Season of Glory (44 page)

I swallowed hard, my lips clenched.

“Marriage between Keallach and Andriana,” he went on. “It wouldn't be quite the same,
not nearly as strong, and we had hoped that our wayward princes would let bygones
be bygones, but . . .” He took a deep, dramatic breath with his hand on his belly.
“It appears Kapriel has made up his mind, leaving us only one choice. You must dissolve
your handfasting with Andriana, and she shall wed Keallach this very night. You were
very brave in relinquishing. It had never occurred to me,” he said, leaning in, “that
any man would be able to keep himself from bedding his bride at the first opportunity.”

“Maximillian,” Keallach barked as the rest of the Council chortled and hid their
smiles. My face burned, and I longed to wrench free of my ropes and throttle the
pretty man's neck.

“It was selfless,” Lord Jala went on, straightening. “And had you not acted on your
heroic impulse, she would have bled out on the stones yesterday. So you should take
that as a comfort, Ronan.”

He patted my chest again, and I closed my eyes, refusing to flinch. He would like
to see that he had power to agitate me. He took a slow turn around me. “We will bring
Andriana to us now. The monk from Wadi Qelt will perform the ceremony to dissolve
your handfasting. And then you shall stand here to bear witness as she exchanges
her vows with Keallach.”

“No,” Kapriel erupted, his guards holding him back. “Keallach, you can't.”

Keallach was staring at the ground. My heart pounded. Was this what he really wanted?
Deep down? And wasn't it a bit
convenient
that he could blame Sethos and his Council
for forcing him to do this?

“Keallach!” Kapriel shouted, straining to escape again. “What are you doing? What's
happened to you?”

“Enough, enough,” Lord Jala said wearily. “Be silent now, or we shall gag you.” He
looked to me. “You know it must be done, don't you? Release her willingly, or we
shall make her watch you die so that your handfasting vows will be dissolved in the
clearest way possible.”

“Give me the night,” I said, trying to buy time. “Let me consider it.”

“I'm afraid that's impossible,” he said, waving behind me. I turned with Kapriel
to look to the women who approached. First Tressa. Then Andriana, dressed in finery
like I'd never seen. Her gown was high-necked and tight across the arms and down
her torso, hugging every curve in a sheath of dark blue. There was a teardrop cutout
giving a peek at her cleavage, and everything else was covered, but obvious. She
was barefoot, and her hair fell in dark curls about her shoulders. Her eyes and lips
had been made up, making her impossibly beautiful.

I gaped at her, my belly a mix of agony and glory. My best friend. My soulmate. My
wife. My future lover.

And yet my wife for not much longer. No longer my future lover.

Keallach's.

I whipped my head toward him. He stood, enraptured at the sight of her too. Full
lips parted. Eyes wide. Brows curved in wonder.

He loved her. He honestly loved her too. And as a Remnant, he had twice the reason
to care for her, protect her. Was this the Maker's way? To save her? Perhaps to work
through the two of them to see justice restored to Pacifica? I remembered how she
had argued for Keallach, how she'd wished to reach him, turn him back to us. How
it had seemed to work.

But had it? Had it? I searched my mind and heart to discover the truth of it. Was
Keallach ours? Or had he been playing us all along?

He dragged his eyes to me then, with apology and pain clear in them. “Forgive me,
brother. It's the only way,” he said.

“Is it?” I asked.

“It is. Please,” he said, dropping his tone so Dri couldn't hear. “Don't make this
any harder on her than it has to be.”

“Keallach . . .” Kapriel said, his voice pleading now. “Let us sit down and talk.”

Keallach ignored him. He didn't look away from me. “They'll kill you,” he whispered.
“It is not an idle threat. You saw what it did to her, losing Niero. Don't make her
watch your death too. Not if you can help it. They will use such darkness in her,”
he whispered, leaning in, “against us.”

“Keallach!” Sethos barked, clearly displeased by his whispers.

But our eyes were locked, a silent promise being made. Keallach was still with us.
Warning me of their plans. They hoped I would fight, hoped they would have reason
to kill me. Hoped
it would throw open the door within Andriana that she always fought,
the door that allowed the dark to wreak havoc within her.

