"It's Aliah and Remiel now, Mama. Remember?"
Eliana bit her lip and handed the girl a book that looked too big for her small hands. The Book. A few more scenes flashed before Shai recognized another face. Her breath caught in her throat and a deep yearning rippled through her.
Aliah.
CHAPTER 70
Shai
Shai smiled as she watched the image of a younger Aliah with a boyish grin and thick, dark hair that he constantly brushed off his forehead. His expression changed whenever he was near her, and she watched as her own cheeks flushed pink every time they bumped elbows, with each brush of their fingers. Next she saw Remiel, his strong hands and gentle smile. She saw the tug-of-war on her face whenever she was with both of them. She saw the image of herself clasp hands with Aliah while ignoring Remiel. Aliah constantly interrupted her conversations with Remiel and she continually chose to be with him over Remiel. I remember that. She turned her face away.
Samael poked her in the back. "Watch!"
She turned back to the wall in time to re-live the moment when she had stood near the bridge in Lael talking to Remiel as Aliah approached. The scene seemed to move in slow motion. She gasped as she watched Aliah attack Remiel and shove him face-first into the water. Then Aliah flipped Remiel over and slammed his fist into Remiel's face again and again. Shai watched herself cover her face with her hands and scream, “No! No!”
That singular memory came back in a flood while she watched herself jump on Aliah's back, who shoved her onto the embankment. He left bloody fingerprints on her tunic and arm. Even back then I had worn Remiel's blood. She watched Aliah push Remiel's lifeless body into the water.
“Stop!” She cried out. I can’t watch this! She began to turn away again, but something made her heart nearly stop. The wall flashed an image of Samael in Lael, handing out pendants. Then it flashed to Samael and Aliah talking with each other just out of Shai's earshot. A second later she saw Samael's fingers on her throat as he fastened a pendant around her neck. She shivered at the hungry look in his eyes as his hands lingered on her skin.
She watched scenes of her friends in Lael as they walked around with long faces and empty eyes, dutifully obeying the Mothers’ instructions. Every color and pleasant sight or sound seemed to drain away, leaving everything drab and grey.
It revealed her own internal change. Suspicion and anger towards Aliah. Irritation instead of enjoyment. Remiel was gone and no one mentioned him. He seemed to be forgotten.
Next, the Readings were displayed on the white wall in front of her: a girl exiled for her infraction and the Laelites fearful faces, as a boy was sentenced to isolation. Another young child was chastised with ten lashings from a leather whip. And so on, until the moment she was called up for her ‘reward.’
Shai watched it all with tears dripping off her chin. She re-lived the mistakes she had made, felt the anger that simmered just below the surface every second. She stared at the moving images on the wall and grieved for the pieces of her earlier past that she could barely remember. For Aliah, who was laying cold and stiff on the floor not far from her. For Remiel, who was tacked to the wall just a few feet away, whom she couldn’t bear to look at.
The scenes skipped then repeated. The same events, same Readings, same punishments, same reactions. Everything on fast forward. The scenes repeated again. And again. And again, until they blurred on the wall in front of her.
Samael laughed. "Do you like that? It's your whole life in under three minutes. Then the last twenty-one days on repeat for the last five years."
What was he saying?
"That part was my gift to you! No one grew old and no one died unless they took off their pendants and their memories returned. Aliah wanted his infraction erased from everyone’s minds, so the easiest thing was to keep everyone on a memory loop. Twenty-one days of repeated events. No harm done at all unless you were to wander too far from Lael. Then the pendant’s poison would erase your mind permanently.” Samael reached out and rubbed a lock of her hair between his thumb and forefinger. “Shai, your mind is being erased right here, right now, while your body is back in Kent. If it weren’t for Remiel, you'd be nothing but an empty shell soon."
Like someone had kicked a rock loose from a dam, something inside Shai broke. Her sobs echoed in the room and she pressed her fists into her burning eyes. "You stole our memories! You forced us to obey your Laws and now you're killing us?"
