Remnants: Season of Fire (30 page)

“All four had the mark,” Cyrus confirmed, leaning closer in a slight bow as the song ended, as if saying farewell. I shuddered, and he gave my arms an encouraging squeeze. “Know you are not alone,” he whispered, turning to my side and applauding the musicians as others did around us. “Take care, Andriana,” he said, taking my elbow, as his stunning words sank in. “Keallach will give you more time,” Cyrus added, “because he hopes to win you. But if you do not fall into line, I fear it will not go well for you.”

He smiled as we approached Keallach, and I mirrored his emotions of pretended pleasure. Keallach’s face lit up as he saw my expression, apparently fooled for once. “I send you off in a muddle of contempt and you return on Cyrus’s arm a woman at peace.” He clapped Lord Cyrus on the shoulder. “He’s a good man, this one,” he said.

“Indeed. Perhaps my favorite of your Six,” I said, smiling up at Cyrus.

“Hold, there,” Keallach said, pretending a frown and jostling his friend as if he meant to capture him in a headlock. “Must I compete for your affections?”

“It’s been made abundantly clear who I am meant to be with here,” I said with a genteel nod toward him.

Keallach raised his brows in surprise, huffed a laugh, and eyed Cyrus. “Will you do me a favor and spend an hour with her every morning?” he asked. “Perhaps the rest of our days will be far less combative.”

“Spend an hour with this beautiful woman?” Cyrus said, sounding far different than he’d been with me — more like he’d been like at Castle Vega. Was it an act? Which one? “Whatever sacrifice I must make, Highness,” he said, holding his heart and making a pained face.

“Such an obedient man. Thank you, Cyrus. You may go now.”

Cyrus bowed to each of us, and Keallach grinned after him. He felt a genuine camaraderie with the man, which fueled my hope again, even after hearing Cyrus’s dire warning. Memories of it made me feel sick to my stomach. They’d killed the Remnants. What had been their gifts? If it were true, then there’d just be the five of us, not nearly as strong without those missing. Were we enough alone to turn back this tide? With this knowledge, wasn’t it more imperative than ever that we bring Keallach into the fold?

“What is it, Andriana?” Keallach asked, turning to me in concern. “You suddenly appear terribly pale.”

“It’s been a lot to take in, this part of your life,” I said. “Do you think I’ve been here long enough? Might I leave now?”

He studied me. “After one more dance. With me.”

“On one condition,” I said wearily, wondering if I even had it in me to get through one more turn on the floor. “No using your gift on me with the dance.”

“No need,” he said, lifting his hands in glee. “You are well versed in the steps now!” We went back to the dance floor as the music began again. Keallach held me closer than before, and it wasn’t long before I felt his warm fingertips skirting the edge of my gown at the lower back. “Do you see how you have admirers already?” he asked.

I frowned at him. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“The women,” he said, eyes on me. “They’ve all slipped out and scrubbed away a good deal of their powder and eye shadow. They all want to look more like you. Because I have chosen you.”

My pulse quickened, and I dared to look over his shoulder
at the other women in the room. It was true. They all looked more . . . human. More like me. But instead of comforting me, the sight made me feel nauseated again. What was it about Pacificans? What had made them so mindless? Is that why Keallach and the others held such sway over them? Is that why he needed me, because he knew the Trading Union was full of people far more independent than these?

A few other couples joined us on the dance floor, but the majority seemed content to break and sip from their glasses and share words under their breath, undoubtedly about me. They were both repulsed and drawn to me, it seemed.

A thought struck me then. If they were so easily swayed, could I win them over for the cause? For the Way? Might I strike at Sethos’s power over them? Hope surged in me. Perhaps the Maker allowed me to be here, in this place, the heart of the enemy, so I could strike a crippling blow. And Cyrus had seemed to hint that he might be an ally. I smiled at the thought, and a surge of joy in Keallach made me look at him.

“Ah, Andriana,” he said. “How lovely you are when you smile. You’re understanding it now, aren’t you? What we might attain, together.”

Together
. Something about the way he said it agitated me.

Keallach pulled me closer and we swayed back and forth. He took hold of my hand on his shoulder and brought it to his chest, gently forcing it flat until I could feel the steady rhythm beneath. “With every day that passes, you hold more of my heart,” he said intently. “It’s like I always knew you were coming. That I had to wait for you.” Then he leaned forward, slowly, as if to kiss me. I could feel the collective intake of breath in the room. I resisted, pulling back, but Keallach’s grip
was sure, firm, unyielding. “Give in, my love,” he said. “This is destiny.”

