Remnants: Season of Fire (29 page)

“What are you doing?” I whispered, my eyes shifting left and right.

“We are to lead off the dancing,” he said stiffly, “and you are behaving dishonorably, not taking my hand at once.”

“But I do not know your dances, Keallach!” I returned. “I told you!”

“Ahh, but you shall know them,” he said, a devilish smile quirking his lips upward. “Never have you had a dance partner who could move objects with his mind.”

I laughed helplessly and put my hand in his, not knowing if I could believe him or not. But what did it really matter if I made a fool of myself here? They all knew I was from the Union, that I hadn’t grown up with these dances. They might even expect me to trip or fall. Maybe if I did it would ease some of the frustration and fear I felt among them.

The people had moved to the edges of the room, leaving a wide expanse free that I assumed would be full of dancers in time. But for now, it was only me and Keallach, as he turned to me and firmly took hold of my waist. “Your other hand on my shoulder, please,” he whispered, as the music began. “Keep your eyes on me, Andriana. Only on me. Trust me. The women say that to dance with the emperor is to float on air. See if they’re right.”

“You’ve used your gifting as a trick? A spell?” I asked.

He smiled, ignoring my agitation. “I’ve found it’s softened many a woman’s heart,” he said roguishly. “See if you aren’t the next.”

I shook my head but we were moving, then, my feet somehow shifting in time with his, moving backward or forward as if I’d been practicing these steps since I was barely able to walk. But I sensed his power moving in me, through me, something I both wished to sever and hold on to at the same time. It was intense, his ability. Already. Even before the ceremony, the cuff.

“You’ve been holding back on me,” I managed to say.

“I didn’t want to alarm you,” he returned.

I considered that. It
was
alarming, the power he wielded, even without the ceremonial armband. What might he be able to do afterward?

He smiled. “Don’t battle against me, Ailith sister,” he cooed, pulling me closer. “Work with me. Abide with me for a time, just a bit of time.” I could feel his warm palm on the bare skin of my lower back and felt the heat rising in my cheeks again. But it was true; as I gave him sway, I was floating, sliding, and gliding across the floor with him. It was like we were one of the instruments, knowing the notes in advance, moving to them. Gradually, as the dance went on, I was aware of others joining in, swirling around us like clouds in the sky, building into a storm. But I kept my eyes only on Keallach. I smiled at him and he smiled back. Pleasure, glory surged through him. Was it my own emotion or his? It was impossible to tell. It was like we were one. One mind, one heart, one body.

Alarm screamed through me, then, and I pulled away.

Keallach faltered and reached for me, but I stepped away again.

Anger surged through him. Embarrassment. I knew I had to help him salvage how this appeared. And I didn’t want what I’d felt between us — our bond — to disappear. “I’m feeling . . .
faint,” I said, lifting a hand to my forehead. “Might we rest a minute?”

He put his hands behind his back and lifted his chin, listening to me, and his face softened. “Of course, of course,” he said. Then he offered me his arm and we casually moved back to the dais as if people weren’t staring at us as we went. “What’s the matter?” he whispered, when we were at last clear of the bulk of them.

“Your gift,” I said. “It’s a bit . . . overwhelming.”

“That is is,” he said, waggling a devilish brow in my direction.

CHAPTER
24

ANDRIANA

W
e sat down together and Keallach waved forward a servant who poured us tall, crystalline glasses of cold water. I drank greedily, aware that I hadn’t had any water all afternoon or evening. Only that bit of champagne.

“Well, at least you know the basic steps of our core dance now,” he said, drinking his own glass down and then accepting a glass of champagne. He offered another to me, but I shook my head.

“I wouldn’t say that,” I said, staring out at the others.

“You’re being modest,” he chided, taking my hand and lifting it to his lips with a smile. I fought the urge to pull away again.

His eyes chilled, and he pretended to follow through as if all was merry, well aware that something was wrong. “What is it, Andriana?” he said, setting down my hand and caressing
the back of it. “Surely you cannot be so unnerved by your fellow Remnant’s gifting?”