"No, no, no. I had nothing to do with the Book or its Laws. You have Elchai to thank for that, and Aliah to thank for the pendants. I merely watched over you. Kept you safe for those last five years. I can’t help it if the pendants have a built-in fail-safe. If you wander past the Borderless, it’s lights out.” The look of satisfaction on Samael’s face stirred the deepest anger in Shai. Years of bottled-up emotions uncorked. Anger had gone rancid. Murderous rage which she turned on Samael. Her mouth opened in a silent scream. Her mind went blank. Fuzzy and thick like spoiled milk, that clotted her ability to think clearly. She reached for Samael’s face, but he grabbed her hair and pulled her backwards, screaming.
"Shut up!" He shoved her. She staggered then fell, her knees cracked hard against the floor.
Samael rammed her with the toe of his boot. "Get up!"
She staggered to her feet and faced him.
Samael's eyes ran up and down her body. "Zev! Come here." The glint in Samael's eyes made her flesh crawl. "Strip her." He pointed at her shirt. "Rip it off if you have to."
Zev grabbed her shirt and completed the tear that Samael had started earlier. The remaining buttons popped loose and pinged across the floor. Shai slapped at Zev’s hands as tears ran down her cheeks. Her nose dripped down her lips and chin.
Choking sobs clogged up her throat. "No, Zev. Please don't. Please Zev. Don't!" She struggled to get away from him, but he had wrapped one hand in her hair in a wicked grip.
His eyes flashed to hers as he ran his finger along the waistband of her trousers. Please no.
"NO!" Remiel's voice ricocheted around the room. Zev released Shai with a sudden shove, his eyes wild. Shai stumbled backwards, coughing and choking on the violent sobs that wracked her body.
Zev glanced at Remiel. Then Samael.
"We made a deal… Samael. Let… her go.”
Shai held her arms tight against her chest as Zev backed away, his eyes fixed back on Remiel.
"It’s me… you want. For…revenge. Remember?"
Samael’s fists curled against his sides and he strode to Remiel.
Remiel didn’t blink, his one good eye flashed a deep blue-grey like Lael’s stormy skies. Hard. Fearless.
"Life… for life."
Samael stared at Remiel then turned and walked away, shaking his head. Shai scrambled to move out his way, still trying to hold her shirt closed.
Samael sneered. "Shut up, Remiel. I still get to deliver my reward. You said nothing about that in your business proposal."
Remiel pulled against his restraints. "Samael! Overseer and second in command over Edan. Isn't that who you were? Before my father stripped it from you?"
Samael paused in his next step and looked at the ground.
"Rem, what are you doing? He'll kill you!" Shai started to run to Remiel, but he shook his head at her. She stopped and looked back at Samael.
"What happened, Sammy? Did Elchai have everything you wanted and all you received was just a few crumbs? Did people fall all over themselves just to be near him?" Remiel's taunting escalated, his voice grew louder and filled the room. The resonance overpowered the death-moans of other prisoners. "Your jealousy made you try and steal the hearts of the Edanites from my father. But they began to see who you really were. Didn’t they? You couldn't get even a tiny army to fight against Elchai, could you? So you tried to steal his Book. You started the War! And in the end you couldn’t find the Book, and you were banished to Gershom! Banished to live in this dark hole with no way out unless you can find the Book."
r /> Samael finally turned around, his face scarlet, his teeth clenched.
"Say it Sammy! Say you want to kill me! Tell me…it’s revenge against my father that you want! You… hate my father! Look at me!"
Samael tore across the room and grabbed a leather whip from a nearby table.
Zev whispered, "It’s all over now.”
How can this be happening? I just lost Aliah. I can’t lose Remiel too... again. "You can't! No, Samael!" Her screams pierced her own ears.
"Are you stupid? Why draw attention to yourself now? Remiel made a deal." Zev glowered at her with hate-filled eyes.
"You're a coward! You’re just Samael’s lackey. His puppet! You’d love to see Remiel dead even more than you’d love to see me raped!" She hissed through clenched teeth.
