Season of Glory (10 page)

“I am,” Ronan said.

“I am,” I repeated with a smile, looking up into his wide, kind eyes, wishing this
were the night we took our full vows. At least it was a step in the right direction.
Such a sweet step.

We fell into silence, waiting until the other couples and their presiders grew quiet
too. At that moment, the women at the meadow's center rang their triangles three
times, and then in sequence, each note a step higher.

“Ronan and Andriana,” Cornelius continued, “do you pledge to love and honor each
other, just as you love and honor the Maker?”

“I do,” Ronan said.

“I do,” I said.

Once more, we awaited silence. I knew that what was to come was where our binding
vows differed from the betrothal vows that others would share. The women rang their
triangles—this time, three rounds of sequential notes.

“Face each other, dear ones,” Cornelius said, “and place your right hands together.”
I set my palm atop Ronan's wide, warm hand and smiled up into his eyes. The elder
took a long, green sash from a young girl at his side and set to wrapping our hands
together. Those who took their betrothal vows were wrapped in white sashes. “This
agreement will hold until the time when you mutually agree to disband and come to
an elder for formal unbinding or decide to take your betrothal vows after your second
decade. Agreed?”

We both said yes.

The women at the center began to play their triangles, at first slowly, then building
in tempo as the elder spoke and wrapped our hands in the silken cloth. “May your
hearts become even more deeply entwined with each day you share,” he said, making
the first loop. “May you use your bodies to serve the other
in protection and care,”
he said, making the second. He continued wrapping and speaking. “May you use your
tongues to speak words of kindness and encouragement. May you choose the same path
and may your paths never diverge. And may you use your lives, together, to serve
the Maker,” he said, tucking the end of the ribbon under the last fold.

Ronan looked into my eyes with such tenderness that it made me tear up. “May it be
so,” he whispered.

“May it be so,” I repeated.

All around the meadow, each small gathering erupted into applause as couples completed
their vows.

“These are good promises, children. Keep them sacred, and your union will be strong
forever. You may kiss now.
Briefly
.” But there was an edge of indulgence to his tone,
more than warning. With that, he untucked the ribbon and gently let it slide from
our hands.

Ronan grinned and wrapped his fingers around the back of my head, and his other arm
around my waist, pulling me close. Hovering near, he searched my eyes, clearly seeing
the joy that pulsed from us both in such clear waves, I thought the emotion might
actually make a sound.

And then, unable to stand it any longer, I rose up on my toes and kissed him.

From there, we returned to the Citadel, where we had a fine celebratory dinner and
then were ushered to our various “matrimonial” apartments. The chamber I was to share
with Ronan in the days ahead was spacious, with a tiny airshaft that brought in a
hint of a breeze. But we had two separate beds, on opposite sides of the room.

“We could push them together,” he said, wrapping his arms around me from behind and
pulling me close, nuzzling my neck.

“Probably not the best idea,” I said, turning to kiss him and then hug him close.
“This is going to be challenging enough, isn't it?”

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Something I'll have to pray about day
and night, Wife.”

“As will I, Husband,” I returned, kissing his nose.

He laughed under his breath. “Maybe we should just kiss each other's noses.”

I smiled. “That would probably keep the heat at bay.”

“That's it,” he grinned, pulling me closer. “Five seasons of nose kisses until you're
mine and I'm yours, completely.”

“Or … not,” I said, lifting my lips to meet his.

CHAPTER
10

ANDRIANA

T
he days passed in a blur of activity and joy as we continued to rest and settle
into
our
new roles as bound pairs, as well as Ailith family. Gradually, I became accustomed
to this new claim I felt on Ronan, and he upon me. Somehow, it made things easier,
this understanding between us. The promise. Anything that had kept us apart was gone.
I'd never felt closer to him. Safer.

“We have someone we want you to meet,” Niero said.

