Remnants: Season of Fire (23 page)

“I thought you were an open book.”

“For certain chapters. One day at a time, Andriana.”

“When will you release me?”

“Not until you give me the chance to show my side of this story. ‘A fair shake,’ as they used to say. I want you to know for certain that I am your true Remnant brother, not your forsaken enemy. Then I might allow you to leave me.”

I considered him, wondering if that was all he truly sought. Troublesome words from the Six came back to me. “
Brother
I can tolerate,” I said, deciding to test him. “
Husband
is not something I’m ready to say.”

He quirked a smile, and the chill disappeared. “Frankly, as lovely as you are, Andriana, I’m not quite ready to call anyone
wife
.”

I sat back, breathing a little easier after hearing him say it. And yet he’d not specifically said it
wasn’t
a possibility. I
returned to staring outside, glimpsing the wide blue arc of the sea from time to time. “Have you been swimming in it?”

He followed my gaze. “In the ocean? Sure. Every day as a child. Less now. Imperial business doesn’t allow for a lot of swimming.” I struggled to not smile with him.

“Remnant business
kept
us swimming at home.”

“Lots of training, I assume,” he said lightly. “I could see it in your dive in that river and how long you stayed under.”

“Lots. For you too?”

“Every day, classes in the morning and warfare in the afternoon.”

“What’s your weapon?” I asked carefully, after a moment. I couldn’t remember him drawing a sword in Wadi Qelt, only watching us.

“I’m most adept with an iron-tipped staff, but I do well with swords too.”

I nodded and then resumed my watch out the window. I remembered Sethos, with his double-tipped sword. Had he trained Keallach to use his?

After a few minutes, we pulled up to a massive building that looked hundreds of years old. “Pre-War?” I asked in surprise. As I’d understood it, almost everything in this region had been leveled by the bombs.

He got out of the car and stared up at the façade proudly. “It was nothing but rubble in a ravaged town. I had my people put it back together, brick by brick.” He came around the car and put a light hand at my lower back, leading me forward. “I partially favor old things, old ways. In a new country, it helps to remember the things that were good once, the things we want to recreate now. It’s definitely not in fashion here, but I try to incorporate some of the old, now and again. It brings me . . . comfort.”

I nodded. A glance left or right down the street affirmed his words. Most of the buildings showcased flat, barely angled roofs and wide windows, clean and simple. But this building flaunted concrete ornaments in fanciful curves. Everything about it led the eye upward, and there was a sense of lightness that counterbalanced the heavy building materials.

We walked up the stairs and he opened a glass door with a long, brass handle, gesturing for me to go before him. He wasn’t even through the door before a man and woman were coming around a desk to greet him.

“Highness, welcome, welcome! We didn’t expect you here today,” said the woman, lifting a hand to her cheek as if she might faint from the surprise.

“Yes, well,” he said, “I like to see how the facilities are doing when my people don’t have time to prepare. I’m sure my guest here, Miss Andriana, would like to see the same,” he said pointedly.

“Right, good,” said the man. I found it oddly reassuring when Keallach offered his hand in greeting — familiar and welcoming — rather than accepting a bow as some aloof monarch might. “You’re welcome any day, any hour, Highness. We’re honored to have you visit us at all.”

“I’d like you to give Miss Andriana a tour. Show her how our operation with the children works here. Tell her everything. Hold nothing back. Answer any question.”

“Certainly,” the man said slowly, obviously feeling anything but certain inside. Perhaps it was only because no one had ever asked before, or expressed interest. He undoubtedly wondered who I was and why I had a right. But he wasn’t going to question the emperor.

“Please, follow me,” he said. He turned and went through
double doors to the right, leaving the woman behind at the desk, presumably to intercept any other visitors who entered the building. The doors shut with a locking sound behind us.

We followed the slight man down a long hall. “We house over two hundred children, none of whom have reached their first decade, but all rescued from the greater Union.”

“Rescued?” I asked carefully, remembering the reaping in Georgii Post.

