My knees crumpled beneath me as I studied the floor. Because across my childhood handprint, so tiny, was another, bigger, etched in blood. Not large enough to be Dad’s, but more like …
Mom.
I rocked back and forth, screaming within, the ache so loud, stretching so wide within me, I couldn’t let it loose. And only as my Ailith sisters and brothers entered my childhood home did that cry find voice in a keening wail.
Because I’d finally named the cold emotion that had threatened to break me in two, ever since I entered the home I’d known all my life.
Despair.
CHAPTER
9
Ronan tenderly picked me up and carried me from the house that now contained both sweet memory and horror. He wept with me, great tears sliding down his face as he walked down the wide dirt road, between the abandoned houses, to the end of the village. At the river, at the water’s edge, he knelt and rocked me, my head tucked beneath his jaw. Rocked me and rocked me and rocked me as we wept together.
Gradually, my tears were spent, and I gasped, hiccupping as I tried to regain the rhythm of normal breath. I then realized the Ailith stood guard. Niero, Killian, Tressa, Vidar, and Bellona formed a perimeter around us — Vidar with a rifle, Bellona with her bow, the others with swords. Even Tressa.
Vidar’s eyes shifted back and forth, wary. “They are not here,” he said to Niero in a low tone. “It’s just a Sheolite shadow that I sense now, all that remains of their passage.”
“Agreed,” Niero grunted. “But we best continue to keep alert.”
“Why?” I asked Ronan, searching his face, knowing he’d tell me the truth. “Why’d they kill my parents?” It made no sense to me. Even though we’d feared for them, we knew it was us they’d be after.
He hesitated, resisted, looking at me with pain from beneath his long, dark lashes.
“Tell me, Ronan.”
“Dri, it’s best — ”
“They wanted to know where you went,” Niero put in, turning and crouching before me. “Your parents had almost escaped — ”
“Do you really think this is necessary?” Ronan asked.
Niero put his hand up to my knight, still looking at me. “The villagers said your mother went back for something. They were caught then.”
I frowned at him. Wanting him to go on. Wanting him to stop. Yet understanding I had to know it all. I looked up to Ronan. “Tell me.” I didn’t want to hear it from Niero. I wanted to hear it from the man who’d understand best. Who loved his parents, as I loved mine. Where were they? What did they look like? Were they safe?
He licked his lips and swallowed, looking up to the nearest house, then back to me again. “The neighbors said they were tortured, Andriana. One, then the other. The Sheolite scum used them against each other. Tried to use their love for each other to get the information they sought. But they refused to betray you. Until the end, they were your protectors.”
“Where did they take them?” I asked, swallowing hard. “Their bodies, I mean?”
Niero shook his head. “No one knows.”
“Why take them?” I asked, my voice strangled. “Maybe they’re not dead. Maybe they were just wounded.” I looked around at my friends, and they only looked back at me with sorrow and pity. It was madness. I knew it was madness. No one could lose that much blood and survive. No one.
New tears rose and flooded over my lips, running down in twin streams, mixing with the rain falling from skies that seemed to echo my sorrow. And again Ronan held me close, rocking me for several minutes.
At last, Niero intervened. He reached forward and grabbed my arm, stilling our momentum. “Enough.”
Ronan frowned up at him. “She just found out, Raniero.”
“I said it’s enough,” he said, more gently. “Come, Andriana. Rise. For we are not people of despair. We are people of the promise.”
I looked back at him, half wanting to stay nestled in Ronan’s arms. Safe. Cared for. And half wanting to do as my leader asked. Seize upon the strength. The hope in his words.
Reluctantly, I reached out and clasped arms with Niero, and he helped me rise on shaking legs. He stood there a moment, letting me gain my strength, holding me steady. But as a wounded warrior, not a woman in need. Not as Ronan had held me …
“You shall never forget them,” he said, looking down and into my eyes with compassion.
“I shall not,” I said, and though tears fell once more, this time my chin was held high.
“They died to serve you and the Maker.”
“As I would live to die,” I said.