His grave tone made us all share concerned glances before rising to join him in the
hallway. Moments before, we Remnants and Knights had all been sitting around a long
dinner table in the hall, with hundreds of others, laughing as Vidar shared a meandering
story that got progressively funnier as he went on. It was good, so good, to be back
in the Community. Every one of us was showing improvement after our days among them.
We all had more color in our cheeks, renewed strength in our
veins. And even though
six of us were now bound by our vows, never had I felt more bonded to my fellow Ailith.
This was
elation
, I decided, unable to stop smiling. Even with the ongoing threat
beyond our Valley, there was a collective deep, abiding joy within us that I could
not ignore.

Niero led us to a large meeting room several corridors down. Inside were two Valley
guards as well as an older man with olive skin and black hair streaked with gray
that was tied at the nape of his neck. He wore thick furs, but they were styled differently
than the Aravanders typically cut and sewed theirs. Slowly, he rose to his feet and
cautiously nodded, as if in deference.

“I am Barrett of the Uintah Range, high country to the north and east of your valley,”
he said. “I have come to discover if the stories are true. If you are truly the foretold
Remnants, gathering to lead us into a new age.”

“We are,” Vidar said, taking the lead, inherently telling us that we had nothing
to fear from this individual.

“But if you are from the Uintah Range,” Kapriel said, giving his clothing a second
look, “then you have traveled a very long way indeed.”

“Yes,” the man said, with a sober nod, squinting at Kapriel. “You know of my land?”

“There was once an emissary in Pacifica who visited my father. I remember how excited
my father was.”

“Pacifica?” Barrett muttered, frowning. Almost subconsciously, his hand went to
his belt, but I saw that the Valley guards had relieved him of his weapon.

“You have nothing to fear in this one,” Vidar interceded. “This is Prince Kapriel
of Pacifica, himself a Remnant.”

The man's eyes widened, and he nodded, a half smile lacing his lips. “Kapriel,”
he repeated, as if wanting to make certain he'd heard correctly.

“Yes,” Kapriel said.

Barrett's wondering smile widened. “I believe we've met before. I was that man who
came to your father. But you and your brother couldn't have been more than a decade
old.”

“Just about,” Kapriel said, stepping forward to take his arm. “It is good to meet
you again.”

“And you as well, Majesty. Your father and mother were good people,” he said, a trace
of sorrow passing behind his eyes.

“Indeed, they were,” Kapriel said.

My mind turned then, unbidden, to Keallach. Where was he? What was happening to him?
Was he still feeling the pull of the Ailith?

“Now, please,” Kapriel was saying. I forced myself to focus on him, our prince .
. . not the prince I had once known. “Tell us of your land. Your people.”

Barrett turned and went back to the table, where he pulled a scroll out of a leather
tube and spread it flat. It was a map, hand drawn, with the finest detail we'd ever
seen. “I am a cartographer,” he said, “and my life's mission has been to travel
the land we've been left since the Great War. It's allowed me to go far,” he said,
“in all directions. I've traveled for an entire season northward, until snows as
deep as my waist turned me back, even in the midst of Harvest. And I've traveled
south, to where the ocean spreads as far as the eye can see. To the east, where mountains
give way to plains, and to the west, where your brother now reigns.”

“But I suspect you do more than map the lands you travel,” Niero said, crossing his
arms.

“Well, of course,” Barrett said, his dark eyes twinkling as he raised one brow. “I,
my friends, am your servant, a brother of the Way. And I can be of service to you
as emissary. There
are villages to your east that have long waited for the rise of
the Remnants. They understand Pacifica's greedy intent, and they will back you in
fighting for the Trading Union's freedom and autonomy.”

Hope surged within us all. “Are there many?” I asked. “Close at hand?”

His dark eyes fell on me. “It is a struggle, survival, as you yourselves have seen
in the Valley. Most tribes are not many in number. But those who remain are strong.
And if we gather them all together … It's a force of note.”

I nodded, but all I could think of was Pacifica, with her well-trained—and armed—soldiers
and Sheolite scouts.

