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  “Maybe,” he said, never pausing. “Worse, an Ailith.” He let go of my hand, leaving me to trudge behind him as if he needed a moment to digest the idea of it himself.

  I tried to swallow, but found my mouth dry as I stumbled after him. If they’d gotten to a trainer, how much did they know? Of our skills? Our tactics? Of us? Such thoughts were foolish, however. There was no way they got our trainer. He was too good, too strong. And he would’ve died protecting our secrets, as he always said every trainer would.

  But had they captured one of our fellow Ailith? On this night of nights? I slowed to a stop, feeling the slip of mud beneath my boots.

  “Hey,” Ronan said, pausing to turn toward me. “Don’t worry,” he said, reaching up as if he wanted to touch me, then thinking better of it and dropping his hand. “We fought ’em off, didn’t we? And we’ll learn new tactics. This is just the beginning, Dri.”

  Just the beginning. His words echoed through my mind.

  This was the first night. The first hour.

  But if this was the first hour, what was yet to come?

  CHAPTER

  2

  I clung hard to Ronan’s waist and leaned with him as we curved up the old remains of a road on the dirt bike. I leaned my head between his shoulders in the V formed by the swords on his back, closing my eyes, inhaling the scent of oil and leather and dust, feeling the taut muscles of his torso tense with each turn. The blowing strands of his dark hair, tied in a ponytail at the nape of his neck, tickled my cheek as the wind blew past.

  I knew I wasn’t supposed to feel the way I did. Ronan was my knight. My guardian. Nothing more. Anything more than kinship was expressly forbidden among the Ailith, and our trainer had drilled it into our minds from the start.

  For a long while, we’d been nothing but brother and sister, companions learning to defend, to attack, to intuit, to respond. Learning the ancient words by heart, the process of meditation, the use of every weapon. But last year, as we practiced at what our trainer called “hunter and prey,” I’d managed to come upon Ronan from behind. More silent than ever before, refusing to let my soft boots betray me. Just as he sensed the Ailith in me was near, I’d pounced, leaping onto his back, laughing in victorious glee.

  He’d been rising, and managed to grab me and pull me around. But my weight upset him, and we tumbled far down a mossy, fern-covered bank, over and over again. When we came to a rest at the bottom, laughing and groaning, Ronan was above me, his arms on either side of my body. I could see it now, in the moonlight, as if I’d returned to that place. His face a foot away, his hair coming loose from its tie in a dark, shining wave. I moved to get up but he held me still, staring into my eyes, not laughing as I was. I paused, confused, wondering what he was up to, if he was claiming Hunter when he’d clearly been Prey. It was only as he slowly leaned toward me, searching my face as if he were asking permission, I knew.

  He was going to kiss me.

  But I’d ruined it.

  Laughed in panic. Squirmed away.

  “What are you doing?” I sputtered, scrambling to my feet. Half-angry, half-exhilarated. Brushing off my pants and examining a new tear in an effort to do anything but reach out and pull him to me again. To kiss him.

  “I was just checking you out, making sure you were okay,” he’d said, turning so I couldn’t see his face. “Let’s go.”

  I sighed at the memory and repositioned my arms as we rounded another corner, closing my eyes, appreciating the chance to be this close to him again with excuse. Because since that day, he’d not tried again, even though I’d given him more than a few chances. It was as if in that moment among the ferns, he’d decided to do as our trainer had taught him to do. To give his life for me, if necessary. To love me more than himself. But never to love-love me.

  My heart ached at the thought of it. In admiration of his inner strength, fortitude. And in misery that he’d never be mine in a way that I wanted so much.

  No one could know. Ever. What would they do to me if they found out? To him? Because it wasn’t an Ailith’s path to marry, mate, bear children. Our task was bigger. Greater.

  We were born to save the world and all that. I gave my head a little shake, hearing our trainer’s words, spoken every time we met. You were born to do as the Maker bids. To fight the dark. To fight for the light. To save the world, one step, one person at a time.

  We reached the end of the road as the moon crested above us, and parked beside the rusting remains of a train track that cracked and twisted as if some giant had reached down and cut it short.