I nodded once and then bowed my head, unable to watch as Dri was led toward me. I
forced myself to look at her as my hands were cut free and the small monk approached
us. Then the Council encircled us, with Tressa and Kapriel standing on either side
of me, bearing silent witness.

“Ronan,” Dri whispered.

“Trust me,” I whispered back, tears welling in my eyes too. I knew she felt my pain,
the agony within me over this. I hoped she would recognize my surety in this action
too. It was the only way. For us to survive. To fight another day.

“Take her hand, Ronan of the Valley,” Zulon said.

I did as he asked, wondering if I would ever feel her long, strong fingers in mine
again. I felt like I was being strangled.

The monk took a long silk strip from his shoulder and wound it around our hands,
over and under, just as the elder in the Valley had done. He paused a moment, then
looked to me. “Say the words,” he said.

I took a breath and then closed my mouth, unable to force them from my lips.

She stared at me, openly crying now.

It was then that I felt the point of a dagger at my lower back, pressing in toward
my kidney. “Say them,” Lord Jala hissed.

I took another deep breath, my eyes searching her face, wanting to memorize every
bit of her—her smell, the way she looked, even weeping.

“You will always hold my heart, Andriana,” I whispered. The dagger pressed in harder.

“And you mine, Ronan,” she whispered back.

“Enough,” Lord Jala bit out. “Do what you must.”

It was as if I distanced myself at that moment. As if I wasn't there, in this tight
circle, holding the hand of the one I loved most. I was far away, doing the hard
thing that had to be done, watching my lips move as if I was someone else entirely.
“I release you,” I said. “I release you. I release you.”

And with a slip of the silk strip from our joined hands, it was done.

CHAPTER
43

ANDRIANA

I
felt the searing pain in him, even as I recognized my own. I knew what drove him
to
do
it. Fierce protection. Sacrificial love.

“Take him back to the dungeon,” Lord Jala said to the guards. “Kapriel too. We shall
decide what we will do with them later.”

“No,” Keallach said, turning toward me. “It is best if they are both here to witness
this.”

I gaped at him, wondering over his cruelty. Could he not see the sorrow that both
Ronan and I felt? Did he not know what witnessing our vows would do to him?

The monk looked to me and then to Keallach, still bound. “His hands must be free,”
he said to Sethos. “It is part of the vows.”

Keallach stared up at Sethos. “You either trust me or you do not. But the monk is
right. Without us holding hands, the vows will not be binding.”

Sethos's eyes narrowed.

“Sethos,” Keallach said, “my sword-bearing arm is likely broken and—”

“It is not the idea of you lifting a
sword
that bothers me,” he said, coming down
the two stairs to stand beside us. “But you are correct. I either trust you or I
do not.” He considered him thoughtfully.

“Have I not done all you have asked?” Keallach said. “Did I not deliver the Ailith
into your very hands?”

“At an obviously great personal cost,” Sethos said, as if that was a negative thing
rather than a positive. He inclined his head to a guard beside Keallach. “Free him.”

I shivered as my arm cuff sent an agonizing chill down to my elbow and wrist, but
then I felt warmth too, a curious back and forth.

Keallach offered me both hands, even the one that was red and swollen. Trying not
to hurt his injured arm, I accepted both, doing my best to ignore Sethos beside us
and to concentrate solely on my brother before me, desperate to discern if he was
doing all of this for his own good, or for all of ours. Keallach stared into my eyes,
and in such close proximity, touching him, I knew then what I needed to know most.
In him, I read love and loyalty and hope.

For me as a sister.

Not as a bride.

He smiled a little, as if knowing I must have received his message by the look in
my eyes.

“Get on with it,” Sethos barked at Zulon.

The sun was setting, and clouds were building in the west as if a thunderstorm brewed.
I shivered, even under the heavy fabric of my gown. My armband continued to alternate
between bursts of cold and heat, recognizing both enemy and Ailith kin, as confused
as I was at what was transpiring around us.

