Reign the Earth (The Elementae #1)(64)

I ran to him, hugging him tight. “Rian!” I yelped softly. “I thought it was Kata who sent the note.”

“It was,” he told me. “I just wanted to come with her.” His arms pulled tighter on me. “I heard about the communes. You could have been killed. You know that wasn’t the Resistance, don’t you?”

“I know. I heard they were pirate traders. And I’m safe,” I assured him, hugging him back. “It is so good to see you. But my guards are right outside. What if they catch you?”

“We’re safe in here,” he told me.

“How do you know?”

He grinned. “This isn’t my first time in the garden, Shy.”

I stepped back from him. “Who else do you meet in here? Where is Kata?”

He lifted a shoulder, glancing around. “She’s coming. I have an informant in the castle.”

“Who?”

His head tilted. “Come now, you know I can’t tell you that. It’s important the king never suspects you know as much as you do.”

“Did Kairos tell you about the Summer Palace?” I asked.

His face turned grim. “Yes. I’ll find out if he’s still experimenting on people. I can only imagine how frightening that was for you, Shy, but you know he kills these people, yes? Sometimes with a farce of a trial. Sometimes it’s towns taking justice into their own hands and burning people, or hanging them.”

I looked at my hands. “He wants everyone to hate Elementae as much as he does.”

He sighed. “Is Kata right? You’re an Elementa?”

I raised my eyes. My oldest brother, my hidden ally in this hostile place. I nodded slowly.

“Skies, Shalia,” he breathed, rubbing his forehead. “We need to get you out of there. We have an opportunity while he’s away.”

Hope fluttered up in my chest, but it didn’t last. “Rian, I can’t. I can’t leave. He’ll come for me—he’ll come to the desert and make our family pay.”

He stood from the bench. “You can’t stay. He will murder you, Shy. He’ll make a spectacle of your death.”

“I can control it,” I told him. “There’s a reason I have this power. I know that now. I’ll practice. I won’t let it get out of control.”

“To hide it for the rest of your life?” he said bitterly. “This power is incredible. In other countries it’s worshiped. You want to pretend that it doesn’t exist while you have a family with him? You want to teach your children to hate what you truly are? What Kata is?”

“No,” I said, standing too. “My children will not learn his kind of hate.”

“How can you prevent it?” he said. “Unless you stand against him.”

I shut my eyes. “It is so easy for you to say, Rian. You weren’t there when Torrin came back to be burned in the sands. You didn’t have to see the cost of rebellion and war. You weren’t there when Calix ordered more men dead because you stole his coin.”

“And you weren’t there when he started all of this, when he killed Kata’s people, and he would have killed her and me both if she hadn’t stopped him.”

I drew in a breath. “No. I wasn’t there. But why were you, Rian?”

“To help!” he said. “The Vis sent word to the desert for aid. And I took our men and answered the call.”

I drew a breath. I didn’t believe that Rian had somehow transgressed with Kata’s sister, did I? “What about Amandana?” I asked.

His head tilted, surprised, but he didn’t look ashamed or angry. “Amandana? Kata’s sister?”

“Calix said he was supposed to marry her, but he saw you with her instead. That she betrayed him.”

He frowned, shaking his head. “Amandana?” he repeated. “She and I were friends, in a way. She and I were together before the battle, but not … not in the way you’re suggesting, little sister. I don’t know what he saw, but she didn’t betray him with me.”

Was that true? Did Calix wage a war on misinformation, or would we never truly know about those days?

With a heavy sigh, I rubbed my forehead. “Rian, I’m worried you are blind to the price that everyone else around you is paying. There are innocent lives being lost in your Resistance.”

His eyes were heavy as he looked at me. “No, I’m not blind to that, little sister.”

“Then stop. Give up the Resistance. Let me work for peace.”

“First, it isn’t mine to give up. Perhaps some see me as the figurehead, but I’m not the leader of the Resistance, Shy. And second, how?” he said gently. “With women working in mills? By asking him to stop torturing a few prisoners? There are hundreds being killed. There are thousands of slaves. And now his hate is spreading, and those suspected of having powers are being killed like animals.”

I shuddered, remembering how Calix refused to call the Elementae people. Remembering how quickly his heart turned from Amandana.

“You’re not talking about peace. You’re talking about ducking your head in the sand, and if you don’t see it, it doesn’t exist,” Rian continued.

“I chose this,” I told him hotly. “So that others wouldn’t die in my stead. I’m not leaving.”