Chapter 21
W as the poison finally taking me? The sky seemed to have strange red streaks in it, the earth tilting at such a dizzying whirl that I had to close my eyes tightly.
“I love you,” my brother said, and I felt his heartbeat against my cheek as we sat in the back of their truck together, bouncing over the rough paths to the center of the settlement.
Erratic, panicked, his heart pounding out his love for me, as it always had.
“I love you too,” I said.
“ Please ,” Rhyder was begging before we had even reached where they waited for us.
Although he had carried me so far, he barely seemed winded.
“She was bitten,” he said. “Can you help her? Please . I’ll do anything. Blind me. Enslave me. Only heal my sister.”
I felt Rhyder look up at Ronan and then the Prophet was moving, calling for his Helpmeet.
There was a ringing in my ears and my arm still burned. It was up past my elbow now, pouring into my shoulder.
Soon it would reach my heart. . .
My eyelids fluttered and I lost consciousness.
When I came back it was to pain.
“Hold her down!” Obedience ordered sharply, and I felt my brother’s iron grip tighten around my wrist, his other like a bar across my chest.
“If you love her, do not let her move,” she said.
Her knife seemed to be coated in something, a paste of some sort, forest-green and thick. Then she put it at the tip of my shoulder and drew the blade down my arm. It was white-hot burning agony and I screamed aloud and tried to thrash, my head whipping back and forth, the screams torn from my throat.
But Rhyder held me tightly against his chest, and Bee continued to break through my flesh.
“More,” she said, and then I saw Ronan move, his deft fingers bringing a little stone bowl forward, and covering the knife with the strange paste again.
Then she continued down, hitting my elbow as the tears streamed down my cheeks.
“I’m so sorry,” Rhyder said, his breath jagged and rough in my ear. “I’m so sorry.”
“Later,” Bee said, and she moved to my forearm as I gritted my teeth, and then finally to my wrist.
She pulled up the knife and looked at the wet blood that covered the blade, her own soft pink gown covered with bright, angry drops of it.
Then she reached over for the pot and carefully drew her fingers down the wound, and we waited, the settlement so quiet that I heard a distant flutter of birds, a disturbance somewhere.
“Clean,” she said, “The poison is out.”
“Good girl,” Ronan told her, his hard voice warm with praise for her, and Rhyder leaned his forehead on mine and cried.
*
“I ’M SO SORRY,” RHYDER said, his hard fingers stroking my cheek, and I was astonished as the world began to return and stop spinning, to hear his voice crack, his hand tighten on mine. “I’m so sorry I took you back there. You could have been killed, Temperance. And it would have been all my fault.”
“It’s all right,” I said, as Bee bent to give me a cup of what tasted like nettle tea.
“It’s not all right,” he said.
I looked over at him, the strange nakedness of his bare tanned throat, the leather strap now streaked with my blood instead of his relic.
“I am—so sorry about your Holy Relic,” I said.
“My relic is you , Temperance. You are the one who sustains me, blesses me.”
He rubbed his rough beard against my cheek and turned to Ronan and Bee.
“Thank you for saving her. My undying loyalty is to those who are good to my sister. So for you. . . Prophet, you have a traitor in your camp. Someone who is going to turn off the electric fence and bring an army on you unawares.”
“Elder Cenhelm is manning the gatehouse today,” Ronan said, his hand already on his hip, reaching for his weapon.
“That’s the one,” Rhyder said harshly, reaching for his knives. “He’s working with your enemies.”
“Shit,” Ronan said succinctly, then he whistled a series of low, rough notes and the Congregation began to move.
“How sure are you that this will work?” the Prophet asked Edmund.
“Pretty sure,” the younger man said.
“Be more sure,” Ronan replied, and then he whistled again as men began to run for weapons and women and children for shelter.
Before I could say a word, Ronan had come up behind Bee and she quickly grabbed onto me, tightening legs and arms around my body so I would be dragged along with her.
“Temperance?” Rhyder growled.
“It’s too much trouble to separate them,” Ronan barked. “She’ll be in the safest place in the Congregation. With my wife.”
We were thrust in Ronan and Bee’s neat house, warm and smelling like savory pies and sugar.
“Hurry,” she said. “We need clotheslines out so their Avenging Angels can’t get close.”
She grabbed spools of the strong clothesline, moving to the highest window then passing the clothesline to the next woman in the next home.
I looked in astonishment as their settlement began to be covered and criss-crossed with the simple but effective defense, the lines stretching from the tip of one house and window to another.
And then I saw movement in the distance, an army of men coming, the noisy drones whirring their deadly blades.
Bee and I moved to the front windows, and she began to spool out more lines as we watched.
“Prophet, these weapons are dangerous,” Rhyder warned, trying to step ahead of him. “You should take cover. Let me bear the risk.”
“If you’re going to be in this Congregation, you’re going to have to trust me,” Ronan said sharply. “I’m not asking for blind loyalty, asshole. Just trust me on this. Don’t move until I make the signal.”
