The Coalition (Coalition 1)

by Aria J. Wolfe

  He put Shai down and she scooted against the wall, the cold stone stole her breath and cut sharply into the warm places where Remiel’s hands had been.

  He squatted in front of Shai and pulled the fabric band from his mouth. She cringed at the horrible mass of white flesh that hung loose, stretching from the corner of his mouth to his ear, intersecting the scar he had before.

  "You'll be safe here." His tongue made a clicking sound against his teeth when he talked.

  Shai shook her head and grabbed his arm. "Don't leave me. Please."

  "It's time for me to go. But I'll stay with you here until you fall asleep. You've got to cross back over."

  "No Remiel! Not without you. I won't lose you again!"

  He squeezed her fingers and looked into her face. "Do you remember the 'What If' game?"

  She nodded and grabbed his hand in both of hers. “I think so.”

  He leaned close until his good cheek touched hers. "What if I can save the whole world?"

  "What if I don't want you to save it? What if I want you to come back to Kent with me and stay?"

  He shook his head and his whiskers rubbed against her skin. His warm, damp tears fell on her face.

  "What if I told you that you're dying? That if I don't do what I came here to do, then you won't live?"

  "What if you're wrong?" But she knew he told her the truth. She felt funny here, heavier somehow, like soft bread dough. Just a lump of flesh without muscle.

  Questions flooded her mind. Everything she had wanted to know about the Book, about the key and the War Between Worlds, about the Division and her purpose in the Coalition, died on her tongue. There was only one thing she wanted to know now.

  "Who are you, Remiel? Are you the one we've been waiting for?"

  He moved away from her then, and slid the neck of his tunic over his left shoulder. She looked closer and sucked in a breath. The smooth skin of his chest was interrupted by a raised scar. Lumpy flesh left by a fire-brand in the shape of three interlocking circles. She looked up at him, her wide eyes reflected in his. The same pale shade of blue, hers mirrored his, and his mirrored hers, into eternity.

  "I am the Son of Thunder." He placed both hands on either side of her face and touched his forehead to hers. "And one day, I'll see you on the other side."

  "Where? Other side of what?"

  "Of death." Remiel smiled, then pulled away, looking down the hallway at something. A shadow fell across him as he stood. Hollow clomping of heavy boots and the sound of jingling keys made her shiver.

  "One day," he whispered again and stepped away from the alcove and into the pool of light.

  For a brief moment he stood there lit up, his hair a crown of white, the blood a sharp contrast against his pale skin, then he stepped away and was gone. All she heard was a thud. She squeezed her eyes shut and wrapped her arms around herself. Something touched her hair and she screamed. A sharp sound that was wrested from her mouth as a hand yanked her from her hiding spot by her hair.

  CHAPTER 68

  Shai

  Her back ached from sitting against the hard, stone wall, waiting for Remiel to be brought back to the cell they shared. For hours they had sat on the cold floor where the guard had tossed them. They had huddled together for warmth and comfort until Remiel was taken for ‘questioning.’

  She drew her knees to her chest and rested her head on her arms. Dim light filtered into her narrow cell from a single lantern nailed to the wall in the hallway. The other cells in the block stood empty. Only a blackish-red stain on the floor of the cell across from hers revealed it had recently been occupied.

  She inhaled slowly. Her chest ached and burned like she'd been punched in the solar plexus. Her lungs rattled and wheezed with every breath. She shifted her position and tried to ease the numbness that crept into her rear end, then promptly buried her nose in her sleeve as a rotten odor wafted up from the dirt she disturbed.

  The jingling of keys made her head snap up. The same guard that had found her pressed into the dark alcove earlier returned with Remiel, whose hands were bound with a single iron cuff.

  Remiel held his head up and squared his shoulders as the guard slid the cell bars open and removed the shackle. Remiel’s left eye had swollen until it was just a narrow slit. His right eye drooped beneath a deep gash over his dark eyebrow. Dried blood smudged his upper lip from multiple cuts around his mouth. His nostrils were ringed with dark red.

