We stared at him in fascination. All my life, I’d known of those in the Valley. Those in the Desert, and to our east, the Plains. But he spoke of land much farther away — land we’d considered lost to us. Diseased, or flooded. He spoke of what my protectors had called the Coast and beyond it, across the sea. Cities that had supposedly been lost to the bombs, by his own description. Had they become livable in recent years? Resurrected from the rubble?
“It is from brothers and sisters who came to us from the salt caves, and farther West, along the Great Sea, that we learned of something you must know,” Clennan said.
“A young man came to them in the salt caves, fleeing from a very dark enemy,” Tyree said, picking up the story. “He served a man named Kapriel, but Kapriel was arrested and sent away, years ago.”
The four of us from the Valley stilled at the sound of this name. Kapriel — as in our Kapriel? Our imprisoned prince?
“Some say he was killed, but others say he yet lives,” Clennan went on.
“Who sent him away?” I managed to ask.
“One who calls himself the emperor of Pacifica.” He gave me and the others a grave look. “It is a troubling place, Pacifica. On the outside it appears prosperous, clean. Indeed, it seems as if it would be our united goal to be more like them. But the darkness runs deep in that city, and in a different way than in Zanzibar.” He shook his head, as if he dared not speak further about it.
“We have heard of a man named Kapriel,” Niero said casually. “On what charges was he arrested?”
“Because he was a threat,” Clennan said, shaking his head. “His high gifting is great indeed.”
“His gifting?” Vidar asked.
“This young man, Kapriel, was born on the seventh day of the seventy-seventh year,” Clennan went on, ignoring Vidar’s question, staring at Niero.
All of our eyes went to him in alarm and awe and he smiled gently in return.
“He is Ailith?” Niero barked in confusion, his own dark eyes narrowing. “Why did our own elders not tell us that?”
He shook his head and shrugged his thin shoulders. “I do not know. Perhaps they weren’t aware of it. But there is more. He was one of two.”
As we waited for him to go on, my armband stilled. Twins rarely survived in our village. Perhaps this other had died. Clennan seemed sincerely grieved.
“His twin, Keallach, took a far different path,” Tyree put in for him.
“Keallach is his twin?” Vidar asked. “And an Ailith too, then.” He let out a low whistle.
“Even now, the empire of Pacifica has grown to five times the size of Zanzibar,” Clennan said. “And Keallach is her ruler, claiming the title of emperor because ‘king’ was not enough. He is the one who had Kapriel arrested.”
I frowned. An Ailith on the throne? How could this not be good? Even if he’d arrested his brother … could we not get to him, help him see his destiny?
“Pacifica appears to be beautiful. Pristine,” Tyree said. “But she rots at her core, just as Keallach rots at his. He could not abide by his father’s wishes for the brothers to share the throne, and burned with jealousy over Kapriel’s growing fame. He said it pained him to do so, but for the sake of the people, no division could be tolerated. And with his brother seeking the old ways, proclaiming the need for the high gifts to be restored, Kapriel was decreed a subversive and taken away.”
We were silent.
“Is he dead?” Niero asked at last.
“No one knows. As deep as Keallach’s hatred goes for his brother, there is an equal amount of love. We believe that Kapriel still lives, but is imprisoned where no one can find him.”
“He is ruled by Sheol,” Niero stated, more than asked. “This Keallach.”
“Yes,” Tyree said, nodding. “It is subtle, the evil one’s presence within Pacifica. Sheol’s ways are not unlike mold, stealing in spore by spore. Overtaking other life in subtle, insidious fashion. It is from there that the Sheolites originate, seeking out and murdering those with the high gifts.”
Niero rose and paced the length of the plane and back, chin in hand. “Is there a way for us to retrieve Keallach from the brink? Help him before he is fully deviant?”
The old men looked to each other and then shook their heads, their eyes blank. “We know not. But he appears determined to find you.”
