Drowning in Fire (41 page)

“She didn’t—” Griffin began.

Keko wouldn’t let him finish. She couldn’t allow him to sacrifice any more.

“The volcano was my doing,” Keko blurted, because it truly was, when it came down to it.

“There was a man,” Griffin growled, “a Son of Earth who attacked us twice and escaped through the earth both times. Did he tell you what happened on that island?”

Aya looked disturbed and mournful. “No. Nem never returned. We don’t believe he got away from the island before the volcano destroyed it. Not even a Child can survive something like that. He was . . .” She shook her head, trying to compose herself. “He wasn’t supposed to go after you, but something about him isn’t—wasn’t—right.”

“Am I being blamed for his death?” Keko asked.

The tension in Aya’s expression told her
yes
. Keko looked to the sky.

So the only two people alive who knew that Griffin had been the one to go down to the Source were standing right here. It was another secret she would make him carry. There was no way she would let him take the fall for her actions. There was no way she could allow herself to be more indebted to him than she already was.

A calm settled through her. Maybe this was what she’d known was coming when he’d kissed her. Maybe her mind had already realized her punishment and their separation were imminent, and it had to convince her heart that it must happen to protect them both.

This way, the Chimerans would never learn about the Queen’s treasure and the Source, and the afflicted’s secret would never get out. This was better, the only way.

Keko raised her hand, the one still rippling with the Source flame. She used it to tug aside the T-shirt so Aya could see what she bore, and part of the black fabric burned away before she willed the white fire to die. She pulled away from Griffin, away from his touch.

“A part of the Source is in me,” she told Aya. “I own the magic. And I will pay for it.”

Keko cast a long gaze over the valley, seeing each and every face of the Chimerans she’d healed. They had fire again. They could smile, and that brought her a profound sense of peace.

“I argued against death,” Aya said, “because you, Keko, changed me. Helped me to see the Aboveground world in a way I’d never imagined. I want you to know that you made me want to become human.”

Keko could not say anything for the shock, unaware she’d affected Aya in such a way. Unaware that the Children even had such a choice.

Griffin exhaled.

“But you disturbed something you should not have,” Aya went on, her face darkening, “and caused offense to the Earth. My people will not kill you, but you will serve us Within. Your magic will not work down there and there is no sun. It was the will of the Father, who rules us. I am truly sorry.”

Keko finally turned to face Griffin, and she was nearly knocked over by the fierce protest in his eyes and the terrible tension in the coil of his muscles. She saw everything on his face—their entire tumultuous history and the future that would never be. She saw it all, and couldn’t help but be grateful for ever having experienced and known him, for however brief a time.

“No,” he said. The single word of defiance came out harshly, though the look in his eyes was tender and soft. Then he reached out and yanked her to him, enveloping her in his arms. She had to concentrate very hard on keeping her fire under her control. When she went Within, she wouldn’t have to worry about that struggle anymore.

“Let me,” he whispered in her ear, low enough that Aya couldn’t hear. “Let me tell her the truth.”

Keko merely shook her head, her face against his neck. “Before you,” she said, just as softly, just for him, “I thought love a weakness. Before you, I thought only fire and fists mattered. I was wrong.”

She pushed away, and he reluctantly let her go. Though his hands were at his sides, she could still feel him reaching for her.

“I love you,” he said between gritted teeth, his eyes filling. And then again, “I love you.”

Those words—the ones she feared and longed to hear, finally spoken in his voice—painted themselves over her skin. She would never be able to wash them away, nor would she ever want to.

She touched Griffin’s face with great sadness and aching loss and all the love she’d been gathering and storing her whole life, awaiting the appearance of this man. She could not look upon those three years apart from him as a waste. Instead she chose to look on the time they were given as a blessing.

She kissed him, quick and chaste. “And I love your stars.”

With the reminder of his vow, his head dropped forward on his neck, his chest heaving. One hand came up to dig his thumb and forefinger into his eyes.

This was her time.

Keko turned to Aya. “It’s done.”

