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  Later that morning, we crossed through what appeared to be Pacifica’s main aqueduct, a broad span of water flowing swiftly through a concrete channel. “They get their share of rain, come Hoarfrost,” Niero explained as we wrung out our clothes on the far side. “But this land was once as dead and arid as the Great Expanse. Come Harvest, they need more water yet for their fields and growing city.”

  “It’s a weakness,” Bellona said, placing a boot to the lip of the duct and looking up and down the waterway, her dark eyes glinting. “This water flows from other places. Places that might find themselves dammed up on occasion.”

  “Or destroyed,” Niero said with a single nod.

  “So let me get this straight,” Vidar said, crossing his arms. “You’re thinking we’ll not only take on the dragon, we’ll make him thirsty first.”

  “Maybe,” Bellona said, smiling.

  We moved on, rarely stopping and never seeing another soul. The Pacificans really didn’t live far from their cities, which seemed odd, given the protection of the Wall. Why not spread out? Settle in other places? Each family claiming land of their own? “I’m surprised we haven’t come across another town or village,” I said.

  “My people are like bees in the hive,” Lord Cyrus muttered, looking thoughtful. He had been one of Keallach’s Six, and it was largely due to his betrayal of Pacifica that we were making our escape at all. “All focused on the same task. Working together. Congregating together. Moving out to work together again. It’s admirable, in a way. If they weren’t so sick, they could accomplish great things.”

  “Some would say they’ve already accomplished great things,” I said.

  Niero and Ronan looked my way first, then the others did as well. I felt the heat of a blush gathering on my neck. “Schools. Orphanages for the children.”

  Cyrus turned to face me. “Keallach showed you what he wants to see himself. What he wanted you to see. He didn’t take you to a factory or to a mine, did he?”

  “No,” I said slowly, hating the tension building between my shoulders. “But he told me, Cyrus, that those children who aren’t chosen for adoption are put to work. I saw it for myself. They’re taught to read. Read! And—”

  “They’re taught to read, yes,” he said gently, as if explaining hard truths to a child. “But did you see for yourself what they read?”

  I stared back at him, feeling a level of agitation equal to his own. He knew I hadn’t. It had to be plain on my face.

  “They’re given words that poison their minds,” he went on, “words that will help Pacifica rule their lives forever. As it nearly did mine.”

  “What’d you think, Dri?” Bellona muttered, brushing past me. “That the emperor was handing out copies of the Sacred Words?”

  My face burned. What had I thought? Was it all a lie? “B-but they’re given food and shelter,” I said, hating the defensiveness inside that made my voice rise. “And Keallach seemed shocked when I told him that I’d seen children stolen from families in the Trading Union. He promised me he’d put an end to—”

  Cyrus stepped toward me, his face a mask of compassion and concern. “My friend Keallach has been trained by the master of lies all his life. He believes he knows the truth. But he doesn’t. Trust me, Andriana. Whatever he told you, showed you, cannot be trusted.”

  “It’s all so much,” I tried again. “So much for one man our age to manage! I think … I think that Sethos has lied to him. He’s given him the information he wants and hidden the rest. How can we expect Keallach to know what he is not told?”

  “How can we expect it of him?” Niero asked, his eyebrows lifting in exasperation. “Keallach usurped the throne. He seeks to usurp all power. To rule Pacifica, the Trading Union, and beyond. Whether that is born of his own sick need or a bowing to Sethos, it matters not. All we know is that he is responsible for his choices. He chooses who informs him. He chooses whether or not to ask the hard questions. He chooses what to believe. As do we all. Right?”

  I swallowed hard, feeling contempt and concern gather in every one of the Ailith around me, as well as in my parents and Cyrus. “He is responsible, yes. Yes. But you have to know … all of you have to know that I felt the pull of the Way within him. He is our brother yet.”

  “That’s the one brother I vote we disown,” scoffed Vidar, looking around. “Am I alone in that?”

