The rustling intensified. Whispers changed to questions, accusatory sentences, and dark looks.
Chief lifted both hands, calling for silence. “But he is not here because of what Kekona did wrong. He is not here because of what he did wrong.” When he drew a breath it was not Chimeran, but still one that shook and rattled in his chest. “He is here because of what I did wrong.”
Griffin gasped, but the sound of it was lost in the wave of confusion wrinkling the blanket of rapt devotion the chief had cast over the valley.
Chief shouted something in Chimeran, and his people went quiet and still, though it was no longer instant, the unrest lingering. They watched him intently. Griffin noticed Bane inching closer to the steps leading down to the meadow.
The chief’s fingers gripped the balustrade. He leaned heavily into his arms, his head bent—the first time Griffin had ever witnessed him not looking directly at his people. The whole valley seemed to be holding its breath, including Griffin and Ikaika, whose face had gone ashen with shock and worry. Would the chief actually—
“I lost my fire.”
He would. Oh great stars, he did. That resonant, authoritative voice, speaking the truth. At last.
“My fire died without reason or warning. I have been hiding it from all of you for a very long time.”
Griffin’s fists released at the same moment the Chimerans erupted again. This time the burst of sound was decidedly less joyous than the earlier greeting, one made of fear and panic instead. Some Chimerans tried to push closer to the house, but Bane hopped down the steps and positioned himself at their base, the glare of the general warning everyone off. The outraged voices did not quiet.
The chief finally lifted his head. Finally took in the extent of the disruption he’d caused. The buzz gradually faded as the people stared at him. And then, before everyone, he drew a true Chimeran breath and set a line of red-gold flame scorching above his people’s heads.
Some shrank back, as though they weren’t made of fire themselves. Some cried out in shock, others in a reaction that seemed to come less from the fear of death than the fear of oppression. But everyone watched the chief in utter puzzlement.
“As you can see, the fire has been returned to me. That is why I have gathered all of you here this morning. And that is why Griffin Aames has come to Hawaii. Because Kekona discovered my secret and risked her life to find a cure. Griffin thought she would die in her quest and came here to stop her out of worry, but he ended up helping her instead.” Chief lifted his voice even higher. “Kekona Kalani has found the Fire Source. She has used it to heal me, and I willingly bear her mark as proof.”
Chief wrapped his fingers around the collar of his shirt and ripped it open. Buttons flying, light blue fabric fluttering in the island breeze, he stood bare-chested before every Chimeran on the Big Island.
Keko’s handprint stood out black and stark for all to see.
Chaos flared on the meadow. Surges of Chimerans rushed for the terrace. Bane stood with massive legs spread, arms up and out to ward off the mob. Ikaika came to his side, standing shoulder to shoulder, prepared to help. The people were terribly confused, unsure whether they had the right to break through the general and one of his top warriors, or whether the chief’s revelation over his ultimate weakness made the military order of things null and void.
Griffin could feel the sense of betrayal poison the air that had so recently been plump with pride, and such a sudden shift made him scared for too many lives on that field.
Chief released the grip on his shirt and let the wind flap it away to a leaf-strewn corner. With one hand he yanked off the Queen’s lava rock necklace and held it in a tight fist, the black stone dangling over the heads of the angry crowd. “I abdicate!” he screamed.
Bane’s head wrenched around to look at the chief. Griffin jumped down the steps two at a time to take the other side of the general, holding back the crowd who demanded answers by shouting Keko’s name.
“I abdicate!” Chief thundered. “Be calm!”
Even in the melee, the chief’s words carried. They took several minutes to sink in as they were relayed back through the crowd. A few more minutes passed before the Chimerans actually did calm, the waves of people gradually settling down like the sea after a storm. The storm clouds lingered, however, as all eyes again shifted to the terrace where the chief looked down upon them.
All Griffin could see was Keko’s handprint, and he knew he wasn’t alone.
“You’re saying that Kekona Kalani has touched the Source?” a woman somewhere off to the left cried out.
Chief dropped his arm, the lava rock hitting his leg, though he didn’t let it go. “Yes. She has.”
A new murmur traveled through the Chimeran crowd, this one filled with wonder and positivity. So similar to the reaction Keko had received from Bane and Ikaika and every other one of the Chimerans she’d cured—the reaction she’d shut down and refused to acknowledge for the sake of keeping their secret.
“Where is she?” another voice called out. And then another. And another. Because of course no one would have realized before that she—a disgraced untouchable—was not among them.
“She is . . .” Chief gathered himself. “She has left the valley.”
Someone else, someone daring, cried out, “How can we believe you, if she’s not here?”
Griffin’s throat dried up. He wondered what the chief would tell them, if he’d tell the truth about agreeing to give up Keko to the Children.
Chief abandoned looking at his people and instead turned his head to find Griffin. The Chimeran opened his mouth, his chest expanding. Griffin thought he might be reaching for his fire—and by the depth of the breath, perhaps all his fire—but instead only sound came out.
A single name—an intense plea in the deepest bass register—reverberated across the valley: “Aya!”
The Chimerans glanced at each other in confusion, having no context or knowledge of that name.
But Griffin gasped, the pump of his blood stopping completely, then slamming back into motion so fast he went light-headed. Hope and trepidation and disappointment and love filled his being.
Way out in the grass, past the very last line of fire elementals, came a rumble—a distinct rumble he knew came from within the earth. That sound and this feeling inside him had always preceded an attack. Or devastating heartache.
Griffin peeled away from Bane and bounced back up the steps, skidding to a halt next to the chief again. He whirled around to face the sea of Chimerans and stared far into the distance, over their heads, to where a flat patch of field churned as though being dug up from underneath.
One by one, the whole Chimeran clan responded to the strange noise and vibration, turning around to watch. They fanned out, warriors jogging toward the scene, fire flowing to their fingertips in preparation for the unknown.
“Please,” the chief called, but no one seemed to hear him except Griffin.
To the soundtrack of Chimeran exclamations, Aya’s compact human body morphed from the rising mound of rock, dirt, and grass. She made no threatening gestures and did not speak, and when the Chimerans realized that she was one small woman against thousands of fire-wielding warriors, they started to settle. Their sounds of fear switched to those of surprise and awe, for it was clear no one had ever seen an earth elemental.
And then Keko appeared behind Aya.