“The good, Dri,” Vidar whispered, squeezing my elbow. “Concentrate on the good, not
the bad, in this. It's excellent news, really. The Valley couldn't sustain thousands
of others. But a few hundred more? Absolutely.”

“What do they trade in, these tribes?” Niero asked, waving in the direction of the
Plains.

“Wheat, mostly,” Barrett said with a half shrug.

“Wheat,” Ronan repeated. His eyes danced. “Jorre will love hearing that.”

Niero ignored him. “What about lands beyond this map?” he asked. “What do you know
of the people from across the sea?”

Barrett grew more serious. “Since the Great War? There is some trade between Pacifica
and those across the Sea to the West. And southward, small outposts, as I understand
it. But to the Far East?” He shook his head. “No one knows if anyone lives in that
territory any longer. I myself traveled eastward for months after I left the last
village and never saw another soul. The elders said no one remains on what was once
the eastern coast of our continent. I came to believe them.”

“But you never reached
the coast yourself?” Kapriel asked.

Barrett shook his head. “I had to turn back,
come Hoarfrost. They may be there, but if they are, they are very far indeed.”

Chaza'el said, “The elders in my village always said it was beyond that shore that
the Great War began.”

“As it was told in ours,” Barrett said stoically. “Radicals took over. Dark souls,
the forefathers of the Sheolites here in our own land. They sought to conquer every
important religious site and force others to bow down to them alone. They murdered
and bombed and struck out until their victims turned and attacked them as well. And
then other countries entered the fray, bombing, destroying, and poisoning city after
city. The scope of the Great War grew from there until there wasn't a continent untouched
by bombs and poison that led to the Cancer. It was the Sheolites who slandered the
faith, whispering and shouting it everywhere they went—they laid the mantle of blame
for the Great War, the destruction of our world, at the Maker's feet rather than
where it belonged—with humanity's own corruption.”

“And through all that, any name for the Maker was banished,” Killian said. “His
people were hunted to extinction, the Sacred Words destroyed.”

“Or so they thought,” Niero said, raising his chin.

The two shared a thin-lipped smile. But the story only made me feel sick to my stomach.
How close we had come, as a people, years before. To annihilation. To death. To darkness.
Were we really enough to push back the darkness? We here, in the Valley, even with
the reinforcements that Barrett mentioned might come to our aid?

“Do you know how many?” I asked, pausing to clear my throat when it came out warbled.
“How many soldiers does Pacifica have?”

Barrett turned to look at me. “Two thousand, perhaps,” he grunted. “Half again as
many as we might raise. But they are unfamiliar with the terrain of your valley,
which will give you an advantage. It is here, now,” he said, resting his index finger
on our home, nestled between mountain ranges, “that we must stand. If they take us
here, if they succeed in conquering us now, the fight will likely end with us.”

“So you propose that you will press along our eastern border, summoning those who
might come to our aid,” Kapriel said. “And we shall press west, as the Maker calls,
seeking to establish increased defenses between us and Pacifica.”

Barrett's bushy brows knit together. He obviously thought Kapriel was joking. “You
think the Maker is calling you
west
? You really think you can turn Zanzibar or Georgii
Post into friends of the Maker? Why not continue to await people to come to you here?
I can tell you that word already spreads, everywhere I go.” He paused to look over
us. “You bring the people hope, just by living. Why not remain here, where you can
be relatively safe?”

Kapriel gave him a tiny smile. “Because our Maker hasn't called us to live a safe
life. He's called us to live a life of trust. If he sends us, there is a reason.”

“And it will have far more impact than if we remain sheltered here,” Niero said,
eyeing Killian and Tressa.

“Sometimes it makes no sense to us,” Vidar said, “but we understand in time.”

Barrett's eyes swept over the lot of us again. “You are young, barely of age. Are
you certain that this is the right time to taunt Pacifica? Why not allow a few more
seasons to pass? Allow the people to hear word of you and gather to our cause?” “Because
it is
now
that he has called us,” Kapriel said.