Niero paused a second and then continued to pace. I studied him, trying to read him and failing. It wasn’t that he felt nothing; his emotions seemed too deep for me to reach. “The Sheolite,” he said. “They arrived in greater and greater frequency in the Valley. The trainers and I could barely keep them at bay.”
Tyree nodded gravely. “Keallach has had them hunting for the Ailith for some time, for he and his brother were raised, as you were, by those who told him of the ancient prophecies. His parents knew they were special, and as twins potentially twice the Ailith ruler the people had prayed for, if serving together.”
“Until Keallach killed them,” Clennan spat out.
We sat, stunned. He’d killed his own parents? Those who taught them the ways of the Community? To fight for right?
Worse, he’d killed his brother’s parents too.
“It was that action that made Kapriel draw his sword against Keallach. And it was then that Keallach had Kapriel arrested.”
“But he had him arrested, not killed,” I pointed out.
“And instead of the ultimate Ailith kings sharing the throne, we now have the ultimate Ailith enemy,” Ronan said, talking over me. “One who knows of us.”
“And those trackers he sent after us,” Vidar said, running a hand through his still-damp hair, slicking it back from his dark eyes. “I don’t suppose they have a thing for red hooded capes, do they?”
Tyree lifted tired, hooded eyes to meet his. “Red is the royal color of Pacifica.”
“I’m afraid there will be more, if you’ve been recognized,” Clennan said. He looked to Ronan and me, clearly remembering our words in the tunnel and fearing the worst.
The tracker’s scream still echoed in my mind. “We were clearly recognized,” I mumbled, feeling somehow guilty, responsible for betraying myself as Ailith. The tracker had known his death call might immobilize me, strike me at my core. Tried it out, as a test to see if we might be those he sought. “He escaped, right?” I said to Ronan.
He nodded once, pain in his expression as well as his heart. Did he not know that I was only glad that he survived that encounter?
“These brothers,” Niero said, still pacing. “Something must be off. They were born with the mark, as the Remnants and Knights were?”
Tyree shrugged. “One would presume so. But we know not. You now know all that we do.”
“And born with gifting?”
“Again, that might be assumed. There is talk of sorcery. Keallach passes his high gifting off as a low gift, which is allowed. Kapriel’s man had no idea how deep the magic goes. But he can move objects with his mind.”
“And Kapriel?” Vidar pressed.
“He has some control of natural elements.”
Killian let out a low whistle. “Twins with miraculous powers, dueling it out. That oughta be interesting.”
“How could Keallach turn away after the Call? Why would he resist it?” Tressa asked.
“Perhaps he prefers to hold on to the power he knows versus the power that might be,” Clennan said tiredly.
“We need to return home,” Niero said. “To the Valley. To convene with the elders and find out what they advise.”
We all nodded soberly. His plan seemed right. Like it was exactly what we were to do.
“At least this Keallach has no armband,” Vidar said, crossing his muscled arms in smug satisfaction. “We only began to experience the full force of our gifting after our presentation.” He patted his cuff and grinned around at us, but we did not smile back. Because we deduced what Vidar had not yet.
If Keallach learned the armbands were a source of power, a connection
to the Maker’s power, he’d seek to retrieve one from Raniero’s leather bag — or from any of us.
At any cost.
And at that moment, I was not the only one who felt the shiver of fear, like it had washed in from the dark seas itself.
CHAPTER
8
We slept through the day and skirted Nem Post during the night, knowing we could not face Tonna until we had more supplies to give her — especially since we were not returning her mudhorses. We slept through the following day, taking shelter from discovery between the wet dunes, wrapping up in our oilskins to combat the blowing sand and rain that fell harder as we neared the mountains. We resumed our journey come nightfall, reaching the Valley’s mouth as the sun broke free beneath the cloud layer, illuminating our beloved mist-covered mountains.
“It will be well,” Niero said when I voiced concern over Tonna’s wrath. “We burned our safe passage instructions, as she wanted. And she got more than the worth of the mudhorses in those packs. Trust me, she’ll be glad to see us again. Especially if we arrive with more supplies in hand.”