He nodded, seemingly pleased by my words, hollow as they felt to me. But I discovered that once spoken they formed a sort of empty vessel within my heart, a vessel that gradually filled with each breath I took. Filled with the hint of faith. A trickle of trust. A whisper of hope.
His dark eyes stared into mine, as if willing strength into me. “You were chosen. The path is long. And it does not end here.”
“It does not end here,” I repeated, grinding out the words.
“The elders have spoken,” Niero said, eyeing the rest of the Ailith over his shoulder. “In the morning, we leave to see if we can find this servant of our Kapriel and discover more about his brother. If the elders are correct, then we have much to do in preparation.”
We returned to the Citadel, and I curled back into my bed, my blanket over my head as I feigned sleep, knowing Ronan would keep prowling the tunnel, keeping watch until he knew I was resting. Half an hour after I’d curled up and remained still, I sensed him ease away and knew where he was going.
To check on his own parents.
They were likely far away, safely escaped. Surely the other three Ailiths from the Valley would’ve told me if they’d lost their protectors too. But the idea of being able to see my village, my parents as I’d left them just days ago, set me to weeping again. I cried and cried, wiping my tears and snot on a soggy handkerchief that Clennan had given me.
Why? I asked the Maker. Why, why, why, why, why? They’d given their lives to serve you. To serve me. Was it not enough? Was it not enough?
Weary of my own internal tirade, I sat up and threw back the covers. Bellona looked over at me from her post in the hallway. Standing guard, I guessed, in Ronan’s absence. I sighed and blew my nose again, quickly brushed out my hair, and wound it back up in a knot before exiting my room.
“Andriana, wait,” she said, following me to the right, down the narrow, curving tunnel.
I was determined to explore the Citadel. Move. Do anything but think and cry any more. So I didn’t respond. She could come, she could stay; I didn’t really care. And that utter lack of emotion — that apathy — spooked me and made me start tearing up again. I hurriedly wiped my face with the long sleeve of my sweater.
We stood to one side, pressing ourselves into the rough stone as two armed guards passed us. They gave us a long look, clearly curious, but then hurriedly looked away when they saw my tearstained face.
We entered a large room with a massive round table and twelve stools, all carved from stone. I exited through it, found another hallway, this one lined with what appeared to be twenty dorm rooms, possibly to house the guards. In each section of the Citadel’s labyrinth, dripping candles and torches lit the way, and there were open ventilation shafts carved through the cliff face at regular intervals to bring in fresh air. I wondered why we weren’t colder than we were. Even in Harvest season, especially with the steadying climate of a cave, it should be cold underground, and yet in here, it felt rather … temperate. Almost as warm as it had been in Zanzibar.
I walked farther and noticed old bells of all sorts were interlinked by chains along the wall. One pull would sound the alarm in hallway after hallway.
“Andriana,” Bellona asked, still behind me, “where are we going?”
“I just want to know what’s up here”
Appeased, she settled back into silence, perhaps as curious as I to see the
upper reaches. We climbed round after round of stairs, and passed armories filled with machine guns and rocket launchers and crate upon crate of bullets — obviously meant for defense of the Citadel. More dorm rooms, these appearing empty. Room for hundreds. More meeting rooms. Kitchens.
Up here it was warmer, and I wondered again how they heated a fortress buried so deep into the mountain. But then I smelled it: sulphur. My eyes traced the wall and I saw the clay pipes and some telltale drips that painted the gray stone green and blue. They were pumping hot mineral water through the pipes, throughout the entire structure. It was ingenious.
I tiptoed past a massive steel door that looked capable of withstanding a bomb, and down a narrow hallway that led toward small alcoves that exited out and behind giant boulders, surprising chagrined soldiers who kept a sleepy watch. It seemed the boulders disguised the men’s location from below, appearing as outcroppings of the mountain itself. But judging from the view from inside, with the soldiers’ mountain of firearms, no one would be capturing this mountain with ease. I had no idea how long the elders had been collecting individuals willing to defend the Citadel, but those who’d already arrived appeared to be ready to go down fighting.
