In desperation, she opened her mouth to inhale a shuddering breath and the vapor filled it. She gagged as it scratched the back of her throat like filthy fingernails. A sulfuric taste filled her mouth as the shadow consumed her from the inside out.
Remiel…help…me.
CHAPTER 46
Aliah
What died and rotted in my mouth? He coughed and spit into the dirt. His body ached like he'd spent the night sleeping on a bed of rocks. When his vision cleared he pushed himself up, his chest squeezed with panic.
Shai.
She was lying on the ground, her hair fanned out around her face, her eyes closed. He leaned over and rubbed his finger across her cheek. Warm. She breathed through slightly parted lips.
"She saved you." A voice behind him startled him. He scrambled to his knees and moved protectively closer to Shai. Remiel emerged from the trees carrying a load of sticks and dry moss. He knelt near a circle of rocks on the ground a few feet away and began to arrange the wood and moss into a little mound inside the rock ring. Aliah's insides quivered. Remiel's movements were peculiar. Deliberate. Almost like he was actually alive and not just a vision.
"What are you doing here, Remiel?"
Remiel's dark head stayed bent over his task. He rubbed a stick furiously against a piece of bark with a clump of moss on it.
"Aren't you glad I'm here?"
Aliah groaned. He'd always hated the way Remiel answered a question with a question.
"I mean, you appeared to me in Conley and now here. What are you doing?"
"You believe I appeared to you? I've always been here, Aliah. Watching the Watchers as they watch Lael. You just couldn't see me."
Remiel blew on the moss as it started to smoke before a small flame burst from it. He smiled and placed it inside his mound of sticks.
"Right. I saw you die, Remiel. That day on the bridge. I saw your body get washed away. If I didn't… kill you then why did I go through so much trouble to...cover it up?" Aliah hissed and glanced down at Shai. She seemed to still be asleep.
"Guilt." Remiel stood and moved nearer to Shai. "It makes you believe strange things." He put his hands under Shai's armpits. "Help me move her closer to the fire."
Aliah grabbed Shai's feet and they moved her to a spot near the fire. Remiel took Shai's bag which he must've retrieved from the tree branch, and placed it under her head. He tossed Aliah's bag to him.
"Then where have you been all this time?" Aliah licked his dry, cracked lips.
Remiel squatted near the fire. "I've been around. But mostly I've been with Elchai in Kent."
Aliah watched him poke the fire with a long stick before turning to rummage in his bag for his canteen. After a long swig of water he looked at Remiel again.
"Then what made you come back here?"
"Her.” Remiel nodded in Shai’s direction. “I had to save her, after she saved you."
Aliah stood across from Remiel watching as he coaxed the flames higher while Shai laid restlessly beside him, breathing in gulps of air. A pang of jealousy hit him. It wasn't Remiel's job to protect Shai.
"Why do you keep saying that? What do you mean Shai ‘saved’ me?"
"You don't remember?"
Aliah tossed his bag on the ground then collapsed beside it. "If I remembered I wouldn't be asking you, would I?" He rubbed his face with trembling hands.
"The Hunter had you, Aliah. Why do you think I told you to give up your pendant back in Conley when I saw you? I knew Samael would send his Hunter after you. That thing followed you here."
Aliah shuddered. "So how did she save me?"
"She yelled. Drew its attention away from you to her." Remiel sighed then sat back on his heels, his arms around his knees.
"Then how did she survive it?" Aliah glanced at Shai who'd begun to thrash.
"She fought it. She's still fighting it. But it will keep coming back for both of you until you get rid of the pendants."
Shai arched her back and moaned. Her arms flailed and her mouth opened and closed like she couldn't breathe.
"Do something!" Aliah stared at Remiel as though by sheer will he could force his enemy to help his best friend. But Remiel just looked into the fire, rocking back and forth on his heels.
"She'll fight it, Aliah. Just let her do it."
Shai cried out, her face wet with tears. Her fingers clawed the air.
"She can hear my voice. Once she focuses on me, she’ll be free of the Hunter. For now."
Aliah gritted his teeth. His head throbbed as a new memory surfaced. He pulled at the collar of his sweater that suddenly felt too tight.
