That’s what happened, after all, when a people cut themselves off from the modern world.
Chief usually drank a glass of fresh fruit juice on his upper terrace in the evenings, watching the practice of the warriors he commanded. That’s where he would be now, and when he came downstairs after the sun had set, she would surprise him. And she would make her final argument.
As she crossed the garden, Bane’s voice echoed throughout the valley, guiding his warriors in a new series of exercises that practiced fighting at night. She blocked out the sounds as best she could as she padded along the narrow patio toward the back door. Inside, Chief ambled out of the kitchen and made his way to the sitting room on the other side of the glass door from Keko.
She frowned. Chief was a creature of habit and embraced rituals, so for him not to be up on the front balcony, fruit juice in hand, watching and nodding down at his warriors, made Keko’s skin prickle with a chill. Enough that she had to tap into her inner fire and crank it up.
Her uncle, her father’s brother, was somewhere in his sixth decade of living but looked only in his fourth. A little softer now but still strong. An imposing figure worthy of his title and too beloved to have been challenged for his position in all his years. That love and respect had kept her from challenging him, too, and now she stewed with regret.
Keko had been planning on it, however, and Chief had known her challenge was imminent. They’d even discussed it, because when he eventually accepted the challenge and she beat him—because she would have—it meant he was endorsing her as ali’i.
That would never happen now. There was only her name and her dignity to earn back.
Inside, an empty-handed Chief shuffled toward the burgundy couch with the hardened, dipped cushions. Something in the way he moved kept Keko riveted to her spot just outside the back door. She crouched, watching through the glass, her movements nothing but a whisper.
The faint light coming from the kitchen just barely illuminated Chief as he went to the wobbly end table. He paused with his hand on the knob of the single drawer, then slowly opened it. He took something out, but with his back to Keko she couldn’t see what it was. Then he turned around and the shape of it was unmistakable: a tapered candle.
Chief drew a deep breath—the breath of a Chimeran, the one that used the oxygen from the atmosphere to stoke their fire magic inside, the one that expanded their special ribs. It was odd, though, because the depth of a breath indicated the level of magic you wanted to conjure, and you didn’t need to take that deep of a breath to create the small flame needed to light a candle. Yet Chief’s chest expanded like he was calling forth a great inferno needed at the height of battle.
His lips parted. His chest deflated. The magic escaped his body.
And no flame came out.
Not a single spark. Not even a curl of smoke. Nothing.
The mighty Chimeran ali’i stumbled backward as though struck. His calves hit the couch and he collapsed onto it, his normally erect and powerful body a boneless mass. His chest, empty of magic and fire, heaved. He lifted the candle to eye level and stared at the wick as though willing it to light with his mind. Then he bent at the waist and shoved a hand underneath the couch cushions, removing something hidden. Keko couldn’t tell what it was until a tiny burst of hot, gold light briefly illuminated the room.
A match. There were matches in the Chimeran ali’i’s house.
Keko couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. The earth could have opened up behind her and she wouldn’t have known.
Chief touched the match to the candle, and the newly lit wick threw his distressed, hopeless, and fearful expression into terrifying focus.
Still crouching, still in a daze, Keko lost her balance. Her body tilted forward before she realized it, and her hand shot out, catching the door. The latch was faulty and the door creaked open. Only an inch or so, but enough for the sound to slice through the silent house.
Chief’s head snapped up. The matchbook disappeared behind his back. He jumped to his feet.
Keko rose, too. She pushed the door open wide and ventured into the cool interior, lit by the dancing flame of the single candle. Another rare wave of goose bumps rolled across her skin, but this time she couldn’t find the focus to reach for her fire and erase them.
The door clicked shut behind her. Chief was struggling to breathe, the sound ragged and nervous.
“Uncle?”
“Kekona.” His hand shook and the candle flame jumped. He turned to set the taper into a holder on the end table, and the table’s uneven legs rattled on the tile floor. When he faced her again, she barely recognized him. Such terror deepened the creases along his forehead and strained the lines around his mouth. He seemed pale, the silver along his temples pronounced.
She advanced slowly into the room. “You have no fire.”
He took a step back. Never had she seen him retreat. Not when facing a warrior, and certainly never when confronted by one of the disgraced.
“What happened to your fire?” She heard the rise in her voice, the demand, but did not try to rein it in.
His panicked eyes flicked to the door at her back.
“I came alone,” she said. That made him even more apprehensive and it empowered her to move closer. “In the name of the Queen, what’s going on? What happened to your fire?”
He licked his lips, and a single whispered word dropped pitifully from them. “Gone.”
“Gone.” The word reverberated inside her. She would mark his claim as impossible if she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes.
“It’s still inside.” His voice came out stressed and thin, and she barely recognized it. “I can feel it, but I can’t reach it. Can’t call it out. It doesn’t listen to me.” He touched the candle flame and it danced on his fingers like it should, then he blew it out. “But I can still manipulate it.”
A great wave of realization crashed into her. “When? For how long?” When he didn’t answer she lifted her voice to the level she used to use as general. “Was it gone when you denounced me for inciting a false war in front of the whole clan?” Still no answer. “Was it gone when you sent me down to the Common House and made Bane general?”
He held up a hand, but the gesture was weak. “The day . . .” his voice cracked and he cleared his throat to get it back. “The day Cat Heddig came here and exposed your affair with that Ofarian was the last day I used it. The last day . . .”
Two months ago. And all this time he’d been commanding the Chimerans. Pretending that he was still the most powerful one of them, still the most respectable. Playing the hypocrite as he stripped her of title and pride.
“Did you know something was wrong then? That something was happening to you?”
“Yes.”
Keko whirled, snatching a vase holding a mostly dead flower from a nearby table. She hurled the vase against the wall, just to the right of the ali’i’s head. It exploded into a million pieces, water shooting across the plaster. The acrid odor of decay plumed around them. Chief didn’t budge, didn’t even flinch.
“How have you hid this?” Her throat stung with the volume. “How?”
He swung the matchbook around from where he’d been hiding it behind his body, looked at it for a moment, then tossed it to the couch. “I’m not the only one.”
Keko blinked. “What?”
“I mean”—and the harsh, slow tones of the ali’i returned—“that I am not alone. There are other Chimerans like me. Others whose fire has died.”
She glanced at the matches, thinking that some other Chimeran would have had to have smuggled them into the valley. Someone else had to have known about the ali’i.