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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.”
    â€œHey,” 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.”
    â€œThank the Maker,” Dad said.
    â€œAnd 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.
    â€œDo 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.”
    â€œAll 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.
    â€œBut 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,