The Coalition (Coalition 1)

by Aria J. Wolfe

  "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 flooding 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 s
pace 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."

  "Stop!" The sound of Aliah's voice exploded in Shai's ears. "Remiel, leave her alone! She doesn't understand." Aliah had stood up, his eyes wild.

  Shai swallowed bile. Samael controls Lael? It wasn't Elchai who'd chosen her to bear the next Leader? She clutched her stomach as her breath came in shallow rasps. The hollow-ache that started in Conley after Kael’s kiss spread to her chest and turned every hope into stone. No. It can’t be. I won’t…

  Remiel slowly turned until he faced Aliah across the fire. "She had to know, Aliah. It's not just what people believe that matters. It’s the truth that counts. Beliefs will either be a prison or a key to freedom." Remiel spoke softly.

  When Aliah looked away Remiel pointed at the meat beginning to smoke on its spit.

  "Let's eat this before it burns."

  Key to freedom.

  Shai dug frantically in her trouser pocket beneath the cloak. Her heart sunk. The key was gone. She'd left it hidden under the mattress back in Conley.

  CHAPTER 48

  Aliah

  The morning dawned soft and still. Feathery pink clouds rimmed the eastern sky and aroused memories of a different life.

  Aliah leaned against a tree with his hands shoved into his trouser pockets and watched the sun rise. He had awoken early to gather wood for the fire, but the colors of the sky distracted him. The pink hinted at something familiar but distant, like a dream he once had but no longer remembered. Deep inside he had begun to know he'd lived a different life before Lael. He hadn't been sure until Remiel confirmed it with something he'd said. He only had snatches of the past that he suppressed, hidden beneath layers of guilt and anger. Until this morning. Now there was something more.

  It's truth that counts. Beliefs will either be a prison or a key to freedom.

  Remiel's voice played over and over in his mind. He wasn't talking about the pendants when he'd said that. He had looked right at Aliah like it was supposed to mean something. But the meaning remained just beyond his grasp.

  "I've been wanting to thank you." Shai appeared from behind a tree. His cloak was too large for her tiny body s
o she'd overlapped the sides and wrapped her arms around herself to keep it closed. Her hair curled in tousled waves around her face and looked almost white in the early morning sun. "For bringing Eliana's pendant to me in Conley. For letting me know she's still alive. Somewhere out there."

  Aliah nodded then pushed himself away from the tree to stand in front of her. "What about what he says about the pendants? Are you going to give it up? Her pendant I mean."

  Shai shook her head, her fingers touching the chain at her throat. "Having it sort of connects me to her. I like knowing she's alive so long as I'm still wearing it."

  Aliah looked down and kicked the toe of his boot at a root. "Yeah, I know what you mean. But what if... if it does connect you to Samael like Remiel said. What if by wearing them we can be tracked?" He hated how trapped he felt. Hated that Remiel was right about the pendants, about the poison inside them affecting their minds. But if she agreed to take it off, the effects would eventually wear off and her memory would likely return. But if she didn’t take it off Samael would have a way to access her. Aliah hated that thought the most.

  "I don't believe that, Aliah. Even if the pendants aren’t ideal, what's the harm in them? If I think they’re harmless then that's good enough for me. Kinda like the Watchers. Maybe they're not the best idea but I am beginning to see some good in them." Her pointed look stabbed him with guilt.

  "Shai, I never wanted to keep that part of me a secret from you. I thought if I joined the Watchers I could protect you better."

  Shai moved away from him, her shoulders slumping slightly. When she turned around again he saw no anger in her face, only hurt. The look of pain was brief before she closed herself off from him again.

  "So, have you known the truth about the Division for long?" She dropped her arms to her sides where they dangled limply. The cloak flopped open and she looked so small and vulnerable inside of it.

  "The day I came to Conley I started to piece things together. Remember when you told me back in the Manor that you had thoughts like dreams, of the Old World? I have too. I've remembered things here and there, but none of it came together until the other day. I didn't say anything to you before because I knew it would make you want to leave Lael thinking there might be something beyond the Borderless. I couldn't bear it if you left."