I studied him. That he might be so powerful, even before he obtained an armband . . . It did frighten me. “It was like I didn’t have a thought of my own in my head,” I muttered, trying to sort it out as much as explain. “Only your thoughts. It wasn’t a leading or encouragement I felt. It was more like you were compelling me. That is not of the Maker. That is the sorceror’s way.” I let out a sound of exasperation. “At least some of it. Some of it feels familiar, right.” I took a breath and turned more fully toward him. “Keallach, listen to me. It’s all mixed up, within you.”

I glanced around and found Sethos partway down the hall, talking to two matronly, fawning women. As if he sensed me, his head lifted and he glanced back at us. The women followed his gaze and then the three of them smiled and resumed their conversation. Perhaps it had only been a coincidence.

“How is my gifting not of the Maker?” Keallach asked, sipping from his crystal glass. “When you cast emotion, is that not of the Maker?”

I frowned, troubled by his logic. But then I shook my head. “I awaken emotion in another. Not drive out any other emotion at all.”

“But if you could, wouldn’t it be convenient? Wouldn’t your power be even more potent?” He leaned closer. “Think of it, Andriana. Between my power to control a body’s
motion
and your power to control their
emotions
, who could stand against us?”

I stared at him in mute horror. “You’ve been misguided, brother. You speak of power. Our gifts are
gifts
, and the Maker
could take them away as easily as he bestowed them. They are of him and for him. To use them for our own gain —”

“But he has not revoked them, has he?” Keallach said, cocking his head. “Might we not assume that he is still showing me favor?”

“No,” I said. “We should not assume that.”

Keallach sighed and didn’t even bother to cover his frown.

“Highness, please pardon my interruption.”

We turned to look upon Lord Maximillian Jala, looking as perfectly dressed and groomed as usual. “Will you join me for a dance, Andriana?”

I hesitated. That was the last thing I wanted. I was exhausted, as if Keallach had drained every ounce of my energy in our partial dance.

Keallach leaned toward me. “It is required, Andriana. Any consort of the emperor must dance with the Six.”

“Every one of them?” I said dully.

“There are only six,” he said, his tone telling me he would tolerate no further debate about it. And we were getting to the crux of the matter between us. If I lost him now . . .
Just get through
, I told myself.
Just get through.

I nodded numbly and accepted Maximillian’s hand. Maybe after a few minutes away from Keallach, the Maker would give me the words to reach my brother, to counter the logic. Just after I sorted it out for myself.

“I must warn you, m’lord,” I said, “I have no experience with your dances.”

“That’s all right,” he said. “I am a good leader. And Keallach taught you the basics.”

He placed his hand on my hip and I placed my other hand
on his shoulder as the music began. “Don’t look so glum, Andriana, or you’ll destroy my reputation.”

“I doubt that.” I concentrated on the steps, fighting the urge to watch our feet.
Forward right, forward left, left, backward left, backward right . . .

“Already the hall murmurs with echoes of your impact. They all want to be you, you know, be Keallach’s favored one.”

“Yes, well, lucky me.”

He withdrew a few inches, studying my face as the hint of a smile danced around his eyes. “If it helps, I am not sure that I concur with the emperor that it is the best idea to have you here.”

“Oh? Did my attempt to kill you make you jaded?” I said wearily.

“Perhaps,” he said lightly. “But be aware — the faster you acquiesce to what the emperor wants, the easier this all shall be.”

I stared into his eyes then. “I was not born to acquiesce.”

“No, you were born for something far grander. To join us, rather than fight us. Together we can do much good.”

“I don’t think that’s
quite
what the Maker had in mind.”

His eyes grew cold even as his face held a light smile. I didn’t know if I’d ever seen anything so frightening. His grip on my hand and waist tightened. “Do not try us, Andriana. You are here now. There is no way out.”

“Keallach doesn’t want me as his prisoner. At some point, there will be a way out for me.”

Maximillian turned me in a tight circle, so quickly that I almost lost my footing. He leaned his head back and laughed, as if we were enjoying a private joke, then pulled me close as we came to a stop, so he could whisper in my ear. “The only
way you leave Pacifica is dead. The battle is over, Andriana. Accept your new fate.”

