “See that you don’t,” he bit out, “because you will find that the Remnants will have me backing them as well.”

  We reached the front entry of the mansion and rushed past several gaping men and women, eyes full of curiosity over what had us in such a rush. Kapriel was the first to spy us, and a pang of guilt rang through me for a new reason. He would see my actions not only as a disappointment as a Remnant brother, but as my twin also. I knew he felt especially responsible for my acceptance among them. Had it not been for him and Dri speaking up for me …

  “All is not lost,” Niero said, as he left me to walk the remainder of the way with my brother following behind. “You simply must face the truth with humility and then confidently trust the outcome. It is the Way.”

  I stared at him over my shoulder. He offered me hope? After all that righteous rage?

  He waved me off, as if reluctant to have even offered that.

  “What is he talking about, Keallach?” Kapriel said, looking over my soaked clothes and the crumpled, soggy cape in my hands. “What has happened?”

  I clamped my lips shut, my eyes slipping to Dri and Ronan in the corner of the receiving room. I paused in the doorway a moment, chagrined to find fear in my heart, knowing that Dri would easily read it in me. Such emotion shamed me. Sethos had drilled me and drilled me to face my fear and conquer it. I winced
and cocked my head, feeling shame anew. Of all times, this was not the right time to summon memories of my old trainer and his dark ways.

  Ronan was striding toward me, Dri hurrying after him, and yet she didn’t catch up until he had his fists full of my tunic, pulling my face close to his. I met his gaze, not fighting back. “I failed you, brother,” I said miserably. “And our sister too. Please. Forgive me.”

  He lifted his chin, measuring me through slit eyes. “Do you sense any genuine contrition within him, Dri?” he said over his shoulder, never looking away from me.

  “I do,” she said softly.

  His breathing came out in heavy huffs, but after a moment, he released me and let his hands drop to his sides. “Then I suppose,” he said, leaning in until our faces were an inch apart, “I must forgive him.”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  He nodded thoughtfully, taking a deep breath. “I forgive you, Keallach. I do. But if you ever touch my wife again,” he said, twisting partially away, “I shall have to do more than this …”

  I saw his fist too late. I think a part of me felt I deserved it, almost leaning into it, offering the full breadth of my cheek. Still, the impact sent me reeling across the stone floor, landing heavily on my side, knocking the breath from me. My jaw screamed with pain, and my vision swam. I looked back to see Andriana covering her mouth with both hands and Ronan cradling his right fist in his left. Kapriel stepped toward me, his movements oddly slow, as if time itself were stopping.

  When my head cleared and Kapriel helped me sit up, I noted that the other Ailith had arrived. “Help me rise,” I muttered to Kapriel.

  “Are you certain?” he whispered. “Maybe you should stay down.”

  I grimaced, half because of a throbbing pain in my head and half because of what this revelation might do to our newly reformed relationship. Fear tightened its grip around my heart. Had I just destroyed every important bond in my life? Would I be cast out as quickly as I’d been taken in? What would I do then?

  Face the truth with humility, Niero had said. And confidently trust the outcome.

  “So,” Vidar said, looking from me to Ronan and back again, “I take it you two aren’t getting along.”

  “You could say that,” Ronan said. “Or weren’t getting along. I think we’ve both made ourselves clear now.”

  “But this brother has ignored the vows he took to uphold the ways of the Maker and of the Ailith mission,” Raniero said formally as he closed the doors behind Tressa and Killian, who were the last to enter. They all formed a loose semicircle around me and Kapriel, who stood just behind my left shoulder.

  “What has he done?” Kapriel said.

  Niero looked to Andriana. “He has compromised your sister, calling upon the low gifts to compel her when she resisted.”

  Kapriel gaped at me with horror in his eyes.

  “He … kissed me,” Dri said softly, a blush rising on her pretty cheeks and down her neck—a neck that, Maker help me, I still longed to kiss. “Perhaps compelled me to kiss him in return. I cannot be certain,” she rushed on, glancing guiltily toward Ronan, “if it was my own darkness or a darkness within him, or both.”

  “What say you?” Niero barked to me.

  “It’s true,” I said, hating the quaver to my voice. “I gave into my lower gifting, out of an old desire to have Andriana as my own. I have failed her, Ronan, and the rest of the Ailith,” I said quickly, lifting both hands in beseeching fashion. “I beg for your forgiveness, all of you. Trust me. No one wants this … untoward desire to disappear more than I.”

  Vidar’s smile had faded, and he crossed his arms, chin in one hand, nodding thoughtfully. He glanced over at his peers, both Remnant and Knight. “We knew when we accepted him that there was a risk of the dark rising in him again. And if a kiss is the worst it gets …” He quirked a brow and tilted a toothy grin, looking for humorous agreement, right and left. Finding none, he quickly sobered. “Honestly? I sense no more darkness in this brother than I do in any of the rest of us. It’s just like it is in Andriana—a kite that seems to catch wind once in a while, threatening to rip away from its string.”

  “Or is he merely more adept at keeping it hidden?” Killian asked, edging closer, as if he could make out the word guilty written across my damp, chilled skin. “After all those years in Sethos’s care?”