Zulon stepped closer, the small man reaching only my shoulder in height. But I remembered
that he was a wicked fighter. “Who stands for these two, wishing to share their marital
vows?”

“We do,” the Council said as one, making me start at the volume of their combined
voices. It sent me to trembling. Was this happening? Regardless of what Keallach
intended, was I about to become his bride?

Keallach squeezed my hand with his good one.
Trust me
, his eyes seemed to say.

“Present the bride and groom,” said the monk.

Lord Jala stepped forward. “I present Emperor Keallach of Pacifica, who wishes to
wed this woman.”

A long silence followed, until Lord Fenris drew his sword and lifted it to Tressa's
chin, forcing her to speak. “I present Andriana of the Valley, who . . .” The sword
pressed harder against her throat. “Who wishes to wed this man?”

Even without looking at her, I knew she hated every word she uttered. But Keallach
held me captive with his blue-green eyes.

Such love as this, I hadn't felt outside of Ronan's own.

I gaped at him, frightened, even if his chief emotion was a desire to serve, honor,
protect. I couldn't quite trust that the dark one wasn't using him to trick me into
this.

I centered in, willing him to focus on those ways that served the Maker's cause.
He was clearly in a battle, and I was the prize.

It was a battle the Maker and I had to win.

Call on the Maker, not your own gifting,
Niero had said to me.

“Maker,” I prayed aloud. “Keallach is yours. No longer theirs. Pull him back!”

Sethos was on me in an instant, clenching my throat. “You dare . . . to invoke .
. . that name . . . among us?” he seethed.

Keallach lifted a hand and sent Sethos reeling away from me, slamming him against
the wall. Then he did the same to the nearest guards.

Others around us surged into motion. Ronan wrenched free, taking down one captor
and then another and cutting Kapriel loose.

“No!” Sethos screamed, stumbling back toward us. “Guards! Sheolites, to me!”

Kapriel lifted his hands to the skies, already thick with swirling, sunset clouds
that looked like the beginnings of a vase atop a pottery wheel, just taking shape
into a funnel.

I turned to Tressa. “Go to the dungeon. Find your way through,” I said, reaching
out to will courage into her. “Free them all. Send them to us.”

She tore away, and I bent and grabbed a fallen guard's sword, just in time to block
Lord Fenris's first savage strike.

CHAPTER
44

KEALLACH

L
ords Kendric and Daivat fell quickly, facing Ronan, Kapriel, Dri, and me.

But Max and Fenris remained, with Sethos between them and Sheolites closing in from
every side. Sethos was lifting his hands to me, fingers curved, a shriek coming from
his mouth that deafened me and seemed to block me from my gifting.

I ended up near Dri, back to back. More than anything, I wanted Dri to live.
I want
her to live, Maker. Take me if it has to be one of us,
I thought, the first time
I'd ever thought or wished or prayed such a thing. And it felt good. Right.

Holy.

I returned Maximillian's first strikes with fervor. In all of my life, had I ever
felt such a thing? Claimed? Holy?

Only the ceremony in which I'd received my armband compared. And in the Ailith's
circle at Georgii Post. Surrounded by my
brothers and sisters. Shoulder to shoulder
along the Way. That is what I felt in this moment again.

It was like a slap across the face.

I'd been in a reverie. A dream state, casting between one realm and another. Even
if I'd decided to remain true to my Ailith kin, I knew what frightened Dri. Sethos's
dark power pulled me back to my old life and ways, again and again.

But I was called to the new. To the Remnants. To my Call, as deeply a part of me
as the blood coursing through my veins. To the Maker.

It was he who had brought me into the world, and it was he who would usher me out.

I centered in on the thought, closing my eyes, willing away all the other forces
that had a call on my mind and my heart.
Maker
.

The One who had made me one with sisters and brothers, a holy force, each with their
own gift to lend to the cause . . . or forsake it.

I opened my eyes, watching as Dri caught a Sheolite guard's strike, turned, and sent
his sword flying.

I swore under my breath. She was lovely.

Beyond anything I could dream of as my own.