The Kiss of Deception (The Remnant Chronicles #1) - Mary E. Pearson Page 0,60

hope of joy in her eyes. My throat swelled. This was a journey neither of us could have imagined.

I smiled and wiped my cheeks. “There’s something I need to show you,” I said. I put the basket between us and moved aside the napkin, pulling out a fat roll of Morrighan notes—a morsel that was supposed to tide me over for some time to come. My brother would understand. “Walther brought this. It was Mikael’s. He said Mikael left a letter saying it was for you if anything should happen to him.” Pauline reached out and touched the thick roll. “So much from a first-year sentry?”

“He managed his purse well,” I said, knowing any good trait assigned to Mikael would be easily accepted by Pauline.

She sighed, and a sad smile lined her eyes. “That was Mikael. This will help.”

I reached out and held her hand. “We’ll all help, Pauline. Berdi, Gwyneth, and I, we’ll all be here for—”

“Do they know?” she asked.

I shook my head. “Not yet.”

But we both knew, either time would tell them or Pauline would. Some truths refused to be hidden.

Tell me again, Ama. About the warmth. Before.

The warmth came, child, from where I don’t know.

My father commanded, and it was there.

Was your father a god?

Was he a god? It seemed so.

He looked like a man.

But he was strong beyond reason,

Knowledgeable beyond possible,

Fearless beyond mortal,

Powerful as a—

Let me tell you the story, child, the story of my father.

Once upon a time, there was a man as great as the gods.…

But even the great can tremble with fear.

Even the great can fall.

—The Last Testaments of Gaudrel

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

A pink sugar haze glazed the sky, and the sun began its climb over the mountain. Either side of the road was crowded twenty deep with everyone in Terravin waiting to be led in the procession that would hail the beginning of the holy days. A reverent hum ruffled through the crowd, holiness incarnate, as if the gods stood among us. Maybe they did.

The Festival of Deliverance had begun. In the middle of the road, waiting to lead the crowds, were dozens of women and girls, old and young, hand in hand, dressed in rags.

Every First Daughter of Terravin.

Berdi and Pauline were among them.

It was the same procession my mother had led in Civica—that she would lead there today. The same procession that I had walked in just steps behind my mother because we were the kingdom’s First Daughters, blessed even above the others, holding within us the strongest gift of all.

The same procession, sometimes immense, sometimes attended only by a handful of the faithful, was taking place in towns, hamlets, and villages all over Morrighan. I scanned the faces of the First Daughters lining up, the expectant, the confident, the curious, the resigned—some supposing themselves to have the gift, others knowing they didn’t, some still hoping it might come, but most taking their places in the middle of the road simply because they knew no other way. It was tradition.

The priests made a last call for any other First Daughters to join the rest. Gwyneth stood wedged beside me in the crowd. I heard her sigh. I shook my head.

And then the singing began.

Morrighan’s song rose and fell in gentle humble notes, a plea to the gods for guidance, a chorus of gratitude for their clemency.

We all fell in step behind them, dressed in our own rags, our stomachs rumbling because it was a day of fasting, and we made our way to the Sacrista for holy sacraments, thanksgiving, and prayer.

I thought Rafe and Kaden hadn’t come. Since it was a day of fasting, Berdi hadn’t put out morning fare, and neither of them had stirred from the loft this morning, but just before we reached the Sacrista, I spotted them both in the crowd. So did Gwyneth. Heads were bowed, voices only lifted in song, but she sidled close and whispered, “They’re here,” as if their presence was as miraculous as the gods leading the Remnant from destruction. Maybe it was.

Suddenly Gwyneth surged ahead until she was in step with little Simone and her parents. Simone’s mother’s hair was a sprinkling of salt and pepper, and her father’s was snowy white, both old to be parents of such a young child, but sometimes heaven brought unexpected gifts. Holding Simone’s hand, the woman nodded acknowledgment over her head to Gwyneth, and they all walked together. I noted that even little Simone, always so impeccably dressed when I had seen her on