  “If we begin doubting everyone because of what we cannot sense, rather than what we can,” Tressa said, “then the enemy will bind us without ever touching us! Wouldn’t that be a lovely trick of Sethos’s? Planting doubt everywhere, rather than trust. Come, let us arrive at a quick decision and move on. There are people I must see before we leave this place this night, good people we are to heal so they might serve the Way. I say that Keallach has confessed his shortcomings, his sin.” She moved past Killian and peered up at my face, toward what must be a bruise, now, on my jaw. “And from the looks of it, Ronan has exacted his own manner of punishment.” She straightened, not offering to lend me her healing touch—choosing to let me suffer—and stepped away again.

  “Tressa speaks the truth,” Niero said. “You cannot let such things tie you in knots for long. You must press through this. It is as important for Keallach as it is for the rest of you. Search yourself for wisdom.”

  Kapriel had begun to pace, hands behind his back, cheeks red. It was as if he felt my sin as his own. “Have him kneel,” he said.

  I did as he asked before Niero could shove me down. I shook my head. This was it. “I swear I will never harm any of you—or knowingly cause any of you to falter—again.”

  “Gather around and place your hands on him,” Kapriel said, ignoring me. They drew closer, each placing a hand on my head or shoulders or back, as instructed. As they did so, my arm cuff began to warm as it hadn’t in some time. “Search deep within for the Maker’s wisdom, as Niero instructed,” Kapriel said.

  “Please,” I whispered, my heart thundering in panic. This was where I belonged. Where I had been called. “Brothers. Sisters. I was wrong. Please don’t cast me out because of my mistake.”

  No one responded. They were silent, closing their eyes, as if listening, searching me as thoroughly as Andriana could, paying attention to their arm cuffs, but more than that too. I kept my head bowed, submitting, as I’d not done since the night of my acceptance into their fold. Face the truth with humility. Remain confident in the outcome.

  Please, Maker. Let me stay. Let me stay, let me stay, let me stay … I was wrong. So wrong. Help me to avoid such action in the future. I am yours. Theirs …

  “He is genuine in his apology,” Dri said to the others, her voice little more than a reverent whisper.

  “Or is he genuine in his desire to remain here, with us?” Ronan returned.

  Silence resumed as new guilt shot through me. The Knight was correct in his assumption. What did motivate me more? My desire to stay with them or my contrite heart? I focused in on what had led me to Andriana, how I’d let passion and desire and an overwhelming impulse to control her, own her, claim her, be my guide. I felt the lifting of her hand, as she knew this within me too.

  Stick with that line of thinking, Niero said silently to me. If you dare to clean out the dark oils that Sethos left behind, you may find healing. Freedom.

  I did as he asked, pressing in when much of me wished to withdraw. Being a Remnant demanded I find new ways to express the courage that the Maker had planted in me.

  Since the moment he knit you together in your mother’s womb.

  I swallowed hard. Mother. I could see her, in memory. So soft. Eyes alight with knowledge and hope. Until she was dead on the floor, bleeding out. Mother.

  Father. So firm and strong, but with a propensity toward playing little jokes on Kapriel and me. Presenting us with riddles. Laughing. Laughing so hard that his whole body shook and his face became red, tears streaming down his cheeks. Father.

  I was weeping. It made me angry that they pressed me so, my supposed Ailith kin. I fought t
he urge to send them all flying back, ramming against the far walls, and barely contained it in time. I heard Vidar gasp, and then Dri. But I contained it, focusing on how their goal was my good, our good, not my downfall. They sought not to control me but to free me of the dark choices I had made, both in the distant and near past.

  “Hold on to him,” Vidar said, and I felt Dri’s hand return to my back. “You are ours, brother,” he said to me, leaning down to whisper in my ear. “No longer the enemy’s.” I heard it and recognized his words, but it felt like I was a good distance away, twisting, turning, and trying to figure out which route I was supposed to take.

  “We claim this one as the son of the One who was, and is, and is to come,” Vidar said. “A child of the Light. Darkness has no place here.” I felt power flow through me, pushing through me, as if driving out another. I felt sick to my stomach and feared that all I’d eaten for supper was soon to spew outward.

  “You are a Remnant,” Tressa said, her small hands lifting my face. Feeling wild, I fought to focus on her blue, steady gaze, her words ringing with wisdom. “You were a Remnant from the beginning, and you are a Remnant to the end. Do not allow anyone else to claim that power, brother. You chose us once. Choose us now, forever.”

  I registered her words as the healing balm I needed. Invitation. Direction. Hope.

  Life. Abundant life.

  “I choose life,” I said, reaching out to grasp her hands in mine and looking around at the rest. “I choose you, brothers and sisters.”

  Killian put a hand on top of mine. “We choose you,” he said solemnly.

  “We forgive you,” Vidar said, setting his hand atop Killian’s.

  “We forgive you,” Bellona repeated, setting hers atop Vidar’s.

  In turn, the rest repeated those words—the very last being Dri and Ronan—and as I closed my eyes, I likened it to Dagan, shoveling layer upon layer of dark, moist, earth atop my pleading seed, allowing it to rest, then to sprout and blossom.

  And praying that it didn’t get lost among the weeds.

  CHAPTER