The Coalition (Book 1)

Chapter 46

What died and rotted in my mouth? He coughed and spit into the dirt. His body ached like he'd spent the night sleeping on a bed of rocks. When his vision cleared he pushed himself up, his chest squeezed with panic.

Shai.

She was lying on the ground, her hair fanned out around her face, her eyes closed. He leaned over and rubbed his finger across her cheek. Warm. She breathed through slightly parted lips.

"She saved you." A voice behind him startled him. He scrambled to his knees and moved protectively closer to Shai. Remiel emerged from the trees carrying a load of sticks and dry moss. He knelt near a circle of rocks on the ground a few feet away and began to arrange the wood and moss into a little mound inside the rock ring. Aliah's insides quivered. Remiel's movements were peculiar. Deliberate. Almost like he was actually alive and not just a vision.

"What are you doing here, Remiel?"

Remiel's dark head stayed bent over his task. He rubbed a stick furiously against a piece of bark with a clump of moss on it.

"Aren't you glad I'm here?"

Aliah groaned. He'd always hated the way Remiel answered a question with a question.

"I mean, you appeared to me in Conley and now here. What are you doing?"

"You believe I appeared to you? I've always been here, Aliah. Watching the Watchers as they watch Lael. You just couldn't see me."

Remiel blew on the moss as it started to smoke before a small flame burst from it. He smiled and placed it inside his mound of sticks.

"Right. I saw you die, Remiel. That day on the bridge. I saw your body get washed away. If I didn't... kill you then why did I go through so much trouble to...cover it up?" Aliah hissed and glanced down at Shai. She seemed to still be asleep.

"Guilt." Remiel stood and moved nearer to Shai. "It makes you believe strange things." He put his hands under Shai's armpits. "Help me move her closer to the fire."

Aliah grabbed Shai's feet and they moved her to a spot near the fire. Remiel took Shai's bag which he must've retrieved from the tree branch, and placed it under her head. He tossed Aliah's bag to him.

"Then where have you been all this time?" Aliah licked his dry, cracked lips.

Remiel squatted near the fire. "I've been around. But mostly I've been with Elchai in Kent."

Aliah watched him poke the fire with a long stick before turning to rummage in his bag for his canteen. After a long swig of water he looked at Remiel again.

"Then what made you come back here?"

"Her." Remiel nodded in Shai's direction. "I had to save her, after she saved you."

Aliah stood across from Remiel watching as he coaxed the flames higher while Shai laid restlessly beside him, breathing in gulps of air. A pang of jealousy hit him. It wasn't Remiel's job to protect Shai.

"Why do you keep saying that? What do you mean Shai 'saved' me?"

"You don't remember?"

Aliah tossed his bag on the ground then collapsed beside it. "If I remembered I wouldn't be asking you, would I?" He rubbed his face with trembling hands.

"The Hunter had you, Aliah. Why do you think I told you to give up your pendant back in Conley when I saw you? I knew Samael would send his Hunter after you. That thing followed you here."