  The guard shoved Remiel, who stumbled into the cell and fell to his knees. A cry escaped Shai and she crawled toward Remiel, pulled his head onto her lap as he curled up on the ground.

  “What have they done to you?”

  A mottled mixture of bruises and cuts marked his face, his features swollen beyond recognition. She sat for a long time stroking his hair, not speaking.

  The guard didn’t return. And when the lantern in the hallway sputtered out she eased Remiel’s head off her lap and curled up beside him on the ground, facing him. The cell block became alive with noise. Skittering, scurrying sounds, a monotonous dripping, and the rattling of their own breathing.

  Time folded in on itself. Seeming to repeat an endless cycle of darkness so deep it seeped into every pore, every orifice. Still, she sucked in deep draughts of air, trying to get enough oxygen to push back the panic. She concentrated on matching her breathing with Remiel’s. She tucked her hands under her cheek and pulled her legs up until her knees touched his.

  She must have fallen asleep, because when she opened her eyes the lantern was flickering again and she was lying on her other side away from Remiel. The weight of his arm around her comforted her and she laced her fingers in his, feeling his calloused palm, his strong fingers, and the bulge of his veins on the back of his hand. Her body fit closely into the curve of his. Every breath he took whispered along the back of her neck.

  She closed her eyes and listened to a faint sound. A wordless whisper that came from Remiel. She strained to hear him against the sounds of her own breathing.

  “I’ve made… a deal.”

  “A deal?” A leaden feeling crept into her stomach and spread into her chest.

  Remiel inhaled against her. “He… will let you… go. Let Lael go.”

  She licked her dry lips and blinked back tears. The first threat that her internal dam might break. “What about you?”

  But Remiel said nothing more. She buried a whimper in the back of his hand as she pulled his arm across her tighter and let sleep drag her into nothingness.

  When she awoke again, her throat felt hot and dry and the chill along her back told her Remiel had gone. A pale-faced guard with long greasy hair and a thin face approached Shai's cell. He rapped his knuckles on the bars of her cell.

  "Get up!" His barking voice made her jump. "Samael wants to see you."

  She stood on legs that didn’t feel like hers. Every step towards the guard threatened to buckle her knees.

  "Slide your hands through here." The guard tapped a rectangular cut-out in the cell door. As soon as her fingers touched the cold metal plate inside the cut-out, he grabbed her wrists and bound them together with a heavy iron cuff that dug into her tender rope burns. She winced which made him laugh. The sound echoed down the empty hall, mocking and sinister.

  "Don't be weak. You should be grateful for the deal Remiel made.”

  He was the same guard who had dragged her from the alcove as she kicked and screamed, twisting against the pressure of his arm across her chest as he crushed her against his bony side with an inhuman strength.

  As he slid her cell door open and roughly grabbed her upper arm she glanced sideways at him.

  "Where’s Remiel?" Her voice sounded raspy and dry as she forced the words out through cracked lips. The guard squeezed her arm tighter as an answer. She looked at the ground as she shuffled down the hall. Her bare feet stuck to the dirty stone floor, the occasional pebble pressed painfully into the softer flesh of her heels.

  As they passed the la
st few cells in the hall, she stepped in something cold and thick with her left foot. She turned and saw a man lying face-down on the floor in a dark puddle that spread from beneath his head into the hallway. She shivered.

  "Samael’s revenge on Elchai.” The guard sneered, exposing long yellow teeth peppered with darker yellow and brown spots.

  The guard yanked her arm and she stumbled, then fell to one knee. He dragged her across the floor until she regained her footing. Her captor never broke his stride. With every bend, her knee stung where her trousers had torn and the stone rubbed her skin raw.

  The guard opened a metal door at the end of the cell block and pushed her into the darkness yawning ahead of them.

  "Who was that?" Her voice echoed. With a dull thud the door closed behind them and every whisper of light scattered. "The man back there, who was that?" She heard her voice, high and tinny, saying everything multiple times before dying somewhere in the darkness beyond. "Who!" She was losing control. She heard it in the pitch of her voice, felt it in her legs as they refused to support her weight any longer.