There was a split second of hesitation, but Rhyder nodded his head.
As they approached, I saw Eli at the head, and he looked triumphant.
“Your time is up, Ronan, son of Jonas,” Eli called out. “Our Congregations are here to kill you and take your lands. You have been weighed and found wanting, Apostate. The Allfather is no longer with you here.”
The breath caught in my throat.
I knew what those drones could do, what I had seen them do, and my belly twisted to see Rhyder standing underneath their deadly power.
As always, my twin would be fearless and brave until the end.
Ronan raised his arms as the drones began to whir faster, their wings spinning with incredible speed, pointing their deadly missiles at his Congregation.
“The Allfather is with this Congregation. We will not fall,” he thundered.
I saw Eli with the handheld device controlling the drones in his hand and he readied the weapons to fire. Even though they were blocked from close combat by the clotheslines, the drones could still kill Ronan and Rhyder where they stood.
But just then I saw them start to wobble, spin crazily, tipping side to side.
And then under Eli’s astonished eyes, they began to fire. Toward his men, then sputter, their mechanics whirring fast, uncontrollably fast, overloading the delicate electronic circuits with a grinding, sickening sound.
Shit. Edmund had done it!
Ronan moved his arm. and I saw Rhyder charge forward, his deadly blades extended on either side of him, just that slight limp that was the only sign of his changed loyalties.
He didn’t play with Eli this time. Just knocked aside his weapon with a crunch like a mountain settling, then sliced both blades through his throat.
Bee clutched my hand and we watched them both wield their weapons with white-knuckled fear.
But Ronan’s Congregation came from all sides to trap the invaders, and they were all killed.
It was easy to pick out my brother’s big form as he cut his way through his former Congregation, his former allies.
Because his loyalty is to me
And to those who would hurt me, he is absolutely ruthless and inflexible.
A Holy Warrior, but I’m his temple .
When the battle was over, and the women were let out, Ronan was going through the bodies, kicking aside each corpse.
“I don’t see Cenhelm,” he said. “The coward must have run away. Probably gone to the cities.”
“Why did he turn?” Rhyder asked.
“I wouldn’t let him kill his wife,” Ronan answered harshly. “If you stay here, you’ll have to accept that I am an Apostate.”
Rhyder shrugged. “It is no sin to protect women. My wife would agree.”
I felt a tingling, joyous relief spread in my gut.
Ronan’s harsh mouth twisted up in a smile and he put an arm around Bee. “A Helpmeet is good,” he said. “All the time.”
“All the time, a Helpmeet is good,” Rhyder agreed.
And then the two blasphemers turned back to the corpses they had slaughtered.
“Praise to the Allfather,” Ronan called out, and his Congregation responded obediently.
For victory in battle
Praise to the Allfather
Each bloody corpse
His favor shows
“ And now,” Ronan added with a roar of triumph. “Take and seize what the Allfather gives you.”
And the men of the Congregation surged forward, heading past the boundary gates to swarm the lands of those who had challenged them.
*
A FEW DAYS LATER, MY arm was still throbbing, but it was a healing pain.
“Here,” Bee said, “I’ll show you which plants are good for healing.”
I looked down at the ground and saw a delicate little white flower struggling to push higher out of the hard cold ground. Even as I watched, it seemed to raise fluttering petals to the light.
Spring was coming.
“I love you,” Rhyder said. “I love you so much, Temperance.” One big, warm hand wrapped around the back of my neck, his fingers lightly stroking my skin. With the other hand he drew me closer, not stopping until I was flush against his body. Like he always wanted.
“I love you too,” I replied.
“Breeding season is almost here,” he added, his body curving around mine so I was cradled in his big arms. “The breeding heats are dangerous, but I will be here with you.”
“Yes,” Ronan said, and I turned my head briefly to see the Prophet put arms around his own Helpmeet. “The breeding heats are usually dangerous. But that is going to change. This season is going to be different. I’m starving, Bee. Any of that stew left?”
She laughed, throaty and rich, as she pulled him with her into their house.
I laughed too, surprising even myself with how light my heart felt and how my shoulders relaxed into Rhyder’s.
“Are you all right?” I asked. “This is a new Congregation, with new ways of doing things.”
“Sister, any Congregation mistreating you deserves to be burned with fire and sent into the pit of darkness,” he said. “I’m only sorry I didn’t see it sooner.”
“You saw it when you needed to,” I said, glancing down at the snake bite.
It would heal.
Rhyder put his arms around me, cradling me against his big chest, my body dwarfed in his massive arms. The End of the World Serpent on my arm shone, dark but jewel-bright.
And like the Serpent, I made my choice. I would remake the world, not break it.
“I love you,” I said, and I heard the rumble of his answer, the thread that knitted together my life, the pulsing undercurrent to every breath I took.
I love you , he sung back to me
All the time
I love you