"It's all about you isn't it? Even the first time. When my mother... Mara, was taken away to the Camps you wouldn't let Shai come to me. I remember, you wouldn't let her comfort me."
Remiel looked up at Aliah, his face sad. His eyes an unfathomable depth.
"So you do remember some things. Aliah, you're full of passion yet always striving to manipulate people's emotions. To bend them to your will. When Mara went to the Camps you saw an opportunity to use your grief to make Shai pity you. You used her affection for you to satisfy your own twisted self-love."
"Love?" Aliah spat and wiped his mouth with the back of his shaking hand. "Laelite's don't love." He narrowed his eyes.
"Only because they're taught to fear instead. But you aren't Laelite, neither is Shai."
Shai cried out again and Remiel turned to her. When he re-adjusted the cloak around her and patted her hand, Aliah's rage exploded. His muscles coiled tight then sprung loose. He leapt over the fire and landed on top of Remiel. They rolled in the dirt, Aliah dug his fingers into Remiel's neck. He felt skin tearing. He dug his nails in deeper. Remiel groaned and tried to push Aliah off.
But there was something that had been wound tight for too long inside Aliah. It snapped and released his pent-up fury.
He gave himself to it. Hatred boiled his heart into a stone. He ground his teeth together and rammed his head into Remiel’s ribs. A satisfying crack made him smile and he raised up to charge at Remiel again. He lifted his head and looked straight into the eternal blue of Remiel's eyes. So much like Shai's. His gut twisted.
He held a handful of Remiel's cloak in one hand and his hair in the other. His hands trembled and his mouth went dry. Remiel lay on his back with a look of pain on his face, but he didn't fight back.
Aliah released Remiel and shoved him before rolling off. He stood and brushed off his trousers.
“Damn you,” he murmured. Aliah glanced down at his enemy. Brief regret filled him. I can’t let him get to me. Again.
Remiel's lip had swollen and his neck was bloody where Aliah had grabbed him. "Did that make you feel any better?" Remiel's voice was soft, but it still pierced through Aliah.
"Not really." Aliah went back to his bag and sat down by the fire. "Can't win a fight with myself."
Remiel laughed then rubbed his ribs. "No, you can't. Just like you can't use your anger to force me to react. When you stop being owned by your emotions you'll stop feeling vulnerable to people."
Aliah picked up a twig and idly broke it into several pieces. Remiel went back to watching over Shai as she writhed on the ground. Aliah tried to ignore him as he touched her hands and her face, before straightening Aliah's cloak she still wore.
"And when Shai overcomes her fear of feeling too deeply she'll let you protect her. She'll let you love her." Remiel met Aliah's eyes across the fire. "Because you do. Love her."
For the next two days Aliah and Remiel carried Shai's limp body through the trees, through deep valleys and wide open fields.
Remiel seemed to understand Aliah's need to be alone with his thoughts. His flashbacks became more frequent. His hands trembled constantly and paranoia made him jerk his head around every few minutes. He found himself playing with the chain around his neck, flirting with the idea of yanking it off. What would it be like to remember everything? Would he hurt as bad as he did now? Would his memories come floodin
g back or trickle in like they'd been doing? He pulled at the neck of his sweater. He wouldn’t survive a flood of memories.
By the end of the second day, as the sun began to set, they set up camp in a cluster of trees with an open view to the East and West. Remiel caught a wild rabbit for supper, skinned it and put it on a spit over the fire.
They sat across from each other, with Shai beside Remiel. Aliah rotated his shoulders that burned and ached from carrying Shai. A throbbing pain spread across his neck so he rubbed the spot and closed his eyes. When he opened them, his throat and chest tightened. Remiel’s flame-blue eyes locked him a steady gaze.
He swallowed and tugged at his pendant.
"It's okay you know. I forgive you." Remiel's face glowed in the soft orange firelight.
Aliah said nothing, but his eyes burned and his gut twisted. If only I could forgive myself.