  The guard shoved her from behind and she fell, unable to put her hands in front of her to break the impact. She landed on the floor which was warmer, wetter than her cell.

  "Move!" He gripped her hair and yanked her to her feet.

  "His name! Tell me his name or I won't move!" He released her hair and sighed.

  "You'll move even if I gotta drag you." He shoved her between the shoulder blades, but she planted her feet shoulder-width apart and wedged her right foot against the wall for support.

  "Name!" It took every effort to sound steady when tears threatened to break the surface. They pricked her eyelids and she blinked them away.

  "If it matters so bloody much his name was Jachin. Remiel's older brother."

  "Was?" Her throat tightened with tears. She didn’t have to ask, she knew the man was dead, she knew it when she had stepped in the congealed pool of blood. Was he the reason Remiel came here? To save his brother?

  The guard's cold, bony fingers touched her shoulder then slid down her arm where he grabbed her again. His snuffling snort of exhaled breath stunk up the confined space. He whispered in her ear, "Jachin Elyon."

  Elyon. Elyon. The name rang through her, attached to a memory just out of reach. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. The guard breathed heavily down her neck.

  "You might have known him by his Laelite name; Aliah."

  She teetered forward, but the guard tightened his grip. He didn’t let her fall. Suddenly she became aware of a wetness soaking into her sock.

  He's dead. He's dead. Aliah's dead!

  She stood, rocked back and forth, back and forth then collapsed against the guard's bony body.

  CHAPTER 69

  Shai

  Shai woke with the sound of her blood pulsing in her ears, a sharp pain in her abdomen, and the ground rushing past her face. The guard's pointy shoulder jabbed her stomach with each jostle of his step. It took her a full minute to realize he was carrying her over his shoulder with one arm slung across the back of her legs for support. Her head throbbed with the pressure of being carried upside down.

  She struggled to move away from his bony protrusions and heard him snicker, "Almost there. No sense fighting me now."

  The guard’s boots make a sschtick sschtick-ing sound as they stuck and unstuck to the gooey grime on the filthy floor.

  Her captor shifted Shai's weight on his shoulder before he tossed her in a corner onto a pile of dirty rags and sticks. Her head slammed against the wall and she closed her eyes until the pain diminished. One of the sticks scraped her arm and she started to move it away, then screamed.

  The jagged pile she sat on wasn’t dirty rags and sticks but a heap of bodies, past the point of decay. Scraps of cloth that used to be clothing hung from broken arm and leg bones. Skulls with toothy grins and gaping eye holes stared sightlessly at her. She scrambled off and landed in a heap on the floor, huddled against the wall with her legs drawn up.

  It this some sort of torture chamber? Tables with various shining instruments she couldn’t name and cells with metal doors and barred windows lined the wall to her left.

  She scrunched her eyes up tight. Cries and wailing filled the room. Shai covered her ears, but the inhuman sounds still reached her. Another more distinct sound rose above the other clamor. A low hollow moan laced with vibrating undercurrents that could only be described as the noise someone makes when they've given up. The sound of untold agonies with no hope of an end. Of flesh hanging off bones and rocking back and forth on broken kneecaps. Of mental torment and physical pain beyond measure.

  The guard watched Shai with his mouth wide open in a dark cavern of laughter. But his laughter was cut short by a shout.

  "You fool!" Samael lunged toward the guard and back-handed the guard’s skinny face so violently, the tight skin stretched across his cheeks shook. "I only told you to bring her to me, not toss her around!"

  Samael stepped in front of Shai and sighed. "She's a sight to behold, isn't she? I want her unblemished. Untouched. I'm the one who gets to touch her."

  He knelt down and dragged his finger along the angle of her jaw in a slow caress. "Look at me."

  She lifted her eyes to his face. The features she had thought looked so much like Aliah, the brilliant green eyes, dark hair and smile, twisted into a horrible smear of hate.

  "You were never Aliah’s father." Her words came out slurry and thick like she was speaking out of someone else's mouth.

  "Oh, in his mind I was." His eyes dropped from her face to her neck. "Right. You can't remember anything past your twenty-one days." He stood again and pulled her to her feet by her arm. "Does this bring back any memories?"

