Ikaika sucked in a breath. His eyes kept darting toward the ali’i, and Keko gestured for Chief to come out of the shadows.
“I can give you back your fire,” Keko said, beckoning Chief even closer, “but you will be marked. As the ali’i is.”
Ikaika gaped in horror at the handprint, and then in clear shock at the face of the man who wore it. “What then? Will I be sent to the Common House?”
Chief replied quickly. “No. I’ll think of something to explain the mark, but in the meantime, you have to hide it.”
Keko could not think about honesty or shame or pride or worthiness just then. Those were for Chief to weigh and live with, and if he could roll over and sleep soundly at night knowing he was covering up something he would have easily used against any other Chimeran just a year ago, then that was his issue. He would never admit to the weakness himself, and she chose to be grateful that it meant she would not be called out as Queen.
She just wanted to make her people whole again. It was not about the power. Not anymore. She was not marking her subjects or declaring herself above them. She was giving back what was rightfully theirs.
“Do it.” Ikaika stomped to Keko, looking every bit the fierce warrior he’d proven himself to be. “Do it now.”
He grabbed Keko’s arm and slapped it to his bare chest, just below the band of white beads around his neck. The Source fire responded immediately, blue-white flame surging from her body to his. Only this man did not fall to his knees as Chief had done. Ikaika remained standing, fists balled tightly at his sides, veins and sweat popping out all over his body. His head dropped forward and his jaw shook, but he never faltered. Not even when it was finished and Keko fell back.
Bane came free from the granite stance he’d assumed in the corner, stalked across the room, and grabbed Ikaika’s shoulders, forcing him to look up. The two men stared at one another, Bane’s fingers digging into the slick brown skin where Ikaika’s tattooed shoulder sloped up to his neck. Then Bane softened, leaning forward. Their foreheads and noses touched in a delicate honi—the sharing of each other’s breath and well-being. The exchange of life.
When they exhaled, a flicker of flame escaped each of their lips, mingling in midair, and then their mouths came together. Brief, but full of passion.
Chief turned away, but Keko could not. She’d never seen such naked emotion in her brother, had never known him—or any Chimeran, really—capable of such stirring intensity. And that had always included herself.
Until she’d met Griffin.
It was Ikaika who stepped back first, even though Bane did not seem to want to let him go. Ikaika looked to Keko with such awestruck gratefulness that she could not help but smile in return.
“Bring me the others,” Keko ordered Bane gently, before Ikaika could name her Queen. “One by one.”
• • •
Twenty-two afflicted Chimerans. Twenty-two of her people—from all status levels and born into every major family—walked shaking into the ali’i’s home believing their ultimate secret had been exposed and that they were being delivered to him for punishment. Twenty-two made their choice. And all twenty-two Chimerans stumbled away from Chief’s house bearing the handprint of their cure beneath a shirt.
She had not allowed one of them to call her Queen, though she’d seen the name shining in their eyes and dancing in the restored fire on their tongues.
Bright sunlight now lit up the scraggly garden out back. She’d been channeling the Source all night without sleep or pause, yet she’d never felt more awake, more alive.
Movement out in the garden, and she realized it was Griffin sitting on the crooked steps of the terrace. He leaned back on his hands, stretching his neck, then cracking his back. The small burn mark on his temple, the one she’d given him during Nem’s first attack, drew her attention. The sight of it made her heart twist. Such a tiny thing, but it was a reminder of all that he’d done for her and her people—and what he’d given up for his own. Like the handprints, he would wear her mark forever. The cuts and bruises from their cliffside brawl and the battle with Nem would fade, but that burn would remain.
She exited the house, the sound of the door opening bringing Griffin to his feet. As she approached him, she marveled at how every time she thought she looked upon a beautiful god in human form, he managed to somehow look even better the next time she laid eyes on him. Even now, when he was as dirty and ragged as she.
He held his breath as she went up to him.
“Will you come with me?” she asked.
He smiled. “Always.”
She skirted around the morning meadow that was filling with Chimeran warriors preparing for their drills, a shouting Bane and a shirted Ikaika at the front.
She brought Griffin to her hidden spot high up on the cliff, the one that had views of the valley and the ocean. The place where she’d incinerated his coat when she believed herself cured of his presence in her mind and heart. Who had she been kidding? Even back then?
He climbed without complaint, though he must have been exhausted. There was no place else to take him, however, since she could not bring him to the Common House in broad daylight, and she had no other home. If she’d demanded Bane vacate her old house he would have done so, but that would draw unwanted attention.
“Griffin.” She turned to him, a million things to say on her tongue, but the two words that mattered most came out. “Thank you.”
Then he was on her. Pushing her against a rock.
Touching her.
She tried to scramble out of his grip, to save him. The Source . . . who knew what it would do to him?
“It’s okay,” he whispered, his hands firmly wrapped around her arms, the hard length of his body pressing against hers. “I am water.”
And when he kissed her, she sensed his smile. His joy. His pride.
Inside she felt the Source reacting, trying to get out, flinging itself against her skin and coming up against a sparkling, formidable barrier in the man she never wanted to stop touching. Because she could touch him. Deep down she knew that she would never be able to touch another Chimeran man in this way again, but Griffin . . . he was water.
Her opposite. Her complement.
She kissed him back, eyes squeezed shut in near pain. Because they floated in a dream of a future she was sure they would never be able to have. He lead his people. They depended on him, and he would return to San Francisco with a slate wiped clean—all that he’d worked for, all that he’d promised the Ofarians, gone—thanks to what he’d done for her here. The amount of work ahead of him was astronomical. He could not be tethered to a Chimeran woman, not if he hoped to focus on strengthening future Ofarian generations.
And the Chimerans needed her. This was still her home, still her culture, and she could not simply walk away. Maybe she could not allow herself to be Queen, but she was still a cure, and the disease might strike again. Maybe that’s what the Queen had intended for her original quest all along: to discover the illness’s origin and eradicate it forever. That was a noble purpose and one Keko could easily dedicate herself to in this day and age.
She did not want to walk away from Griffin, but she just might have to.
The realization ripped a sob from her throat. She had not cried before when she believed he’d double-crossed her, but she did right then with his mouth on hers, the tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. She cried for what she’d learned and discovered and unearthed inside herself. She cried because she chose to believe that he really did love her, even though he had not spoken it.