“Even if we continue to bring Sheolites behind us?” Ronan asked.
Niero frowned and looked to the setting sun at our backs as we entered the Valley at last. I inhaled, glad, so glad to smell the scent of pine and loamy earth. Home. All around me, the Ailith felt relief, bone-weary from our journey and battles, anxious for what was yet to come.
Niero seemed to sense it too. “Be at peace, sisters and brothers. The Maker shall sustain and restore us here. Here, we will seek and receive the counsel we need.”
When we finally arrived, I collapsed within the elder’s sanctuary deep inside the Citadel, sleeping for what felt like days. I’d come close to waking, then fall back into dreams that seemed to pull me under.
At last I awoke, recognizing anxiety in my room, and sat up straight. Fast.
“Oh,” I breathed with relief, seeing Ronan, brushing my hair sleepily out of my face. “You scared me. I thought …” I rubbed my face. “I thought something was wrong.”
“Hey, Dri,” he said, straightening himself. He’d been sitting in a chair by my open door, his head in his hands. Keeping watch over me?
I rubbed my face and eyes again, squinching them up and opening them wide in an attempt to focus. “What a relief to be free of those stupid films,” I said, eying the case beside the bed with disdain. “I hope the elders don’t send us anywhere else where I need to change the color I was born with.” I yawned and stretched. “After all, if Tressa can go about Zanzibar with those blue eyes of hers, I figure I can manage with mine. Right?”
“Yeah, but look where that got her. In chains on the wall.” His words were light but his tone flat. I tensed, trying to discern what I was feeling. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but then clamped his lips shut. He was stressed, and full of sorrow. It became like nausea in my own belly.
“Hey, hey,” I said, flipping back the covers and swinging my legs out. “What? Did I scare you? Sleeping away the week? What time is it? What day is — ”
“Dri.”
I stopped chattering and stared at him.
“Dri, I have bad news.” He rose like he was eight decades old and walked over to me. He sank to his knees and took my hands in his own. Then swallowed hard. “Dri, It’s about your parents. Dri, I, uh … They were … they were killed while we were away.”
I searched his face, the face I loved so much, my heart oddly twisting into confusion and hate. That mouth had opened and spilled terrible words. Horrible words.
“No. They left. Right after us, they were going to leave.”
He stared at me, stricken. “They didn’t make it.”
I was dreaming. I had to be dreaming again.
Dimly, I turned and began pulling my trousers over my cotton long johns, then pulled on my sweater over my cami. The blue one that Mom always said brought out my eyes. I had to go and see her. Dad too. End this nightmare. Prove to myself it was only that — the stuff of night terrors. I’d had dreams like this for a long time, starting around the celebration of my first decade. So real that I often had to prove to myself that they’d only been a dream in order to dispel them from my head and heart. See for myself the doll hadn’t been thrown into the fire. See for myself that the foal hadn’t drowned. Now, see for myself that my parents were fine. Right as rain, as my dad said.
Right as rain right as rain right as rain right as rain …
“What are you doing, Dri?” Ronan asked, misery and exhaustion coloring every syllable as I passed him.
“Going home. I’ve got to see them.” I pulled on a pair of boots and then reached for my oilskin on a hook by the door as Ronan neared me.
“Andriana,” he said, grabbing my arm. “Did you hear what I said? Dri, they’re gone. They’re not there. You can’t go.”
“Stop it,” I said, brushing off his hand and walking out of the room, then down the narrow hall — a crevasse in the rock.
He matched my steps. “You can’t go there,” he said again. “A tracker may be about. Waiting on you … It could be a trap.”
I paused and studied his face. It all felt so real, this dream. My heart shuddered and then pounded, sending a jolt out to my fingertips and down to my toes. But I’d had such waking dreams before. Dreams that were even more apt to stick with me for days. And this was one I didn’t want to live with.