Without hesitation, Aya snatched her in arms made of skin and stone, and whipped Keko’s body around. The Source fire wanted to be let out, to fight, but Keko kept it in check. She would not oppose this.

Griffin’s head snapped up, his face a mask of terror and despair, his arms reaching for Keko, his feet grinding up dirt as he lunged. Keko saw her name on his lips but could not hear him for the roar in her ears.

Aya threw Keko against the rock, and she braced herself for impact, for pain. But there was none. There was only the vision of a hopeless Griffin charging after her, and a sickly, strange sensation of a hard world going spongy all around her.

Then all went black and silent as Aya took them both deep into the earth.

TWENTY-TWO

The rock bit and ripped at Griffin’s fingertips as he futilely tried to scrape his way Within. The blood didn’t matter, the pain was inconsequential. Aya had taken Keko into the earth because of Griffin’s actions, and nothing he could physically do would ever dig her out.

Something he could
say
might bring her back, might allow him to trade his life for hers, but she’d carefully reminded him of his vow and he was forced to hold true to his stars, as ever. Just as he would hold true to Keko, because in the end he believed wholeheartedly in what she’d done for her people, even though it felt like his soul had been buried along with her.

Great stars, she was gone. Inside this wall before him. Hidden. Taken.

She’d called him selfless. She’d told him she admired him, but she’d been the one to anonymously give such a gift to her people.

Her disappearance would likely be explained—and her whole existence therefore diminished—by Chief telling everyone that she’d thrown herself into the ocean. Keko had told Griffin back in Utah that in the eyes of Chimerans, dying purposely by water was the ultimate cowardice. And yet it was one she was willing to live with if it meant peace for innocents.

And
he
was the selfless one?

With a great bellow of anguish wrenched from the bottom of his diaphragm, he smashed a final fist into the rock. The shock of agony rippled up his arm. His body collapsed right there on the path, his back against Keko’s invisible prison door. He’d dislocated two fingers on his right hand, and with a grim numbness he popped them back into place.

He refused to do nothing. He refused to just allow this to happen. Once upon a time Griffin Aames had been the shadowy guy who lingered along the back wall and took orders. He’d had to either live with their consequences or watch, helpless, as the appalling results of his actions unfolded. No more.

He was no longer peripheral. He was the goddamn Ofarian leader and he believed in action when a purpose called to him. For the past five years that action had come through politics, but this could not be fixed through the Senatus. Magic would bring no solution. Neither would brute force or a personal plea to the Children.

Below, in the valley meadow, the Chimeran world came alive. A beautiful, intimidating chorus rose up. Hundreds of Chimerans chanted in sharp, harsh voices. Griffin got to his feet and peered over the tangle of lush, drooping greenery at what was laid out before him.

Row upon row of Chimeran warriors filled the meadow in perfect lines. Bane stood alone, front and center, facing his fierce men and women, leading them in the synchronized movements that were half dance, half challenge. Their brown skin gleamed in the new sunlight, their faces chilling masks of open lips and bared tongues. Timed with some unheard tune, they stomped their feet and slapped their arms and legs. Their deep warrior rallying cries echoed throughout the valley.

Even at this distance, Griffin saw Keko in every movement. He could see her standing in Bane’s place, her body strong and commanding, her voice imperious, her fire awe-inspiring. He saw everything Chimeran that she loved and fought for, all that she’d lost when she’d taken such a risk all those years ago and had given herself to him.

Kapu
. That was him to her. Forbidden. Taboo.

With a rousing shout, the warriors’ dance of intimidation ended. Bane roared something to them, the words lost to Griffin at this distance, and the warriors’ lines broke apart. They started to spar with one another, using arms and legs and fire. They possessed such tremendous fighting skill, using techniques he’d never seen and movements he appreciated.

The chief’s house loomed over it all.

When Cat Heddig had come here months earlier to beg for peace on Griffin’s behalf, she’d described the balcony on the second floor where the chief had watched his people train. That balcony was empty now. Chief—likely clothed and ashamed—hid in the confines of his walls.

