The Aperios (Children of the Sun Book 4)

Nira kept biting the inside of her lip. In fact, she’d done it so much now that it had gotten sore, but she couldn’t stop herself. She felt this urge to get more Eternal energy, and it was so hard to resist it when Yorin was around. Or even her father because he still had a tiny amount of it inside of him.

Nef kept watching her out of the corner of his eye, and he looked so damned worried about her. Somehow that just made her feel worse, though. She’s been thinking about it for a long time, and she’d realized that she hadn’t been treating Nef right for a while now. And yet he had still been willing to die for the second time back then just because he didn’t want to leave her, even though the only reason she wasn’t leaving was her being stubborn.

The fact that Nef wasn’t blaming her for this and was simply assuming that it had been Eternal powers messing with her head that had been the culprit wasn’t making it easier. She felt more guilty than if he openly blamed her. She would just have to find a way to make it up to him, she supposed.

They were currently sitting outside in the gardens behind the palace, the sun heating up the air enough for Nef not to complain about it being cold every few minutes. Not that Nira would mind beyond the fact that he would have been cold because she found it endearing and cute when he grumbled.

“I’m sorry for ignoring you,” Nira said when the silence had dragged on for what felt like hours. She knew it must have been only a few minutes, but that was still too long.

Nef looked confused for a second before he seemed to realize what she was talking about and waved his hand dismissively. “Oh yeah, no, don’t worry about it. I don’t blame ya.”

Nira sighed. He should. He should definitely blame her. That would make this easier to handle.

“Look, it was an insanely tough situation, and we somehow came out of it alive,” Nef said, grinning at her. It was really hard not to smile back, so Nira didn’t resist it. It probably looked at the very least awkward, and probably also pained, but Nef didn’t seem to mind. “I mean I died, but let’s not count that.”

Nira didn’t want to laugh at that. It had been horrible to witness. But when he laughed she couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle too.

“I don’t like how reminiscent this is of the last time we thought it was over.”

Nira nodded grimly.

“Still wanna go back to Enoria?”

That was a really good question. She wasn’t sure what she wanted. She still wanted to study astronomy. She still wanted to get her degree, but…. This whole thing had put things into perspective, and that perspective made it seem like none of this really mattered. But she couldn’t stay here and eventually take over the throne.

No matter what her father or Nef said, she didn’t think she would be a good leader. And even more, she didn’t want to be a leader. Maybe Kaleth was right and it was time for the monarchy to end. She didn’t really want to listen to a Garen talk about the state of Irithara, but her father seemed to agree with him.

Though her dad had a tendency to do that….

“I don’t know. I doubt we can get our apartment back.” Or all the things they’d left in it. Her telescope was definitely gone too now. She knew she could just get a new one, although it would take a lot of saving since they were expensive. But she still felt sadness at the idea. It had been very nostalgic at this point.

“Yeah, probably not. But we can get a new one, right?”

Nef was so good at switching right back to his carefree mood, even though Nira knew very well he wasn’t actually carefree. He had proved that much over the last few months. But he knew that what she needed right now was someone to lighten the mood. And what she’d always needed, she supposed.

“How much do you care about finishing college?”

With all the craziness that had happened, their university might not even argue with them about continuing their studies, but that wasn’t what Nira wanted to know right now.

“I could take it or leave it.” He shrugged, squeezing her hand. “Honestly, after fiddling with Yorin’s tech, I wanna do that instead.” He put on his usual cocky smile. Nira didn’t even realize how much she’d missed seeing it. “He kinda hinted at teaching me about it if I was interested, but you didn’t hear that from me.”

Nira snorted out a laugh, shaking her head as he winked.

“Why’d you ask?”

Nira sighed, shrugging. “I don’t know. I was thinking…. Maybe we could go somewhere. Get away from it all….”

She knew she was being selfish. Nef was probably more than fine staying in Enoria or wherever Yorin was going to be. But she didn’t want to go anywhere alone. She was completely paranoid that she would try to get her hands on more Eternal energy if there wasn’t someone to stop her.

“You want to take a gap year now?” he joked, grinning ear to ear. “You know people usually do that before starting college, right?”

Nira nudged him with her shoulder, smiling to herself. She had never thought to take anything like a gap year. The fact that she had gone to Enoria was more than enough excitement for her. And at the time, she’d thought she knew what she wanted to do with her life. She wasn’t so sure now.

“Not a year. Maybe just a few days. A week. Who knows?” Nira shook her head. “I just need….”

“To get away for a while, yeah. I get it.”

Nira smiled at him gratefully. It felt good that he understood, even if he maybe didn’t share her feelings.

“Actually, that doesn’t sound half bad. I never really went anywhere before now, and I wouldn’t call fighting immortal super people as tourism.”