  “You sure this is the right place?” I whispered when Ronan cut the engine.

  “Somewhat,” he said, getting off. He moved over to the old train tracks, and I saw what made him cautious. The metal had been harvested, most likely cut and hauled away as fodder for cave-housed bullet factories.

  I tensed in tandem with Ronan as he rose. Because the warlords who still bore bullet-bearing weapons were a different breed altogether. Could there be some of their rank so close to us? Right here, in the Valley? Ronan moved ahead of me and lifted his chin, searching the dark silhouette of the mountain ridge above.

  My heart was pounding. Not from fear — from the growing presence of Ailith. Strong and true, almost as if our hearts pounded in unison. “Feel that?” I whispered, trying to cover my excitement.

  “Yeah,” he said, still studying the ridge. He took my hand and squeezed, and I looked up to where he seemed to be staring. And saw the figure of a man. Slowly, the man raised his right arm, his hand closed in a fist. Greeting us. Welcoming us in the way of the Community, as our trainer had himself.

  “This way,” Ronan said. I followed him, even though I knew he was guessing. But his guess was as good as any. As we rounded a boulder, four men surrounded us, emerging from behind other rocks.

  “Peace,” said one, even though he held an automatic weapon and I could see two swords strapped across his back, as Ronan wore his. “You are expected.”

  I felt Ronan take my hand. There was no mistaking these men as our own, but he was taking no chance we’d become separated again. He pulled me after him in a way I was coming to expect, even when we slipped through a slit in the mountainside, entering sheer darkness at an angle. At times the crevice became so narrow, I wondered how Ronan managed to squeeze through. Ahead we glimpsed light, due to torches lit along the wall. I welcomed their glow, but it was something else entirely that beckoned us — the warmth of it pulling us to its edge like a warm fire after a cold, wet trip.

  We passed pair after pair of guards, many of them bearing guns of all sort — automatic rapid-repeaters as well as ancient rifles, pistols. My mind whirled, trying to make sense of the fact that I knew not one of them — when I thought I’d known most in the Valley. But I paid them little heed as Ronan and I fought the urge to break into a run, so eager were we to reach them … our brothers and sisters.

  The other Ailith set my senses on alert, but the Community drawing close to them was like nothing I’d ever experienced anywhere else. With them even near me, I felt whole. Awake. Known … more myself. More excited and at peace, all at the same time. It was like being back at home in the village, but better. More like being with a hundred brothers and sisters instead of only Mom and Dad and a few of our neighbors. I wished my parents were with me to meet this extended family. All awaiting us, welcoming us.

  We could hear the murmur of voices, and as we emerged through the last bit of tunnel, a cheer went up. I froze, and Ronan turned back to me, but soon he was looking up and around as well. Around us, in a tight, steep beehive of an auditorium carved from the rock, forty or fifty elders sat clothed in robes. I’d never been with so many people all at once in one place. And never with people so old, many of them with gray or white hair. They stood, clapping slowly, with big, exaggerated movements, faces alight, as if they gained strength solely by the sight of us.

  On the floor, three young people turned to face us, and I immediately knew t
wo of them as Ailith. We reached to grip arms with each of them and they welcomed us. A dark, stocky guy introduced himself as Vidar, all big, white teeth against olive skin as he smiled into my eyes. Bellona, his knight, flipped her long brown braid over her shoulder as she reached for my arm. She was a couple inches taller than Vidar, my height, and didn’t smile, but I didn’t care. Given our encounter with the Sheolites, I figured the more tough warriors who joined our side, the better. And while she acted gruff, I knew her as sister as soon as our eyes met. It was like a knitting, a connection within the heart. A knowing, as surely as I knew Vidar as brother.