  He shoved her in front of him around a wall to the middle of the L-shaped room. A body. Pinned to the wall. Arms and legs stretched out, blood streaming from wounds in his palms where metal spikes were driven to secure him to the stone wall. His head hung forward, chin on chest, stringy shoulder-length hair obscured his features. But she recognized him. She would recognize him anywhere.

  "No! Remiel!" She ran on rubbery legs to him and fell on her knees at his feet. He had been stripped to his underwear; bruises covered every part of him and turned him into a swollen, blackish-blue lump of flesh. When she looked up into his face he was staring at the floor, his eyes full of horror and agony.

  "What did you do to him?" Deep rage boiled up from within her, burning and bubbling like molten lead. She ran to Samael and clawed his face, his eyes. Tore at his throat and pulled his hair. He closed his eyes and tipped his head back, a slow smile spread across his mouth.

  He's enjoying this. She gripped the collar of his shirt in both hands. “What. Did. You. Do!" Every word burned her throat and spread more venomous hatred through her blood.

  Samael looked at her through half-slitted eyes. "What did I do? What did you do?" He grabbed her upper arm and wrenched her toward Remiel. "Look at him! This is all your fault! Yours, his brothers, and all of Lael’s. You can’t save him. I’ve accepted his deal."

  The room spun and Shai had to close her eyes and breathe. When she opened them again she asked in a whisper, “What deal?”

  Samael smiled. "His life for yours. For the release of Lael from the pendant’s power."

  “Why?” Her voice came out as a whimpered, half-strangled sound. “Why?” She turned and looked at Remiel. “We don’t need saving! Why did you do this?”

  Samael motioned to the guard near Remiel who touched something on the wall that made a clicking sound. The room was cloaked in darkness with only a large rectangular block of white that shimmered on the wall near Remiel.

  Samael turned her to face the glowing wall. “The pendants covered up Aliah’s infraction, but they became your death sentence. Allow me to show you.”

  They say when you are near death that your life flashes before your eyes. At first Shai saw nothing but a stark-white square on the wall,
but then a picture appeared. An infant. Tiny and naked with large blue eyes. She watched as a younger version of Eliana with smiling eyes handed the infant to an older man with a halo of white hair. He laid the child across his knees and pressed something against the tiny chest. The infant wailed and when the man moved his hand away, Shai saw the infant’s seared flesh with three interlocking circles embedded in it.

  A few more scenes flashed across the wall and Shai watched the child grow before her eyes in a matter of seconds. Some of the pictures she recognized from her Old World thoughts.

  She heard conversations in her mind, familiar voices calling the child LiShai. She saw Eliana standing in the middle of a desolate street holding the child's hand, now older. The wind blew and lifted Eliana's hair away from her face, revealing the tell-tale shine of tears on her cheeks.

  "A rebellion is coming. Another war that will destroy the rest of Edan. But Elchai has made a new land where we will be safe. He calls it Lael. You will have a new name there and so will your friends, to protect you. To keep your identity hidden.”

  The young child tipped her face to look up at Eliana and smiled. "Like a game?"

  Eliana nodded, "Yes, like a game. Can you play the 'What If' game with me?"

  The little girl grinned and bobbed her head which sent her blond curls dancing in the wind.

  Eliana walked slowly, past towering stone factories. "Okay, what if I said your new name is Shai. Can you say it?"

  "That's easy, Mama. Jachin and Remii call me Shai."

  "Good. Now Jachin will be Aliah. That's a little harder. And Remii will be Remiel."

  "Until when? When does the game end? How can I win, Mama?" The child's face shone bright with hope and expectation.

  Shai searched her mind for this memory and came up empty, but the ache in her chest confirmed what she already knew. This is my own past flashing on this wall. And Eliana really is my mother. She scrubbed at her wet cheeks with her knuckles. Her steel shackles clinked with the movement. She focused on the wall again.

  Eliana's voice sounded sad. "When you've grown up a little more, LiShai, you'll know when it's time for the game to end. Just keep this and stay close to Jachin and Remii."