  I scowled at him. “None of us is perfect, right? We are all fallible, given to choosing wrongly. At any time!”

  “Well, maybe for you, but not for me,” Vidar said, arching a brow and sliding his fingers down one side of his coat, as if it were fine linen.

  I kept staring at him until he sobered and faced me directly. “Seriously, Dri, you sensed the Way within him? Or were you just feeling that connection we get from our shared Ailith blood?”

  I shook my head slowly and rubbed my forehead. “I think … I think I had cause for hope. He is lost right now, yes. But doesn’t that mean he could one day be found?” I dared, then, to look toward Niero, Ronan, and the others.

  “Or is that exactly what he wanted you to think?” Vidar said, taking my hand in both of his. “He knows you are the empathetic one. That your gifting gives you power but also makes you vulnerable, right? He didn’t capture me, who would’ve been able to clearly make out light from dark. Or Chaza’el, who would’ve been able to see the future. And while Tressa would’ve been handy to have on hand in case he got injured, it was you he chose. You, Andriana.”

  Ronan tensed beside me. “They wanted her as his bride,” he spat out. “Saw her as a means to unite the Trading Union with Pacifica.”

  “There was that element,” I said quickly. “But this wasn’t just about political gain.”

  “No,” Ronan said. “From the first time he saw you, he wanted you as his own.” He stalked away from us, past my parents, and I frowned in confusion. By the heavy hurt and heightened anger I sensed in him, it was clear that he was thinking about Keallach kissing me again.

  I forced myself to concentrate on Vidar. He was the only one likely to give our brother a chance, if he had the opportunity to weigh the dark—and the light—within him. “Think about it, Vid. The twins were so young when they were divided. If we each had been tutored by one such as Sethos, rather than our trainers, how might we have turned out?”

  He stared back at me, and a furrow formed between his brows. “It’s too late, Dri. Our brother chose his path long ago. He murdered his parents. Kapriel’s parents.”

  “He was a child,” I said sorrowfully, avoiding looking at Mom and Dad—remembering how horrible it was when I thought them dead—by watching the wind rattle drying leaves that spoke of the end of Harvest. “Think about us at that age. We were innocents, all of us. Keallach made a horrible decision.”

  “A horrible decision,” Dad repeated, and I met his gaze then and thought about all he and Mom had endured at the hands of the Pacificans—Keallach’s people. But had he even known they were there? Or was this all Sethos’s doing? My head pounded with the conflicting thoughts bouncing around within.

  I took a deep breath and felt the group’s collective skepticism like a noxious smoke, threatening to choke me. “So you’re saying it was all a ruse.” I turned to stare at the water in the aqueduct, rushing past us, down, down, down toward Pacifica. “You all think he was just using me,” I said dully. “Playing me.”

  “Yes. He’s far cleverer than you can imagine,” Cyrus said gently. “And even if Sethos has been behind all that has happened, Keallach allowed it. If he’s trapped, it’s a trap he helped build himself, one decision at a time. I was nearly trapped myself. But am I not proof that one can escape Sethos’s cage?”

  “You were important to Sethos, Cyrus,” I said. “But I’d venture to say that his focus was on Keallach, first and foremost.” I thought about Keallach in his finer moments … and then in other moments. I’d felt him turn on me, try and control me, his eyes cold and distant. “I do think there are spells that surrou
nd him, that compel him, in certain measure. It’s as if he has power, but it isn’t entirely his own—and yet it’s not entirely Sethos’s to use either. It wasn’t an accident that he was absent when Sethos was beating me. Nor was it an accident that he was absent when the Council tried to force me to accept a betrothal. In both cases, I think—no, I know—he would’ve put a stop to it.”

  “Or is that what he wanted you to think?” Vidar asked, stepping up to my other side.

  I sighed heavily, closed my eyes, and shook my head as I turned back to face the group. “I don’t know. I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.”