  The last was Raniero. “Niero, they call me,” he said, sliding his arm into mine, every nuance of movement embodying ease, peace, utter assurance. He was beautiful, powerful, massive, and yet as graceful as a dancer, and I think I had to tell myself to shut my mouth when I felt it drift open. “Or you can call me Sir,” he said, the hint of a smile behind his dark, knowing eyes set in tawny skin. Ahh, I thought. So here is our leader. He was older than we by a few years, and … not Ailith. I didn’t feel the same pull in him. And yet he was special — unlike any other person I’d ever met, and so clearly bearing authority that I fought the compulsive urge to kneel. He unmistakably belonged with us, Ailith or not.

  My eyes followed him as he moved on to greet Ronan. Niero was predominantly Asian and African, with tight, dark curls that he wore closely cropped to his head. Just a couple inches shorter than Ronan, but more elegant force than brute strength. Some would call him the perfect example of man — the crossroads of all our ancient cultures in physical form.

  Out gleaning once, among a long-abandoned village, my dad and I’d discovered a pile of colored books in flimsy covers. “Magazines,” Dad had called them, picking one up. Half had long been penetrated by mildew and mold, disintegrating in our hands, but I’d squirreled away a few. They were filled with people in odd clothes — people from the olden days. Smiling, clean people, in bright homes. The words did not tell one story. They were like little stories, a page or two long, and addressed things like dating, job hunting, eating specially prepared healthy meals. Things they did in the olden days.

  As I watched Raniero over Vidar’s shoulder, I decided he reminded me of the men pictured within those ancient magazines, tending to bright green grass — lawns, they called them, according to Dad — or hovering over a smoking grill. Or showing off a crisp shirt that would never have been usable now, as it would soak up rain rather than warding it off.

  But unlike those men in the magazines, who often looked harsh or cold, Raniero seemed to be the kind of guy who invited everyone in and so ended up with a house full at all times but who yet somehow managed to scrape out enough soup for all. The kind of guy who convinced you to do things his way, and made it seem like it had been your idea all along.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. With him beside us, I immediately felt more ready, more qualified, even as we left behind our parents and trainers. And as I watched the others, I knew they did too.

  “Ailith warriors, welcome to the Citadel.” My eyes moved to a wide chair in the middle row of the auditorium, where a man of seven decades lifted his right hand in a fist to quiet the chatter around him. Gradually, the entire hall grew silent as everyone copied his gesture.

  Ronan turned to him in deference. “So, we are not to wait? For the others?”

  “It has not been disclosed where they are, or when they will arrive, or if you are to go in search of them,” said a gray-haired elder, a woman of perhaps six-and-five, at the man’s side. “But we all recognize the Call, do we not? I imagine they do too, regardless of where they rest this night. It is our prayer that they are in other pockets of Community, receiving their own blessing until you all are united.”

  We all nodded. Every hair on my arms and legs, as well as my neck, seemed to be rising.

  In that moment, the air felt energized, as if the Maker himself was present, flowing about us, around us, through us in spirit form. I glanced toward Vidar and he was grinning. He felt it too. The warmth. The presence. We all shared a moment of silence, looking at one another, Ronan and I last. This … this was the moment, the time, the culmination of what we’d all awaited. It was stunning, really. On one hand, I felt unready, too young for that asked of us — we’d not yet celebrated our second decade, still three seasons of Hoarfrost and Harvest away. On the other, I knew we could not feel any more ready.

  “Kneel, Ailith,” the man said, taking a wooden box from the woman and slowly climbing down the steps. “Alternate Remnant and Knight before me. Kindly remove your coats and sweaters. Your arms must be bare.”

  We did as we were told, aided in removing our outer garments by elders who respectfully took the jackets and long-sleeved shirts and sweaters from us and set them aside. Clothes were of significant value, and I tensed until I saw that mine were but five paces away. I shivered in the chill, glad for the warmth of so many bodies. Even though we were in the season of Harvest, it was still chilly in this fortress carved from stone. Again, I glanced around. How had they managed to create this place, especially without anyone in the Valley finding out? How long had it taken? Decades? Centuries? There was a sense that those here had been born within the Citadel’s walls. Maybe they had.