A loud crack filled the air as Samael brought the whip down across Remiel's chest. The leather strap tore open his bare chest with one strike. Blood poured from the gash. Large, red drops splattered to the ground. Remiel inhaled, a sharp, brief sound before the next crack of the whip. The next strike connected with Remiel's face, slicing open his other cheek. His head rolled back. "Life... for life, Sammy,” he whispered.
CHAPTER 71
Shai
Rage, like liquid fire, threatened to drown Shai. Her hands shook and burned, her chest blazed with heat. She ran at Samael and flung herself on his back. He flicked her off like an insect. She slammed her steel wrist cuffs against his back again and again until her wrists became bruised and swollen. But Samael remained fixated on Remiel.
He struck with the whip again and Remiel's chest was flayed open. White bones protruded through the ribbons of red flesh. Shai ran to Remiel and dropped to her knees, the warmth of his blood on the ground soaked into her trousers.
"Get out of the way!" Samael flicked the tip of the whip across her bare chest and the pain of it added fire on top of fire.
"Don't kill him!" She twisted around and looked up at Remiel as she yanked the pendant from her neck and dropped it into the puddle of blood around her. "Remiel, I should’ve listened to you."
Remiel gasped. "Take... my chain. Put it around... your neck. Wear the key."
She reached up, but just as she touched Remiel's gold chain Zev tackled her. She twisted in his grip and kicked at him, but he dodged and shoved her against the wall where her life had flashed minutes before. With one arm he held her in a painful grip while he grabbed a thick, metal chain that dangled above her head with his other hand, and attached the chain to her steel cuff. She twisted and writhed against the restraint. No sound came from her throat that was swollen from screaming. She sucked in huge draughts of air that burned as she inhaled.
Remiel turned his bloodied face to her. "What if..." He began.
His voice rang out clearly in her mind. Familiar. Strong. She shook her head. Don't. Please don't. I can't do this. Hot tears poured down her cheeks. She choked on sobs and couldn’t breathe for a second.
Remiel began again.
The whip cracked.
His blue eyes held hers. "What if..."
Crack!
I can’t watch. But she couldn’t turn away either. Not while Remiel was looking at her.
Crack!
Remiel hardly resembled himself anymore. His flesh hung in ribbons, exposing his ribs, stark white bone against a backdrop of deep red.
Crack!
Crack!
"What if... I died... for you."
No! No! Remiel, no! She couldn’t tear her wrists from the wall and run to him. She couldn’t scream his name. I can't watch you die. This is all my fault. If only I had listened to you and Aliah about the pendants. She hung there, dangling from the wall, limp and useless.
Remiel lifted his head, slowly. In the midst of a mass of bloody, pulpy-flesh was a flash of blue. Remiel’s one good eye cut to Samael who breathed heavily, his face wet with sweat.
"I never wrote those Laws, Remiel, but I imagine there have been several of them broken here today."
Remiel's eye rolled back in his head and Shai saw his throat move as he tried to swallow. He looked at Shai again. "Not true."
Remiel’s eye then moved to Zev, shuddering against the wall near her. Then he looked at each of the two guards in the room and shook his head almost imperceptibly.
"There are… no more... infractions."
Samael snorted and pulled on the leathery length of whip.
Remiel shook his head again. "Where no Laws exist... no infractions.... can occur."
"Nice try, Remiel. Your deal is about the pendants. The Laws exist because the Book exists." He raised the whip over his head.
"No more… Laws. It is... finished."
Crack!
Remiel's head fell to one side, his mouth hung open, but the light of life still gleamed in his eye.
The room fell silent except for Samael's breathing and Shai's chain rattling, as deep, shuddering cries shook her body. Noiseless cries that hurt every part of her.
She locked eyes with Remiel. And his voice filled her from the inside out.
"What if...if I told you…I love you?" He blinked his good eye slowly.
Once.
Twice.
Then he sighed and the light in his blue eye went out.
CHAPTER 72
Shai
The Kentites called Shai’s cross-over from death the awakening. The only wound she carried back to Kent from Gershom was an invisible one. At night the pain threatened to suffocate her and during the day it enveloped her in an ever-present darkness. Deeper than any pain she'd ever known, she wore it close to her heart: the love of two brothers who died protecting her and the shame of her own unworthiness.