  Niero wrapped a bracing arm across my shoulders. “Then you must concentrate on what you do know. Only Keallach can choose to free himself. None of us can reach him. Even you.” He squeezed my shoulder. “From what I know of you, I’d wager you tried every which way you could, right?”

  I nodded and rubbed my temples. “Again and again I tried.”

  His mouth tensed. “Only the Maker knows what will come of that.”

  “Or maybe Chaz does,” Vidar quipped. “Or a certain somebody with wings …”

  Niero ignored the baited hook, staring only at me. “Perhaps your words will echo in his mind. Perhaps a miracle is on the wind. We’ve seen others …” He glanced over to Ronan—still standing a distance off, head down—then meaningfully to Vidar, and back to me. “Until then, we must treat Keallach as both our mortal and spiritual enemy.”

  “It’s true, Dri,” Vidar said quietly, taking my hand.

  I looked around at all of them and realized this would never be an argument I could win. They hadn’t been there with me. They hadn’t witnessed what I had. Keallach’s draw to the Way had been real. True.

  Or had it?

  CHAPTER

  3

  ANDRIANA

  We’d been walking for a few hours the next day when I realized we were no longer heading north and east, but north and west. Was it possible that our way through the Wall was deeper into Pacifica than I’d thought? I’d been walking and talking with my parents, telling them all that had happened to us since we had parted, and finding out what had happened to them. They’d nearly been killed that dreadful night when the Sheolites came to torture them. It was true that our enemies had used their love for each other to try and coerce information from one, then the other. “But we loved you too,” Mom said with tears in her eyes as she took my hand and glanced at Dad. “We knew that no matter what it cost us, we couldn’t betray you.”

  “You are worth everything to us, to the Community,” Dad said soberly, sliding his arm around my shoulders. “I’m sorry we endangered both you and the cause we serve. If only we’d gotten away in time, Andriana … not allowed ourselves to be captured. There were nights, once we realized what they intended—to use us to control you …” His voice cracked, and he paused to wipe his eyes and then looked to the sky and over at Mom. “There were times we wished we had died that night.”

  “Hey,” I said, pulling him closer, then Mom from my other side. “Look. Here we are. Together. It’s okay. It all turned out all right.”

  “Thank the Maker,” Dad said.

  “And Ronan,” Mom said, looking toward him. He was ten paces ahead of us, yet glanced back as if he’d sensed us talking about him. He’d been distant for the last two days. Physically present, once again my constant guardian, but emotionally separated from me. I didn’t know if it was because my parents were around, or because the rest of the Ailith might observe something more, or because of his trauma. Or worse, that he was still jealous over Keallach. I thought I’d detected a similar distance in the rest of the Ailith too, when we’d argued over my interactions with the emperor. But while the others gradually warmed to me again, Ronan had not.

  I frowned, looking at him as he talked with Niero, who tilted his face upward to the sun and then pointed to a path to the right. I had to force myself to focus back on what my parents were saying. Mom and Dad were clearly keeping a portion of their story back to protect me, but it wasn’t hard to tell that they had narrowly lived through the Sheolites’ torture. In hushed tones, they also told me that once they reached Pacifica, they were given dramatically different treatment. Doctors. Food. “We were still in our cells, but it was different,” Dad said thoughtfully.

  “Do you think Keallach intervened?”

  He shrugged. “Or it was simply Sethos, or the Council,” he said bitterly, “planning to use us to get you to do what they wanted.”

  Thoughts of Sethos and the Council and the palace took me back to Kapriel and Keallach and how it all began. “Why were the twins left in the palace at all? Where they would be such a target for manipulation?” I asked. “The rest of us were spirited away when we were born. We moved to the Valley then, right? Why weren’t Kapriel and Keallach moved?”

  Dad shrugged. “For the parents of most of the Ailith, like us, I’d wager it was far simpler to move, to hide you away. For royals, it would’ve been far more difficult. I imagine the birth of the princes would’ve been the cause of much excitement, what with the low birthrate among the Pacificans and all. To spirit them away might’ve caused rioting in the streets.”