  A table was brought forward, and I saw the older man carefully, reverently open the wooden box. “These bands were forged the night the Ailith were born.” Behind him, a line of women stood waiting. The hair on the back of my neck stood up again as the air buzzed with excitement. Joy, I decided. Promise. Hope. Had I ever felt such a thing? In such purity? The Maker, I thought. This is what it is to be surrounded by the presence of the Maker.

  The elder pulled out the first item, and I gasped as he raised it upward as if dedicating it. For the bands were crafted with the design of an eternal knot, one wrapping into another — in silver and gold — each band an inch wide. Worth a thousand harvests. I’d never seen a hundredth of such precious metal, as it was the currency of the richest traders, often the only thing they’d take for a sack of meal, salt, grain. And there was little to go around — most of it in the warlords’ hands, melted and placed in bricks for their coffers, or adorning the inner sanctums of their palaces.

  The elder handed the object to the first woman behind him, then reached into the box. And pulled out another. I couldn’t help it; I gasped again as he lifted it to the ceiling, muttering, as if in prayer, then handed it to the second woman and reached for another. With the combined wealth that appeared to be in that box, we could rule a kingdom.

  As each woman received an armband, she came to kneel to the right of a Remnant or stand to the right of a Knight. When there was someone beside each of us, the old man spoke while slowly circling around, head bowed, arms folded behind his back. “You were chosen whilst still in your mothers’ wombs, and trained from the day of your birth on. The tasks you face ahead are grave indeed. The future of our people, of the world itself, rests upon your shoulders.”

  I glanced up to watch him, his watery eyes narrowing, the loose flesh on his face folding around a frown. “But you go with the power of the Maker within you. These armbands are the symbol of his eternal connection with you and everyone in Community. Regardless of what you encounter — what terrors, what strife, what trauma — trust in that.” He looked up to meet my eyes. “Trust in that.”

  He pulled to a stop between Bellona and Ronan. “My young friends, here it begins. Remember that you have the power of the Maker within you to do what you must. He shall not abandon you, no matter how dark the night.”

  “Remnants and Knights of the Last Order,” Raniero said, standing in the center of our circle, “place your right hand on your comrade’s shoulder. While each of you exhibits the beginnings of a unique, high gift, tonight, through tongues of fire, you become marked as one.” I swallowed hard at his warning tone, as well as his words tongues of fire. I placed my hand on Ronan’s shoulder, then felt Bellona place her hand on mine. Across the circle,
I looked into Vidar’s brown eyes. He was a Remnant, like me. What was his gift?

  Vidar’s eyes never wavered, and there was no trace of humor in his face now. “No matter what happens, sister, you keep your eyes on me,” he whispered. “It will be good, what comes. I’m certain of it. There is only good here; hope, light, promise.”

  I nodded once.

  At our sides, each of the elders unclasped the armbands on a delicate hinge and held them open, like jaws ready to clamp down around our biceps. Four in all, for Bellona, Ronan, Vidar, and me.

  “And now the power that was, that is, and is to come is invited here, among us,” said the sage elder, nodding. He lifted his aged face to the concave stone ceiling. “Long have we waited for this day, Maker. We commit these Ailith kin to your care, to your call.”

  Every inch of my skin felt tingly, my hair raised and surges running through my body from head to toe. Vidar could feel it too; I saw it in his eyes. The Knights? I dared not look to the side. Vidar began to whisper the words with the elders, and I did the same, feeling the power of each one as we called upon the Maker.

  “Maker, long have you been forgotten among our people. But now you shall be known again. Come and abide with the Ailith. Work through them for your purposes. Seal them with your power so that they might combat those of the dark. Preserve them, Maker. May it be as you promised. May it be so …” As the Community continued to repeat may it be so, I could see the flames rising around us, licking up toward the ceiling, interlinking across it, warming the auditorium until it actually felt hot. Filling us, heating us from within. Making us almost unbearably hot now. Tongues of fire

  With each successive refrain, an elder clasped shut the armbands of those around me.

  I felt Ronan shudder and gasp. As if time had slowed, I saw Vidar’s mouth open, his eyes widen in pain. Felt Bellona’s hand shudder just as I received mine.