My love?
“I can’t, Keallach,” I said, looking into his eyes.

“Forgive me,” he whispered. “But this is for your protection.”

And then impossibly, I was doing as he asked. Lifting my chin. Parting my lips. Accepting his. Feeling him draw me even closer, his hands fully on my bare back. Dimly, I heard the applause around us, laughing and cheers. Felt the approval of some, the condemnation of others. And knew that once again he had compelled me, moved me, used his gift against me. I tried to move my hands, to push him away, but could not. He smiled and drew away first, leaving me as if I were stunned by his very kiss. Laughing, looking proudly at the others nearby.

I half turned, trying everything to break our bond, our connection.
Maker . . .

I then latched on to the wish that Ronan was here. Striking Keallach down, breaking his grip on my arm.
Ronan, my knight. Ronan, my love. Ronan, Ronan, Ronan . . .

Keallach drew away from me, frowning, then quickly forced a smile. Pretending. He’d felt it then, the internal severing of his hold on me. But still, he held on to my arm. “Come along, Andriana. I will see you to your room.”

CHAPTER
25

RONAN

W
e had just finished our watery soup after a long day of travel to a new Drifter camp when I noticed Chaza’el get that distant look in his eyes. Others said their goodnights and padded off to their own spots to bed down by fires for the night, but I remained. Chaza’el often wished to share his vision soon afterward. I was eager to hear what he’d seen.

But when his eyes focused on me, he frowned and looked away, as if guilty.

“Chaz?” I asked gently, picking up the nickname Vidar had given him. “What is it?”

His eyes dragged back to meet mine. “It’s Andriana,” he said miserably.

“Andriana,” I repeated.

He nodded, his lips in a thin line. Asher came and sat
down on the stump of a log beside us. So did Niero. They’d noticed Chaza’el’s look too.

“What was it, Chaza’el?” I asked, my tone more angry and scared than I’d meant for it to be.
Out with it!
I wanted to shout.
Tell me!

“Easy, brother,” Asher said, reaching out to touch my arm. I shook his hand off.

“She was with Keallach,” he said, closing his eyes and rubbing them.

That wasn’t a surprise. “We know she’s with him. What of it?”

He opened his eyes and stared dolefully at me. “She was in a white dress. A gown.” He shook his head and ran his fingers through his dark hair, then clasped them together.

“A white dress,” I repeated. “As in a betrothal gown?”

“Maybe,” he said, lifting his hands in a helpless gesture. “No,” he said, as if correcting himself. “There were many others in white too, around her.”

“All right,” Niero said, getting agitated himself. “Tell us all of it. Everything you saw. Don’t pause.”

I steeled myself.

“She was kissing Keallach. First on a dance floor, with many Pacificans looking on, applauding. Then again, in a passageway. They were in each other’s arms. It was . . . intimate.”

I hadn’t steeled myself enough for this. It was as if a hundred tiny knives had punched holes in my lungs, keeping me from taking another breath.

She was kissing him. Another man. Our nemesis. The one who had tried to kill Kapriel. The one I’d feared had imprisoned her.

I let out a humorless laugh. “Well at least she hasn’t been
spending her days in a dungeon as I feared.” Or
nights
. My breathing quickened at the thought of what sort of quarters Keallach might have given her, likely with easy access.

“Stop,” Asher said.

His single word shushed my swirling thoughts like a dam to a river.

“You . . . you love her?” he whispered. He shook his head. “I mean as more than a sister.”

Niero scowled but remained silent.

“I do,” I said, unable to lie when I was struggling to breathe. “Or perhaps I should say, I did.” But even as I uttered the words, I knew they were decidedly false. If I didn’t love her, I wouldn’t feel this scalding pain.

“There is a reason the elders forbade the Ailith,” Niero began, “to take up with one —”

“I know, Niero, I know!” I staggered to my feet and began to pace. The last thing I needed was a lecture on something that had been decided long ago.

“And she . . . loves you?” Asher asked, seemingly unperturbed by our transgressions.

“I think so. Maybe. Oh,” I groaned, wiping my face, pulling at it as if I might be able to pull free clear thoughts. “I don’t know!” I said, fingers splayed, shaking my head. “She did at the last moon.”