I simply needed my little mom to hug me. Dad too. Get folded between them in a family embrace. Forget I’d ever had such visions. Heard such wretched words. Dreamed such dreams.
I strode forward, past Vidar and Bellona. Past Tressa and Killian, Tyree and Clennan. Almost past Niero before he reached out and grabbed my arm. “What are you doing? Where are you going?” He asked it more of Ronan than me, staring at him with accusation.
I looked back, watched as Ronan ran a hand over his brown-black hair, shining clean. “I tried to tell her. She refuses to believe me. She thinks it’s a dream. She’s gone through so much, felt so much. Slept so long … I don’t think she’s even fully awake now.”
I stared at him in growing horror. This dream was becoming too realistic. “No,” I whispered, pulling loose from Niero’s hand and backing away from him, shaking my head. “No.”
“Andriana,” he said, hands out, advancing slowly, as if trying to capture a wild mudhorse. “I’m so sorry. Let us help you, sister. Let us hold you through this pain.”
“No! No!” I cried, turning to run.
I tore out of the residence wing, through the gathering hall — now wide and empty, deep in shadows and feeling anything but holy — and slipped through the narrow crevasse, out into a day heavy with drizzle. I scrambled down the rocks, past the startled guards, and to the shack that held one of four dirt bikes. They’d obtained others. From where? I wondered idly. I turned the key and fiercely shoved down on the kickstart, willing it to roar to life, just as my fellow Ailith emerged above me, shouting, with Ronan in the lead.
But the engine caught, and I released the clutch as I twisted the throttle, narrowly avoiding the road’s edge and speeding down the mountainside. I went so fast, leaning around the corners, that I felt the gravel and mud scrape against my boot. Soon enough, I could hear the other bikes coming down the mountain in pursuit.
It didn’t matter: I had to get home. To the village. To Mom and Dad. They’d promised to escape. To leave, right after me, when we sensed the Sons of Sheol drawing so close.
So close so close so close so close so close …
Someone in the village would tell me where they’d gone. I just needed someone, somewhere, to tell me where to find them.
I reached the bottom of the mountain and made my way down the valley, then into the woods that led to the place I’d lived my entire life. But the closer I got, the colder I felt. Waves of an emotion I had a hard time defining seemed to enter and exit my body like a dagger to my belly. I actually let go of the throttle and then twisted it again each time it happened.
I didn’t bother to hide the bike in the woods, as Ronan had done day upon day, week upon week, when we met for our training sessions. I drove right up to my house, noting that there was no smoke coming from the chimney. Good, I thought with some relief. See there? They’re gone. Just as they’d promised. Somewhere safe, I told myself, as I stepped off the bike and walked to the doorway. If the neighbors couldn’t tell me where they’d gone, maybe the elders would when I went back. But since I was here, I’d take a look around. One final good-bye. That last night had been so rushed
I heard the other bikes’ engines in the distance across the field, and I hurried to the door.
The frigid emotion sliced through me again, making me double over. I frowned, gasped for a breath. Forced myself forward, through the front door swinging open on creaking hinges. Paused when I saw blood spattered across a wall that Mom had so meticulously whitewashed with a ground stone paste she made every year.
Always white always white always white always white …
Eyes wide, I followed the shock of red — a broad, streaking trail along the white wall — into the living room. My breath came fast, loud to my own ears. I dared not breathe through my mouth, only my nostrils, afraid I might scream and not stop.
Because the wall where Dad had kept the swords and other weapons was empty. I stepped over a sword, blood dried in streaks and spatters on its blade, then past a flail and a battered shield. In the corner, near the kitchen, there was more red splattered against the wall, then a pool of blood that spread five feet across the stone floor. Flat stones that Dad had laid, one by one, when I was small.
I could remember him on his knees, sternly telling me to stay away from the mortar and off the wet floor, even though I wanted to play with it. Later letting me put a handprint in a corner section.
I moved on what felt like wooden legs to that far corner, seeing another pool of blood, then a heavy, wide streak, as if someone had dragged themselves over to it.
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