At last we hit an alcove with no soldiers on it, and I moved around the boulder barrier.
“Andriana,” Bellona said in irritation, taking my arm and going in front of me. I allowed it, too weary, too beaten to argue. She did a sweep of the area and then I moved forward, looking away so she wouldn’t see me roll my eyes. After all, who would be coming after a Remnant, here, in the heart of their own fortress? Or perhaps she was edgy because she’d accepted watch duty from Ronan and felt the added responsibility.
Or maybe she felt sorry for me. Orphaned now, as she was once, my parents gone.
I leaned against the short barrier, forcing myself to look down, to think about a fall. The cliff dropped a good fifty feet below before hitting another ledge — I could see a few armed guards among the boulders below — and then dropped again for a thousand feet. Higher, so much higher than the Zanzibian wall, than the towering cedars of the Valley I’d been forced to climb. I welcomed the familiar terror, the sickness in my throat, the tightening of my chest. Anything, anything to think about other than my parents. Even this old, familiar panic was better than that pain. The rain clouds directly in front of us had dumped their load and were disappearing as we watched, steadily lifting, gliding past. I closed my eyes and absorbed the sensation of nothingness below my boots, the sensation of utter space all around me, after the cramped confines within the mountain city behind us. Felt my belly clench. Knew my breath was coming in short pants.
“What are you two doing up here?” Niero asked, standing on a rock up and to my right. I gasped and felt a wave of vertigo, seeing him standing there. One half step shy of that fall.
How had we not heard him climb up? Or seen him when he came out beside us? It was as if the clouds had deposited him as they dispersed.
“Whoa, Niero, what are you doing?” Bellona looked angry and a bit pale, which made me smile a little. Hardly anything got her upset besides Vidar’s teasing.
“Don’t like heights either?” he asked, his tone mildly curious.
“I don’t like taking careless risks,” she clarified, leveling a gaze at him.
Niero smiled, then picked up a pebble and flicked it over and off the edge, watching it fall. Was this an object lesson? An attempt to show me how to conquer my fear by modeling complete trust, or something? I looked away from him, but could feel his eyes move to me, could feel his gentle, probing, insistent summons.
I sighed and finally met his gaze. But I shivered at what I saw. His eyes were so wise, so keen. So full of peace and confidence, as if they held a thousand years of knowledge rather than his two decades. I sat up straight and studied him, feeling the first emotions I’d felt from him, really — besides the rage against Sethos — and the first emotion since despair had so wracked me.
Concern. Care. Hope. And something I just couldn’t quite put my finger on.
“Niero, are you sure you’re not Ailith?”
He smiled and looked out to the clouds. “Yes. I’m sure.”
“And you are not a knight?”
“Not of the Last Order, no. You Ailith are unique. But we are all called to this task before us.” He jumped down to the alcove, landing beside me, and then gestured for me to come closer. “You may leave us, Bellona. I will see Andriana back to her quarters.”
She left without further word, but not before I read the odd twining of relief and resentment within her; she liked being off duty, but disliked being cut out.
We stood in silence for several minutes, side by side. Then he asked in a soft tone, “Are you doubting your Call, Andriana?”
I watched as the clouds swirled before us, still clearing to reveal portions of the mountains and then gathering again. “I’m doubting everything right now,” I mumbled. “May I have permission to do that?” I asked, glancing at him, eyebrows raised. “A day to mourn my kin? The people who loved me most? Roil around in the torn bits left to me before I allow the Maker to weave them back together? Do I get to be human for just a day?”
“You may do what you wish. But you are called to more.”
The feelings flooded back. Irritation. Rage. Sorrow. Fear. Confusion.
I turned toward him. “Can you not just leave me be? At least until morning?” I said, tapping against his hard, broad chest.
He was immovable, standing there, taking it. Looking down at me with nothing but compassion and love and understanding, which made me all the angrier. Now, of all times, he was allowing me to read him? Because why? He felt sorry for me?