CHAPTER 47
Shai
“Shai look at me." She tried to shake her head. She couldn't see, how could she look anywhere? She couldn't even breathe. Then the crushing pressure around her chest lifted and she fell, her body suddenly weightless, suspended. A bright light flashed and she saw a face. Flame-blue eyes that ripped apart the last threads of the veil of darkness. A thin, jagged scar cutting across his right cheek. His mouth, for once not smiling.
Remiel.
Her back struck something hard. Pain gouged her shoulder. The fresh, damp smell of the earth and the hearty scent of roasting meat filled her nose.
I am alive.
She sat up trembling, and looked around. She was lying on the ground still wrapped in Aliah’s cloak. A fire crackled to her left inside a ring of stones, and some kind of dark meat roasted over a spit, dripping juices into the flames. The sun had set, leaving the sky a velvety-black with tiny lights where the moon and stars pierced the night sky. Tall trees with leafless branches cast eerie shadows on the ground.
Aliah sat across the fire from her. His legs stretched out in front of him, ankles crossed, his hands supporting him from behind as he leaned back. He raised an eyebrow when their eyes met, but he didn't move.
"Where are we?" Her throat felt rusty and her voice cracked.
Aliah glanced to his left and Shai turned her head to see Remiel sitting on a log, his forearms resting casually on his legs as he leaned forward, letting his hands dangle between his knees. He grinned and deep dimples appeared in his cheeks.
She swallowed hard and looked back at Aliah who watched her unblinking.
"Aliah...can you... can you see him?"
Remiel laughed. A low lazy sound that Shai felt in her chest.
"Can you see me, Shai?" His eyes shone in the firelight.
She nodded.
"Then he can see me as well."
"How? How are you here right now when I've only seen you in visions?" Every breath burned as she forced air through her raw throat.
"You thought I appeared to you in visions, but we were communicating through a ripple of sorts. Three Worlds separated by a thin layer, but the ripple let us see each other. And recently we’ve been able to hear each other." Remiel looked at Aliah, then Shai, and smiled. "Don't worry. You'll know more about that later. And to answer your first question Shai, we are several miles northwest from where you started. Less than a day's journey from our destination: Sector Seven. Otherwise known as Kent. That’s where I’ve been staying, and it’s the place of your birth."
Shai glanced from Remiel to Aliah then back at Remiel. "What do you mean 'the place of my birth?'"
Remiel turned to Aliah. "You want to tell her or should I?"
Aliah shrugged one shoulder, still watching Shai.
Remiel picked up a stick and cleared a spot on the ground in front of him with his boot. He drew a small circle in the dirt with the stick then jabbed the end of the stick into the center of it.
"This is Lael, where you and Aliah grew up." He drew a larger circle around the small one.
"This is The Division of Edan that surrounds Lael." From the edge of the small circle he drew lines to the edge of the larger circle like the spokes of a wheel. When he was finished there were seven pie-shaped wedges of equal size.
"These are the Seven Sectors in the Division. The space between the Sectors, including Lael, is what you call the Borderless. At the top we have Sector One: Adena." He drew a sideways number eight inside the wedge. "This is their symbol. They supply power, electricity through water, to the rest of the Sectors."
He moved the tip of the stick to the right. "This is Sector Two: Brenton. Their symbol is a circle. They supply water. Next is Sector Three: Conley. That's where you were. They supply textiles." He drew a crescent inside Conley's wedge. The same symbol Shai had seen on their trees and on the wrists of both Ava and Kael. Her heart jumped when she thought of them.
Remiel turned his head and met her eyes. "A passionate group of people whose emotions run deep. But they use those emotions to get what they want." He glanced at Aliah then back down at his drawing. He pointed at the next wedge.
"Sector Four is Fino. They are known for their orchards and farms. They supply..."
"Fruits and vegetables," Shai whispered.
Remiel nodded. "You get the idea. They brand their people with a symbol of the sun. Hadyn is Sector Five." He drew an eye without lashes inside the wedge. "They supply meat by hunting as well as raising animals. Sector Six is Kegan. Their symbol is the triangle. They build houses and other buildings with the materials that come from Conley." He looked at Shai. "Many of them have been in Conley helping to rebuild for the last several days."