Asher nodded thoughtfully. “Tell me again of your vision,” he said to Chaza’el. “Everything you can remember. Leave nothing out.”

I took a breath, not certain I could get through another retelling. But Chaza’el’s voice faded as I concentrated on what Dri must’ve looked like in that gown of white. I’d imagined her in white, of course, but with me, under a Hoarfrost moon, our hands entwined in an elder’s wrapped band as
we exchanged vows. But instead she was there, with
him
. Tears filled my eyes and I didn’t bother wiping them away. I was only seeing them again, together . . . again and again
together
. Him leaning in to kiss her, her resisting, as if teasing him, then leaning in, lifting her chin, parting her lips to welcome him . . . the Pacificans around them applauding and smiling as if they’d just exchanged their own vows.

“Chaza’el,” Niero said, drawing back my attention. “Was there any more after the passageway kiss?”

“Must there be more?” My voice cracked then, and I choked on humiliating tears of anger and betrayal. I looked to the star-filled sky, remembering Keallach pointing out constellations for her, barely keeping my legs, my breathing ragged. I backed up toward a large rock, and when I bumped up against it, I scraped downward, ignoring how my tunic rode high on my torso, how the stone scraped against the bare skin of my back. In an odd sort of way, in my grief, the pain felt like a relief, a release.

Asher turned to me and said, “For as much as Chaza’el
saw
, he saw precious little. We do not know all that led to those kisses, or what followed.”

“He saw more than I wish he ever had,” I said angrily, wiping my eyes with the palms of my hands, pressing in for a moment, then looking up, trying to catch my breath.

“Ahh, but you allow the enemy to make the most of that moment rather than seek what the Maker wants us to know,” Asher said. “You embrace devastation and division rather than cling to the cords of your entwined hearts.”

I stared at him, letting his words cycle back around and through my mind again, trying them on, like a new coat over a shirt left in shreds.

“Are you so weak, Knight, that you so easily believe the
worst of your Remnant? Or is this the time she needs you to fight for her the most?”

I sat there, stunned. Was it . . . possible?

“But then, why . . . How? Andriana is strong, Asher. Ask Niero. Very strong. And she wields emotion. Could she not ward off Keallach? Or bend him to her own heart?”

“Think, Ronan,” Niero said, nodding now, as if in agreement with Asher. “What is Keallach’s gift as a Remnant?”

“He can move objects.”

“And people, according to Kapriel.”

“He can move people,” Asher repeated in wonder.

I frowned. “But he does not yet have his armband. If you are right . . . Could he already be so powerful as to be able to move Andriana in such a way?” But then my heart skipped a beat. Had not every Remnant had a certain measure of their gift before the ceremony? The blessing simply seemed to ignite it, expand upon it.

“Now you see.” Asher gestured toward me and then out, with both hands. “The twins have always had quite impressive powers. Even before he had his arm cuff, Kapriel was able to summon the clouds and rain and wind, yes?”

“Yes,” I said, remembering the Isle of Catal and both of the twins utilizing their gifting. Thoughts of what I’d seen him do since he received the cuff strengthened me. We could storm into Keallach’s castle, if necessary. Free Dri . . .

“We must make sure that Keallach never obtains his armband,” Niero said. “If we can make sure that doesn’t happen, we just might have a chance to beat him.” It was as if he’d read my mind.

I lifted my hands to my face and rubbed it. “I know Dri. She’ll likely feel that she betrayed me and be angry at herself.
It might give Sethos, or Keallach, the exact edge they need to open that door to the dark she’s wrestled with before.”

“Then we must pray against it,” Asher said simply. “And hope that the Maker makes Dri strong enough to endure the fiercest battle yet. Because if they claim her, it will be a terrible loss for you, friend. But it will be worse for the Remnants.”

CHAPTER
26

ANDRIANA

F
ury, dark and cold, flooded through me. He’d kissed me! Had made me kiss him! It was madness. How could I have fooled myself? I couldn’t sway Keallach emotionally when he held physical sway over me. I tried to pull away, but he held on stubbornly. “Just a moment, Andriana,” he grit out, fairly pushing me through a doorway held open by a footman and pulling me through the narrow, secret passageway. The door closed behind us. “We can have words when we are fully in private.”