Sector Seven felt like a hole, dark and empty without Aliah or Remiel. When Shai had finally recovered enough to be led out to the Core, she was swarmed by concerned citizens asking her about the awakening. She was the only one to have crossed over to Gershom and come back alive since the War.
But she couldn't say much. Couldn’t talk about what it was like. She wanted to keep it to herself, just for a little while, until the blinding pain of her loss had diminished. If it ever did.
The effects of the pendant had completely faded by the third day of her awakening. The memories she saw on the wall in Gershom stayed with her, but they remained distant like they belonged to someone else.
She stood against the railing and watched the waterwheel turn the swirling, white water below. She was glad the water didn't remain calm long enough for her to catch her reflection. It was enough that she saw her long, drawn face and sad mouth reflected in the eyes of the people that cared about her.
Mara asked her daily how she was doing. The older woman had become like a mother to her, almost as close as Eliana was. She had stayed with Shai during her struggle with Death, mopping her brow and forcing drops of water between her swollen lips.
The twenty-one children from Lael had settled in with their adoptive families and Shai enjoyed hearing their laughter echoing in the corridors. The grey had disappeared from the Laelites and their original heritage started to become clear in the colors of their eyes: blue, brown, hazel, and various shades of green.
The children born to Kentite parents in the Camps had been branded with the single flame. Some sported it on their chests, others the backs of their hands or even their foreheads, taking pride in their identities after being lost for so long.
"Shai?" A familiar voice behind her made her turn. She smiled at Mara and bit her lip like she always did when the gentle woman turned her soft green eyes on Shai. It was in them that she saw Aliah. She hadn't been able to bring herself to see Elchai yet, whose blue eyes and steady smile reminded her most of Remiel.
Mara carried a bundle wrapped in a fuzzy, blue blanket and the tiny noises coming from it gave Shai a stab of joy.
"Do you want to see him?" Mara held the infant out to Shai who took him gently, hesitating slightly to look into his little face. His tiny fist was shoved into hi
s mouth and he made slurping noises as he tried to suck on it. He looked up at Shai with his blue eyes and she kissed his forehead.
Mara watched, smiling. "His name is Jachin." Mara said softly, tears shining in her eyes. "Ellersly named him. He's Sileas's baby brother."
Shai looked down at the baby and her tears fell on his cheek. She held him close to her.
"He's a Kentite then?"
Mara nodded then touched Shai's arm. "Today's his branding day. Do you want to take him to Elchai for it?"
Shai's heart squeezed. She shook her head. "I'm... I'm not ready." She handed Jachin back to Mara. "I can't stay here, Mara. Everywhere I turn I see... your boys. I need to find Eliana. I know she's alive out there, somewhere. And I need to go to the Camps and back to Lael. Now that I know about the pendants I want to rip them off people if I have to."
Mara smiled. "It won’t work like that. They need to choose just like you did. All you can do is tell them. Let them know what happened in Gershom, what you saw there. If they choose to believe you then they will gladly remove the pendants, but it’s still up to them to decide. You can’t force them."
Shai twisted the hem of her long blue shirt. "You're right. I'm going to go pack."
"Right now? You've only been on your feet for three days. Rest a few more days before you make that journey. The pendants won't have the same power as they used to, especially now that the Book isn’t in Lael. There is no more record of infractions. You have time. Say good-bye to Ellersly. He'll never forgive you if you leave without seeing him."
"When is he back?"
Mara looked down at the baby sleeping peacefully in her arms. When she looked up at Shai again her face was open, eyes clear. She'd been able to grieve her sons' deaths without falling apart every other minute. Something Shai hadn't mastered.
"He left the day of your awakening. He said if he hasn't found Aliah's body by the fourth day then he'd return. He could be gone a few more days yet."
"And Kael?"
Mara shrugged. "No one's seen him."
"Mara! Shai!" Raucous shouting followed by the sound of running, echoed through the cavernous Core. The two women turned to see a red-faced Ellersly running towards them waving something in the air.