Remnants: Season of Fire Read Online Free

I?”
    “Please,” he said, waving a generous hand toward the stew.
    I could feel his curious eyes cover me, from the tips of my nails up my arms, to my neck and face, then down. I ignored the sensation even as a shiver ran down my neck.
    “You might think of your story as public. For Pacificans,” I said. “But for those of us living in the Trading Union, we know far less.”
    “Even among the Ailith?” he asked, cocking one brow again. A shadow of his defensiveness laced his tone.
    “I have heard some about you,” I allowed. “But I think I’d like to hear it straight from the source.”
    The muscles in his cheeks worked as if he tensed at the thought. “I’ll ask you to keep an open mind, Andriana. Undoubtedly, they’ve told you half-truths. That’s always what gets shared. Half-truths and lies.”
    I felt the bitterness in him. The hurt. The wounding.
    “Half-truths?” I said. In spite of my empathy for him, I couldn’t deny my own rising anger. “Tell me what is untruthful. That you denied all you’d been taught by your trainer, imprisoned your twin, and seized the Pacifican throne for yourself? Tell me how you could ignore the Call. How you could possibly turn away from it on that night of nights?”
    His eyes shot to mine again and hardened. Then he lifted his chin, took a deep breath, and leaned forward. “I haven’t denied what I have been taught. I simply disagreed with our parents. There have never, in the entire history of our world, been brother kings. It would never work. One always has to take the lead, or divide their realms. And I am the eldest . . . the first out of the womb. By rights, the throne is mine. By rights.”
    I nodded slowly. I could see why he’d consider it that way. “But Keallach, we are not like any others that have come before us. We Ailith were born entirely for this purpose . . . to save theworld. What if you got in the Maker’s way by turning from the path laid before you?”
    Keallach tapped his fingertips together, still leaning forward. “I pray that I did not.” He bowed his head and scratched the back of his neck, then lifted his face. “You must believe me, Andriana. My intention is for good. For the good of all.”
    I searched him, then. His words were true. Or at least he believed what he was saying. “But Keallach, you are . . . the Sheolites. Sethos . . .” I gestured to the guard at the door, feeling suddenly heavy, weary, utterly exhausted.
    “Leave us,” Keallach said.
    “Highness?” the guard responded.
    “Stand outside if you must. But my friend shall speak more freely without you here. Leave us.”
    “Yes, Highness.”
    I watched as the burly man disappeared into the night, closing the door with more grace and care than expected. Then I looked to Keallach. “Those men are lost. They are of the dark. And you are surrounded by them.”
    “You judge them harshly,” he said evenly, quietly.
    I scoffed. “If you had seen what I have seen —”
    He held up a hand. “Perhaps there is a way that is between us. A place where the forked path unites again.”
    I frowned. What he said made as much sense as water turning to dust. Not after what I’d felt on that battlefield when we fought the Sheolites. The depths of darkness, despair. Death itself, fighting to take me down, hold me down until I suffocated, choking on my own loss of hope.
    “Don’t you see, Andriana?” he asked, rising and pacing the short room, one hand on his head, one gesturing to me. “All people respond to power. It is what drives them. And what amI on the cusp of? Ultimate power. Within months, the entire Trading Union will bow to me as emperor. We will claim the rebels and outliers in time. Together, we shall rebuild this country, and begin to claim others. Together, we will establish unification of the entire world. Peace. This is the moment to seize it. Upon its rebirth. I wager you’ve learned enough of humanity’s history to know that once each power is