  “All who expected children around that seventh month of the seventy-seventh year wondered if their children would be born with the Ailith strain,” Mom said. “It was all the people of our village could talk about. Elders approached us, warned us of what we would need to do, and we made preparations, but …” Her voice trailed off, and her eyes were wide and watery, remembering. I felt the joy in her memories, but also the grief, like shudders racking her body.

  “But you had hoped you wouldn’t need to go,” I finished for her, for the first time truly understanding the impact of what they had chosen to do. I remembered the searing pain of saying good-bye to them the night that Ronan came for me—the night of our Call—how much it hurt to believe we might never see one another again. Whom had they left behind? What family? Friends? “Where did you come from? Who did you lose the night I was born?”

  Mom gave me a rueful smile. “It is best if we still not speak of it, Dri. In case …”

  I swallowed hard. In case our enemies choose to find that family too, and use them against us. I thought of how Mom and Dad would always dodge my questions about cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents, continually redirecting me toward those of our own tiny village. “They’re our family now. The Maker has given us a new clan.” And I’d accepted it. At least we’d had that option—to protect our greater family. Kapriel and Keallach’s parents chose to hide in plain sight. “Maybe the queen and king of Pacifica thought it a divine promise. That the Maker would not make a mistake, giving them twin sons, both marked with the crescent moon that night. Maybe they thought they were in the perfect place to raise the future leaders of all those who would seek the Way.”

  “Or maybe they gave in to greed,” Dad said gently, “refusing to leave the bounty to which they’d become accustomed.”

  “We should not speak ill of them,” Mom said. “They paid a great price for their decision.”

  “As you all did,” I said. I remained silent after that, my mind a whirl of conflicting thoughts. Seeming to sense my attempt to sort it out, my parents allowed me to pace ahead of them, walking on my own. In the distance, I saw Bellona and Vidar—who that morning had moved out ahead of us, scouting—emerge from the hilly woods and go directly to Ronan and Niero. Cyrus drew near, listening in and nodding. Vidar was pointing and seemed to gesture about something beyond the woods that bordered our trail. We all caught up to them, gathering in a group, but the five of them turned slightly away, speaking in hushed tones. I frowned and tried to catch Ronan’s eye, but he was still ignoring me.

  So were the others, I decided, looking around to each one. I moved back to my dad and touched his arm. “Do you know what’s going on?”

  He shook his head, confused.

  It was then that I detected the collective apprehension among the ot
hers. I turned to face them as they all warily glanced my way. “There’s something you need to see,” Vidar said, pain etched in his voice.

  Pain. And anger. Indignation. Those three emotions practically radiated from him and Bellona.

  “What?” I said, trepidation flooding through me.

  “Come,” Niero said.

  I swallowed my irritation, clearly understanding how they wanted this to play out—that they wished for me to personally see whatever was there. And if so, it had to have something to do with Keallach.

  I steeled myself for what was to come, half desperate to know, half heartsick at what was ahead.

  We set off at a quick pace, easily reaching the crest of the hill. From there, we slowed down, following a winding, narrow trail through thick brush on the other side. Once we reached the valley, we headed north. We paused only when we reached a well-maintained dirt and gravel road, to be certain no one approached before we crossed it, and then began climbing again. Not long after, Bellona and Vidar crouched down and led us around boulder after boulder until we could safely peer beyond them down into the canyon.

  What filled my eyes made me suck in my breath. In a quarry below us—with a high fence all around—were countless children, some of them younger than their first decade, some of them closer to our age. They were in rags and emaciated. Armed guards circled constantly, barking orders. One guard carried a whip, sneering at the children he watched, taunting the older boys in particular.

  The wave of collective misery that enveloped me made me want to turn and vomit. I knew what this was. It was where the unchosen children went “for meaningful work,” as Keallach had put it. I swallowed back the acrid bile in my mouth and eyed Cyrus, beside me. “How many of these places are there?”