Nira straight up laughed then. It sounded so absurd when talked about like this, but just yesterday, she had been capable of lifting incredible weight with just her mind. A part of her longed to have that strength again, but Nira promptly ignored it.

“So, where would you wanna go? I hear the southern coast of Enoria is nice this time of year.”

Nira laughed again. As if there was a time when Enoria wasn’t nice. She didn’t love the high temperatures, but she did like the ocean, and she’d never been down there before. She’d never really gone that far from Enbrant, despite having cars that would get them to the other side of Enoria within twenty-four hours.

Before she could reply, she noticed her father waving at her with a slightly awkward smile from the edge of the garden, close to the palace. He looked like he wanted to talk with her, but Nira was determined to finish her conversation with Nef.

At least until she noticed that her father wasn’t wearing his eyepatch anymore. How had she not noticed that immediately? It looked like he had his eye back, but Sylari had said that was impossible.

“You should probably talk to him. It looks important.” He looked very serious for Nef. “I’ll wait here and brainstorm some more locations.”

Nira nodded, giving Nef a quick kiss before getting up and making her way over to her father, incredibly curious about his eye. As she got closer, she noticed that it actually wasn’t entirely normal, and once she reached him she could clearly see why. It was mechanical.

The most obvious difference were the circular, metal bits around the iris and the pupil. It was a very good copy otherwise, if not perfect due to the blue-purple color being a bit too saturated to look natural.

But still. Her father had two eyes again.

Nira gaped at the new eyes while he grinned at her. “Did…. Did Yorin—”

“Yes,” he confirmed, still smiling warmly. It was strangely hypnotic how naturally the eye was moving along with its twin. The only thing that made Nira sort of sad was the fact that the new eye didn’t seem as alive somehow. Obviously it wouldn’t since it was a machine, but it still put Nira the tiniest bit off. But she’d get used to it, just like she got used to the eyepatch.

“Does it work? Can you see out of it?” Maybe Nef should join them after all. He’d geek out over this thing.

“Yes, I can see out of it.” Her father frowned and tilted his head. “And I think there is a heat vision mode, and possibly something else? I tried to tell Yorin I didn’t need it, but uh….” He looked very amused as he looked over at Nef. “Well, I suppose you would know how enthusiastic scientists are.”

Nira laughed quietly before it dawned on her that apparently her father liked Yorin, and she was not going to follow that thought any further for her own sake. She didn’t want her father to think she didn’t support whatever would make him happy, but it was a little too much to deal with for her still.

“Let’s sit down, hm?”

Nira let him lead her to another bench, one under a tall tree, but given the time of day, the bench was still in the sun. With how somber her father suddenly looked Nira was expecting the worst already as she sat down next to him.

Her father took in a deep breath before speaking. “What do you think we should do concerning the future of our country?”

Nira frowned. She’d expected him to tell her something, not ask. “Whatever is best for our people.”

Her father gave her a sad but proud smile, though Nira wasn’t sure she deserved that. It was the obvious answer, after all. All she’d wanted was to protect her people. She didn’t want to be Queen, and she certainly didn’t think she had what it took to lead a country like Irithara. Not to mention that she would have to leave Nef, or keep their relationship a secret because the people would never accept it.

“Do you think democracy is?”

That was the question, wasn’t it? But what else was there? There was no other heir to the throne other than her. Or maybe there was some distant relative she didn’t know about, who could lead their nation to ruin. It hadn’t been doing so well even before Enor came back, and a power hungry person on the throne was the last thing it needed.

“I never really thought about it because I never thought things would change,” her father continued, a sad frown on his face. “When I found out that Irif had always been in charge it really came together for me why nothing ever changed much. But now she’s dead.”

He sighed again, staring down at the ground. Then he let out a small, sad chuckle. “You know, whenever Kaleth and I would speak in private, he never failed to make comments about how badly monarchies in general functioned. I wanted to tell him why ours was like this, but he wouldn’t have believed me, I think.”

Hearing him talk about Kaleth with such fondness was producing mental images Nira didn’t want to ever enter her brain.

“I think it might be time to step down. There are a lot of people who have been protesting Irif for years and who understand politics. Who want to make this country better.”

He then looked up to look Nira directly in the eye. His artificial eye dimly glowed around the pupil, Nira now noticed. “You don’t want to rule, do you?”

Nira shook her head without hesitation, to which her father nodded, probably already aware of this. “And I’m not fit to rule. I knew it, Kaleth knew it, and he still told me to take over.” He shook his head. “And our people don’t appreciate that I surrendered to Enor the same day he invaded, so they certainly don’t want me to rule.”

Right, Nira had sort of let that slip her mind with everything else that had happened. Well, maybe not the fact itself, but the repercussions of it beyond letting Enor have his way.

“And...I think I want to leave.”

Nira blinked at him. This had to be the first time she’d ever heard him say something like this.