I shoved him away and several women gasped. I ignored them. “I am not blown to and fro by the
fates
,” I hissed. “I am —”

“Firmly in my arms,” he said, sliding back into position and turning me again. I had no choice but to grab hold or I’d fall over. “Come now, Andriana,” he said, his tone grim even as he smiled at me. “Is this not far better than being my maidservant at Castle Vega?”

A man stepped in behind him and tapped him on the shoulder, and then I was dancing with another of the Six, Lord Kendric. This one seemed nothing but utterly charmed by me. I remembered he had laughed hardest when I flipped the wiry Lord Fenris on his back.
Lord Fenris
, I thought with a sigh. I’d undoubtedly have to dance even with him this night too.

I couldn’t spar with each of them; I needed to save my energy to engage Keallach later. I woodenly accepted each dance and made it through a round of steps until most — Broderick, Daivat, and even the stiff-backed, simmering Fenris — had had their required dance. I refused to speak to any of the others, but didn’t miss the opportunity to search each one. I wanted to know what Keallach faced, every day, in his Council. In several there was not more than ambition, derision, and lust. In Fenris, predictably, there was hatred. But in Lord Cyrus, I found a measure of closeted hope, the tiniest slice of protection. I looked up into his dark brown eyes, and noticed for the first time that he hadn’t tried to cajole or provoke me as the others had. He moved through the dance as I did, like it was something we both had to do. But since he had cut in on Fenris at a blessedly early juncture, we had the length of the song together.

“Is it true?” he said quietly, as the dance went on.

“Is what true?” I asked softly.

“That you, Keallach, and Kapriel,” the last was so quietly uttered that I wondered if I’d heard it correctly, “and the others with the crescent moon mark . . . are all the prophesied Remnants?”

“It is,” I said. We separated for a round of the dance, weaving through three other couples, and then came together again.

“You must know that every other Remnant that has been captured has died,” he said, his lips barely moving. I edged closer so that I could hear him better.

Other Remnants? Were these the ones that Sethos had mentioned? Those he held prisoner?

“What happened to them?” I asked urgently.

“They were tortured and killed.”

“Killed. Did Keallach know of it?”

“Some. The Six — we — protect him from such matters.”

“Such matters,” I sputtered. “It is the central Call upon his life, whether he responds to it or not!”

I tripped over Cyrus’s foot, but he held me aloft, face grim. I had to gather myself, if I wanted this conversation to go on. And I needed it to go on. “Why are you telling me this?” I asked.

“So that you might fully understand the peril you’re in,” he said.

I debated pushing him, but we hadn’t time. The dance would soon end. “Who were they? These other Remnants?” I asked, leaning in still further as we turned. I desperately hoped he was mistaken.

“The first was a woman captured in the Great Expanse, trying to find you. She was killed three days later.”

Killed
. Dread flooded through me. “What was her name?” I asked again. If it was Tressa, or Bellona —

“Dulla,” he said, barely moving his lips, smiling down at me as if I’d said something witty. “Keep dancing. Smile. I’m the one they expect to befriend you.”

I tried to do what he said, smiling, pretending. But his words sent my head spinning. “Where was she from?”

“I only know she had come a great distance.”

“We do not have Ailith kin by the name Dulla.”

“She was not only Ailith,” he said urgently, “she was a Remnant. I saw the crescent mark on her hip myself. And she claimed to be gifted.”

I stared into his eyes. It couldn’t be . . . No, not when she’d been so close to joining us . . . “And the other?” I managed to ask.

“A man from the South, traveling with three others to the south of Georgii Post, one of them, his knight. He went by the name of Galvarino.”

I cocked my head and pretended to be engaged with what he was saying, like he shard a tender story. But inside, my stomach roiled over with his words, even though Galvarino’s name wasn’t familiar to me either. Yet with sickening recognition, I realized I hadn’t known any of the other Remnants’ names before I met them.

“And their knights?”

“They were tortured and killed too.”

“You’re certain — certain they each had the mark?” I asked him, feeling a bit faint. Four more of our kin, dead? There’d been a part of me that thought we were invincible, from here on out. That the Maker would somehow shield us when it came to matters of life and death. But if what Cyrus was saying was true . . .