“Yes. They are orphans, found among the streets of the various cities and brought here to begin a new life.”

“I thought they were brought here to be adopted into Pacifican homes.”

“Most shall be, in time. Nearly every home in Pacifica houses at least one or two. But the children must first learn to live as civilized humans rather than the street urchins they arrive as. And the older they are, the longer that takes. Here,” he said, gesturing about as we passed a wide bank of windows that looked out to the sea, “they learn how to bathe, sleep regularly, eat as if it might not be their last meal. They are given a bit of an education and learn the value of hard work.”

We moved through another set of double doors, and I heard the
click
of another lock behind us.

This hall was full of what appeared to be classrooms, and the children sat in neat rows, all in gray uniforms, their hair tidy and their hands folded on their desks as the teachers lectured. It was like something out of a scene from the Pre-War days, something I’d longed for, wished for. Even in the Valley, only a few chosen children received such instruction. What would happen if all had access as these did?

“They go to school all day?” I asked, moving from one window to the next.

“Perhaps someday,” said the headmaster, looking a bit sorry for his answer. “For now, all we can do is provide them a few hours of reading and writing and mathematics. The brightest receive instruction in science and history. But the other part of their day is to learn the value of hard work.”

I was torn as to what to pursue first, and yet did not want to appear too accusatory in front of Keallach. He wanted to impress me, win me. So I chose the positive first. “You teach these children to read? I thought it was expressly forbidden.”

“In the Union,” Keallach said gently. “Out there, it tends to breed rebellion. But as I told you in Wadi Qelt, I am in pursuit of enlightenment, for my people as well as myself. If we can all come together, I do not fear the power of intelligence. It can only benefit our people at large, help us move forward as a true empire. So we are experimenting with it here.”

My mind raced. He was educating children that had once belonged to the Trading Union. How long until the practice spread beyond the Wall? I thought of Asher, and him teaching the children the sacred words. Did any of these children in these classrooms whisper of them? Dare to write them down? My pulse quickened, partially in fear, partially in excitement. And as much as Keallach or the headmaster might wish to control or shape these children, they were undoubtedly beginning to develop their own thought processes.

We heard the hum of machinery before we opened the next set of double doors. The sound became louder as the doors slid open, but at the sight of Keallach, it faded to a stop. I saw that each boy or girl sat before a sewing machine, stitching together fabric, their eyes dull, mouths slack. But when they saw Keallach, joy lifted each one’s lips in a smile and they came to him, surrounding us, hands lifted for him to touch,
crying out greetings. Their combined joy and hope flooded through me in such a sudden wave that it took me aback and tears streamed from my eyes.

Keallach lifted a boy in one arm and a girl in the other and turned around, shouting out a jaunty tune, wading forward through the fifty or so children, as if to allow them all to reach out and touch him. He looked at each of them — really looked them in the eye — and my mouth dropped open when I realized that he was greeting them all by name with a word for each one. Finally, he looked back at me, and seeing my tears, gave me a puzzled smile. I hurriedly wiped them away as the children quieted.

“I see you all are doing a most fine job here today,” Keallach said, his attention on the children again. “If you hit the headmaster’s quota this week, I shall invite you all to the palace for a party. Would you like that?”

The children laughed, clapped, and cheered.

“Well, don’t just stand here,” he said, eyebrows lifting. “Get working!”

The children all ran back to their machines and the hum again filled the air. We moved out of the room and to the next, a large, empty hall filled with long tables and benches.

“Our dining hall,” said the headmaster. “The children are fed three times a day. Most of them used to get only one meal, if they were so fortunate. It takes them a while to relax, to eat slowly and not so much that they vomit. They are unused to the idea that there will not only be a next meal, but countless after that.”

I nodded, my hands behind my back as we walked down yet another hall. Outside this bank of windows was a large sandbox and what looked like brightly colored bars and slides
on which to climb, though no little ones were out there. “What happens to the children after they reach their first decade?”