“There will be things I’ll miss about Irithara but….” Her father breathed in deeply. “I need to move on. And to do that, I need to go somewhere else.”

Nira could barely breathe for a second. “You want to move to Enoria?”

He smiled, giving a single nod. And Nira grinned and hugged him, unable to contain the joy that filled her heart at that. For years she’d wanted this. And what made it all the more joyful was the fact that her father wasn’t doing it for her, but for himself. And it was about time. He’d been through enough for a lifetime.

“I don’t actually know how things work over there, or how I’d even get money since I don’t have many useful skills, but I could use some of that, erm, freedom.”

Nira almost cringed. How could she have missed all of those signals? He kept hinting at things at all times. Or maybe she was just hyper aware now and assumed everything was a hint. But this definitely was. Especially since he’d grimaced right after saying that. And was now avoiding her gaze.

Despite the stifling awkwardness that was now filling the air, he didn’t look like he was going to tell her anything. They could probably go on ignoring this, but Nira didn’t want that. She didn’t want him to have to pretend and lie to her just to maintain some kind of image he thought she had of him. He wouldn’t be wrong about that, but that image had been shattered already.

She took in a deep breath. “I know.” She found it hard to continue after saying that, but his confused, and also slightly alarmed look helped. “I saw that photo. Of you and Kaleth.”

He stared at her silently, horror in his non-mechanical eye, before looking away.

“I...didn’t know it still existed somewhere,” he said, his expression so ashamed that Nira had to force herself not to embrace him again. In retrospect, she was really glad that Relioth had shown it to her back then. It had given her some time to get used to it at least a little.

“Um, sweetheart, I—”

“No, it’s okay.” She still felt so weird about all of this, but she would push that away. “I don’t want you to feel like you need to hide things from me. And I want you to be happy, whatever that means for you.”

He looked at her, his eyes wet but happy. Well, one of them was, anyway. He stroked her shoulder, wiping his tears away, but there was still a smile on his face.

“You weren’t planning on ever telling me, were you?”

He grimaced, looking apologetic. “Well….” He let out a sad sigh. “No, I suppose not. I’ve disappointed you enough already.”

That felt like a punch to the stomach. So much so that Nira almost gasped. That was just...wrong on all levels. Even she could see that. She was about to say with absolute certainty that nothing he’d done was a disappointment, let alone this, but then she stopped herself. That was exactly how she’d describe her feelings when she’d found out that he’d surrendered. And it would probably be how she would have reacted to this if she hadn’t known ahead of time.

And now she was disappointed in herself. But there was no taking those things back, was there? She would just have to do better now.

“You didn’t….” She let out a frustrated breath. “It’s fine. It’s all fine.”

He didn’t look convinced, but he said nothing, only giving her another small smile. So Nira hugged him again, deciding that he probably wasn’t going to fully believe anything she said right now. She would just have to prove it with time.

“Thanks, sweetheart.”

She smiled at him, still feeling a little tense but much less so than she had originally. “Is Yorin coming to Enoria too, then?”

Her eyes widened when she realized what she’d actually asked, but she’d wanted to know for Nef’s sake. She wasn’t trying to imply anything about her father’s relationship with Yorin at all. But beyond looking a bit embarrassed, her father didn’t seem to mind.

“Um, well, yes. He apparently has no preference when it comes to location for his work.” He frowned, looking thoughtful. “Whatever it is he actually does.”

Nira actually laughed at that. She didn’t actually know either. Nef had explained somewhat, and what Nira had gotten out of that was that Yorin just does whatever he finds interesting in the moment.

“I thought Nef might appreciate that, seeing as he and Yorin seem to enjoy working together.”

Nira nodded. She was sure he would. And that was definitely good because the idea of Nef traveling back and forth to Irithara didn’t sound great. She didn’t like the idea of being separated from him for most likely days at a time, and he wasn’t a fan of long travels.

“Well, great. Let’s go to Enoria, then.” Nira couldn’t help but smile at the idea. She really had wanted to get away from everything for a while, and she still did, but she could put that off to show her father around. It would be nice to spend time together without some world-ending threat looming over them.

He blinked at her in surprise. “What, you mean right now?”

Nira shrugged. She wouldn’t mind, that was for sure.

“Well, I suppose there isn’t much left for me to deal with, that is true.” He nodded, though he didn’t look very enthusiastic about this. “I have to take care of a few things before we leave, but yes, I suppose there is nothing to wait around for.”

And with that he got up, putting his hands in his pockets and sighing. “This might take a while.”

Nira nodded, trying to look encouraging, which her father replied to with a slightly pained smile. She watched him walk back to the palace as it finally, really sunk in that they were finally coming back. To a semi normal life. At this point it sounded strange and foreign to her, but she was looking forward to it.

She got up as well, smiling to herself. She still had a trip to plan with Nef.