Shai stared at Remiel. Several days? They'd left Conley only a few hours ago and the fire there had only been the day before.
Remiel smiled slightly and Aliah shifted his position before looking at her and saying, "Shai. You've been unconscious for two days. Remiel and I have taken turns carrying you. When that... Hunter struck you it would've killed you, but Remiel came. I couldn't do anything... I..." He dropped his eyes.
"Samael sent the Hunter after Aliah." Remiel finished softly, his eyes on Aliah. "It's lured by the pendants you wear. It can neither see nor can smell, but it sense fear." He looked back to Shai. "It hears fear. In your voice, your movements, in the racing of your heart. Once it takes over, it brings its victims back to Gershom so Samael can take them prisoner."
The memory of the Hunter's icy grip chilled Shai and she clenched her trembling fingers in her lap.
"It can't find you if it can't find fear in you." His eyes held Shai's and a warmth flooded her. The trembling stopped. She had seen Remiel, in the darkness. Focusing on him was what had saved her from being swallowed alive by that thing.
Thank you. She spoke to Remiel inside her mind like she used to when he had first appeared to her, even though she wasn’t sure if the ripple thing worked when he was right next to her.
Remiel smiled at her then looked down at his drawing again. He thrust his stick into the last wedge. It stood like an arrow in the ground.
"That is Sector Seven. Kent. They are machinists. Metal workers. They fashion weapons of war as well as common cooking and eating utensils. Their weapons are the only thing not distributed among the Sectors. This is their symbol."
Shai watched him draw Kent's symbol in the dirt with his finger. My birthplace. Her pulse fluttered. She expected to see three interlocking rings like she had on her chest, but when he'd finished, he'd drawn a single flame.
She looked up at Aliah who remained sitting with his head down. She felt Remiel watching her. She frowned and look back at the drawing.
"You said I was born in Kent, but I don't have that symbol. And you left out Lael. What does it supply to the other Sectors?" She remembered what Kael had said about Lael contributing nothing, but hoped it wasn't true.
Remiel threw his drawing stick into the fire and when he looked back at her his eyes were sad.
"Lael isn't one of the Sectors." He looked up at the dark sky for a moment then got up and began pacing. "
After the War Between Worlds, Elchai put up a fence around Lael to preserve it. To protect it from the Outerlands. At that time there was only one Law: the Law of Love. It promoted equality, instilled honor, and eliminated fear." Remiel clasped his hands behind his back and sighed. The sound hung in the stillness, making Shai shiver.
“Everything changed when the Leader's son made a decision that affected not only his life, but everyone else's. More Laws and more Rules had to be made to keep Lael from complete ruin. The pendants eventually became part of that control. The way Lael is today was never the way that Elchai intended it to be."
Shai touched Eliana's pendant. "So the Laws and Rules now control rather than protect. I thought so. But I believe in the power of the pendants for good. I'm not controlled by them."
Remiel stopped in front of her. He looked down at her and shook his head. "Then can you give me that pendant, Shai?"
She curled her fingers around it. "It's not mine but I'm... responsible for it."
"Why?" Remiel's stare cut into her.
"Eliana is still alive because I'm protecting her Essence by wearing it. And I'll never let her go."
"Then who's responsible for your life, Shai? Who has your pendant?"
Shai swallowed the lump in her throat and stole a glance at Aliah who sat staring into the fire.
"Who told you those pendants are meant for good?" Remiel's questions dropped like a weight in her stomach. Sinking to the bottom and unsettling everything like a stone thrown into a still pond.
"I... I don't know." She looked at Aliah again who began fidgeting with his own pendant. Twisting it around his finger one way then the other, over and over.
The word puppet sprang into her mind again. Kael's voice mocking her beliefs. Fear fluttered inside her. Is it true?
She shook her head. "It's always been this way. I don't question it." Her tongue felt thick in her mouth.
"Yet you question everything else about Lael. The pendants were not part of Elchai's original plan. But because of them, Samael now controls Lael as well as the Borderless. Elchai isn’t your leader like you thought."
The Coalition Episodes 1-4 Page 15