“Do you know what it is to lose someone, Niero? Someone you loved with everything in you?” I asked, feeling tears stream once again. “Someone who loved you just the same?”
He didn’t blink. The muscles in his cheeks twitched. “I do,” he whispered.
I felt the breaking within him and it drew me, that shared moment of understanding. I was in his arms then, enveloped, cradled, held, which both choked me with gladness and frustration. I shoved weakly against him, but found him impossible to move. He didn’t release me and, after a bit of flailing, I gave up.
“Do you know what it is to lose your memory?” I asked, forcing the words past my tightening throat, leaning my cheek against his shoulder. “The core of who you are? My parents, Mom and Dad, they held me,” I said, gripping him now, clinging to him. “Held me as a baby. Watched me walk, talk. Eat. Laugh. Cry. Play. They taught me my first everything. I don’t remember those firsts. I don’t,” I said, shaking my head, knowing I was babbling. “They held me, Niero. Held me. Loved me. All they did wrong was love me, protect me, prepare me. And for that, they’re dead.”
I melted then, shuddering through my sobs. And just as I felt my knees would buckle and I’d fall, he pulled me tighter, as if willing his strength, his courage, his hope into me. My armband hummed and its warmth spread through me, as if responding in pleasure to his presence. He held me not as a lover, but as tenderly and fiercely as a mother caught standing in a storm with her bundled newborn. And in his grip, my weeping ended, my tears dried, my heart lifted.
I squirmed and he let me loose, but not entirely away. I looked up at him, staring into his dark, lilting eyes again, trying to make sense of what I’d just felt. “What … Niero, what was that?”
He gave me a small smile, but kept a grip on my upper arms, looking intently into my eyes. “Andriana, your parents were the first to love you, but they will not be the last. You are seen and loved by the Maker, as he loved your parents even before you were even born. He will see you all reunited in time.” He paused, waiting for me to nod. “Trust, Andriana. You are not forgotten.”
“Dri?” I looked up and saw Ronan in the doorway, relief sliding across his face at finally finding me.
But still Niero held on to me, never looking at Ronan, and waited until my eyes returned to h
is. “Andriana, no matter how it feels — and hear this well, because it is most important for you — no matter how it feels, you must rely on what you know. What you’ve been taught by your protectors, your elders, your fellow Ailith. In the battle ahead … Andriana, it will be vital. Do you understand me?”
I hesitated. So much about my mind and heart was becoming centered on how I felt. Feelings dominated my every waking moment, especially since I received the Ailith armband. I couldn’t simply turn off my feelings, could I? Wasn’t he asking the impossible?”
“Raniero, you’ve made your point,” Ronan said, coming closer, using his full name as he’d taken to doing when he was agitated. “Let her go now.”
“Andriana …” Niero said, clenching down on my arms, ignoring him. “Tell me. Tell me you’ve heard me.”
I looked up and stared into those old eyes in a young man’s face. What did he want? Why the intensity?
“Yes, yes, I heard you,” I said.
“Good,” he said, dropping his hands, still looking at me as if he wanted to will his thoughts into my own mind. “Good.”
CHAPTER
10
We left at daybreak on the four dirt bikes, with packs of new supplies to trade.
“You have enough petrol to reach Nem Post, no farther,” an elder said. “We’ve heard reports that someone’s running petrol north of the salt caves. It will be a handicap, this need for fuel. But they are much faster than your enemies’ horses.”
“Unless they manage to find dirt bikes too,” Vidar said, waggling his eyebrows.
“They are good machines and cost the Community greatly.”
A blind elder of perhaps eight decades stepped closer, hanging on a man’s arm. “As you travel, the Maker shall speak into you. Advise you as you go to find your fellow Ailith, as well as prepare the way for our coming king.”
We stilled. Her words thrilled us. The hope in them, the promise. A king?
“We are to send the Maker’s people to the Valley as we go?” Niero asked.
“Send them if they are in danger,” she said, “or if the Maker urges you to do so. If they are safe where they are, prepare them to follow and support Kapriel and the one who is to come. That is what the Maker has told me.”
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