“Most are adopted by then,” he said. “Though our families seem to prefer younger children, despite our good work with them here in the home.”

“And if they’re not?”

“Then they are placed where they can earn their keep,” he said easily.

“You put them to work,” I said slowly.

He nodded earnestly. “In homes, in factories, some in mines. All become model Pacifican citizens.”

“You make them slaves,” I said, at last landing on a place to focus my anger.

Keallach stopped abruptly and faced me. “No. They are paid.”

“Paid, but somebody else makes a great deal of money off of their hard work.”

“Is that not enterprise? Progress? Life as this land once knew it?”

“But is it life as we want to know it again? What are their hours? Their conditions? Where do they live? A child of one-and-one is hardly ready to take care of himself!”

“And yet they were taking care of themselves on the street at a far younger age.” Keallach stepped closer to me. “Were they not? And were they not working twice as hard, merely to survive?” He rubbed his forehead as if trying to find the right words to reach me. “What we’re creating here is opportunity for everyone, Andriana. Opportunity to become a part of a Pacifica family — which undoubtedly is the chief goal — but for those who are not chosen, opportunity in the empire. We
are forming these street urchins into contributing members of society.”

I wanted to take issue with it, but was it so different than at home? Every child had to work from morning until night to help keep themselves and their families alive. Only a few were educated; the rest worked. But something about this place around me made me feel uneasy. Something was off.

“Keallach, not all of these children were orphans. I saw, with my own eyes, Pacifican soldiers wrench younger children from their parents’ arms.”

He frowned. “That is not sanctioned action. I’ve told you I shall inquire about it. Perhaps you saw a few rogue soldiers, out to make some extra coin.” His look soured. “Younger children are sometimes purchased by desperate women unable to wait for their allotted adoption chips. It is something we’re trying to stop at every opportunity.”

“Why is it that your women do not bear their own children?” I asked, looking toward Keallach. I thought I knew the truth. I wanted to hear his version.

He began walking again and I turned to catch up. “After the War, the toxins left us with generations of infertility. It was in our water, in our soil. And while our land and water is now clean, our women still struggle. In fact, it seems worse than ever before.”

“But the men are not infertile.”

He shook his head. “By and large, no.” He studied me then. I shook off memories of the Six jeering over my supposed fertility and how I might make the perfect bride.

“What of . . .” I began. “I’ve heard mention that your women prefer to not put their bodies through pregnancy, even if they can get pregnant.”

He frowned and looked to the headmaster, gesturing for him to go, then back to me, once we were alone. “There is some truth to it. In the last three decades, only about a hundred children have been born in our land, Kapriel and I being two of them. If you do not grow up seeing older women bearing children does it not become . . . foreign? Vaguely frightening or even . . . repugnant?”

I considered that. He’d risked much, telling me of their plight. His vulnerability and understanding of his people moved me. We stared at each other and I felt his need — for his people. For himself.

“How long has it gone on then?” I said, forcing words out to break our awkward moment, ignoring the heat of my blush. “This . . . incorporation of Union children into your populace?” My mind was racing back to Zanzibar. How long until the Pacificans realized they could take a wife from the Union and break this endless cycle of infertility?

“Only a decade or so,” he said. “My father began the campaign, well aware of the plight of the children beyond our Wall and the need among our own populace. It seemed the perfect solution. At first, every child was placed in a home. Now, there are so many in need . . . Well, you’ve seen our solution.”

A cold thought came to me, again born in what I’d seen in Zanzibar. Many of the children back there had been girls . . .

“You suspect wrongdoing,” Keallach said, sounding shocked. The warm feelings between us quickly chilled. “You suspect me, even after seeing this?” he said, lifting a hand about the clean walls and sparkling windows.

“I have seen hard things, Keallach. Dark things. Are you aware of what goes on in Zanzibar?”

His brow lowered and he rested his chin in his hand. “I am.”

“Then you are aware that the men there are short of women. That girls, far short of their second decade, are sold into ‘marriage.’ ”