His absence revealed to Griffin exactly what he must do to try to get Keko back.

He scrambled back down the steep slope into the thick foliage surrounding the meadow. If he could, he’d march right through those Chimeran lines, but he had to think of Keko, what she would want. What was best for her survival and rescue. Revealing his presence was not part of that.

He jogged over the uneven terrain his feet and legs were starting to become accustomed to, ducking under giant leaves and passing through clouds of fragrant blooms, until he came again to the back garden of the chief’s house. He stomped right across it—culture and diplomacy be damned—and threw open the glass door.

The chief still watched his warriors, but now from behind the small kitchen window. He whirled when Griffin came barreling through the door. For a brief moment, fear flashed across Chief’s face, but then the Chimeran seemed to remember he wielded his greatest weapon again, and his chest expanded ever so slightly. Griffin wasn’t scared.

He wore a shirt, the tips of Keko’s handprint peeking out from behind the top two open buttons.

“You are a coward,” Griffin said.

The worst name one could call a Chimeran. A tiny yellow spark lit the chief’s eyes, but he said nothing, because he knew he’d been called out.

Griffin advanced, the kitchen far too small for two men of such size. The chief retreated, his heel catching the cabinet below the sink. His gaze darted into the shadows of the house at Griffin’s back.

“Where’s Keko?” asked the chief.

Griffin sneered. “Do you care? Now that she’s given you everything you wanted?” Another step forward. “Your fire. Your power. Your leadership.”

The chief reached up and wrapped a protective hand around the Queen’s black rock that dangled around his neck. “I . . . I am grateful to her.”

“No, you’re not. You think she owed you this. After how she got involved with me. After the almost war. This all worked out so very well for you, didn’t it?”

Chief’s fingers tightened around the rock as if Griffin might snatch the stupid thing away.

“I came back here to tell you two things.”

“I don’t have to listen,” Chief said.

Griffin laughed. “True. You could leave, but I would follow, and then you’d have to explain to your people why an Ofarian is in the valley. Or you could call out to one of them right now to have me removed, but I get the feeling that neither Bane nor Ikaika would comply. And to any other warrior you’d have to explain my presence.”

Chief knew he was trapped. His hand released the rock.

“Point number one.” Griffin circled around closer to the counter near the ancient refrigerator. “I gave my word to Keko that I would never speak of this disease, and I intend to uphold it. So even though you think your secret is safe, that you can sit up here on your false throne with the majority of your people gazing up at you in ignorance,
I
know your shame. An Ofarian. And that shame does not lie with a sickness you had no control over, but the fact that you hid it from your own people while banishing others, and let a brave woman take your fall.”

“You don’t understand our culture.”

“No, I understand it very well. And I learned about it from someone who loves it far more than you.”

Chief’s hard glare shifted to barely veiled guilt, but it was still just a shade of the vulnerability he’d worn when Keko had placed her hand on him.

“My second point,” Griffin went on, “is that Keko could have easily become Queen. You know this. She knows this. But she wanted to protect innocents from the same kind of scorn you threw down upon her. It amazes me that you lump in people who were stricken with such a terrible thing along with someone who broke
kapu
and tried to start a war. Keko knew what she did was wrong and tried to help her people to make up for it, and you treated them exactly the same. You’re lucky, you’re so goddamn lucky, that she is as forgiving and noble as she is.”

Griffin hated the chief’s unwavering silence almost as much as he hated replaying the image of Keko disappearing into the earth.

“You were there,” Griffin said, “when Aya made the threats against Keko, about hunting her. About punishing her. You should know that Aya’s made good on those threats.”

The Chimeran’s body sagged. “What?”

“Aya came here and took Keko. Into the earth. So your dirty little secret is safe forever and you won’t ever have to worry about Keko becoming Queen. Though you may want to pray that the disease doesn’t come back. Hope you’re happy. And fuck you.”

Chief’s hands came to his hips and his head bowed low. “What do you want me to do?”