The Return of the Gods (Children of the Sun Book 1)

They met up with Kaleth in the living room after walking from one side of the mansion to the other. While there was antique furniture, there were also modern aspects, like the unnecessarily large TV, and the movie projector, which made it easier not to be reminded too much of Irithara.

Still, Nira didn’t want to stay here for much longer—she never felt completely at ease when she was in someone else’s home, but being in a house owned by the Garen family was much worse. It felt like this was enemy territory. Sure, technically the whole country was enemy territory to her, and she wasn’t supposed to be here, but she was usually perfectly comfortable in Enoria.

Besides Kaleth and Mel, there was another person in the room, who Nira recognized immediately—Ramien’s daughter Edras. It wasn’t exactly hard to identify her. The woman owned one of the biggest companies Enoria had to offer, and if that wasn’t enough, she also wore glasses made of gold and blackened platinum. Nira was pretty sure that Edras was the only person on the planet who wore glasses like those.

Nira quickly compared Kaleth and Edras and frowned. If someone told her they were related, she wouldn’t believe them. It looked like the only thing they shared was a parent. Edras had brown, slightly wavy hair, and her eyes were hazel, not green. Nira was taken aback by that. All Garens had green eyes, just like in her family everyone’s eyes were a blue-violet color. Maybe she hadn’t been paying enough attention when she learned about her.

“Wow, Kaleth, your dad looks way different than I imagined,” Rayni commented as she entered the room, looking at Edras, who was sitting on the couch. Nira wanted to roll her eyes, but when Edras looked away from Kaleth to focus on them and laughed at the joke, she forgot all about it. Fortunately, Kaleth did it for her. She had to admit, he really knew how to make himself look exasperated. He must have had a lot of time and opportunities to master the expression.

“So, who are you again? You look familiar.” Rayni continued, taking a seat on the couch on the opposite side of the glass table. The rest of the agents did the same as her, and finally, even Nef and Nira sat down. The couch was so big that even with five people sitting on it there was still room for about two more.

Edras looked more than happy to answer Rayni’s question, but Kaleth beat her to it. “Edras Garen, my half-sister, a multi-millionaire, and the CEO of Velox.”

“I’m a billionaire now, actually,” Edras corrected him but didn’t seem at all upset that Kaleth had stolen the introduction from her. Behind her relaxed exterior was something else though—wariness, or maybe even fear. What could she possibly be afraid of?

“Oh, right, I remember now. We got our cars from you,” Rayni said, nodding her head. “Damn, I liked those cars.”

“Wait,” Edras said, frowning and pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose, “what organization do you work for, exactly?”

“Luxarx,” answered Kara, folding her arms over her chest.

“Oh! Right, of course,” Edras said, smiling once more. She let out a breath and laughed, looking at her half-brother. “You had me worried there, Kaleth. I thought you were a murderer or something. I was at your headquarters about two weeks ago. Why didn’t you tell me you work for them?”

Kaleth didn’t seem to share his sibling’s excitement. In fact, it seemed his mood had worsened. “Didn’t think you wanted to see me,” he muttered so quietly Nira could barely hear it, and then he cleared his throat. “Anyway, could we move on to our new problem, please?”

“No, this is way better,” said Rayni, smirking lopsidedly. “You should tell each other how you feel.”

This resulted in Kaleth looking like he was plotting how to kill Rayni and make it look like an accident, Mel smiling encouragingly, and Edras chuckling.

“Your coworkers are really fun,” Edras told her half-brother, still grinning. The Imberan was so upbeat—Nira wondered what it would take to make Edras angry. Maybe insulting her family or the quality of Velox products. Not that she would try. It would be best if Edras never found out who she was, so Nira was going to avoid drawing attention to herself as much as possible. “Strangely young, though. Is the mortality rate really so high in your line of work? I mean I’ve heard some rumors, but….”

Nira backtracked. Did this mean that it wasn’t a coincidence that all the agents were as young as they were? She couldn’t imagine why someone would want to work for Luxarx if the average agent didn’t even live long enough to experience a midlife crisis.

“Well, roughly eighty percent of our coworkers died yesterday, so I’ll go with yes,” said Kara darkly, “which brings us back to the real topic—we got blamed for blowing up the Flare.”

Well, Nira couldn’t say she’d been expecting that. How in the hell did that make sense? Hadn’t their HQ been in the Flare? Why would anyone think they’d blow themselves up?

“But you didn’t, right?” Edras asked, suddenly completely serious. The question almost sounded like a threat, actually. Nira could only guess why she had reacted this way over a destroyed skyscraper. She highly doubted that she was just upset about all the innocent people who had died.

“Yep, guilty as charged,” Rayni replied. Nira would have been concerned if her sarcasm wasn’t so obvious. “We destroyed our entire organization because we’re huge fans of the Empire.”

“So, supposedly, we are the reason for the destruction of the Flare, and we did it to help Irithara?” Kaleth summed up slowly, frowning in thought. Nira didn’t understand how he could be so calm after learning that. She herself was angry because she didn’t believe that her country had done this, even if everyone in Enoria was apparently ready to do so. No one was blaming Nira, at least. However, Luxarx was one of the victims, and blaming them was just wrong. “Interesting.”

“Not the word I used when I checked the news and saw that,” muttered Rayni.

“Well, clearly someone wanted to get rid of us,” Kaleth continued, ignoring Rayni’s comment. “Why else would we be blamed for something like this? And I highly doubt that claiming that we did this for Irithara’s benefit is a coincidence.” He paused and sighed. It seemed to Nira like Kaleth had a good idea of who had done this already, and he didn’t want to say it.

“Yeah, let me guess,” Rayni said, folding her arms. “Who hates Irithara and everyone from Luxarx except for you? Oh yeah, Relioth Morthan.”

Kaleth glared at her, but there was no force behind it.

“I’m sorry,” Edras joined the conversation, holding up a hand, “but it sounds like you’re saying that the president has something to do with this.”

“Yeah, that’s ’cause I’m doing just that,” Rayni explained with a patronizing tone, and suddenly Edras had a look of badly hidden horror on her face.

“She’s just joking, right?” Edras asked, turning to her half-brother, but didn’t receive the answer she was probably hoping for.

“She often does, but not this time, I’m afraid,” Kaleth said tonelessly and sighed. “I hate to admit this, but….” He closed his eyes. “You were right. Relioth isn’t to be trusted, you warned me, and I ignored you.”

He sounded like it physically hurt him to admit that. How many times had Rayni told this to Kaleth to make him sound like this? He didn’t seem like the kind of person to have that much of an ego to make it this hard for him to admit he was wrong.

“What are you talking about, Kaleth?” Edras asked—well, demanded really—with a glare. “Mister Morthan is a great man.”

“Yes, I thought so, too,” Kaleth replied dryly. “Until he revealed that he’d lied to us about almost everything.”

“Yeah, about that,” said Kara, raising an eyebrow. “Mind elaborating?”

“Relioth said that….” Kaleth breathed in and out slowly. “He said that everyone with powers is actually an Eternal—the gods from our old religion—but they’ve all had their memories altered. And that Rayni was an Umbra.”

“What?!” Rayni exclaimed, suddenly looking almost murderous. “Well, Relioth’s obviously lying. Why would I ever help those cowardly killers?!” She got up and pointed her finger at Mel. “And you! How did you know my name again? I almost forgot about that!”

Nira didn’t understand at all why Rayni was reacting like this, but everyone else seemed to be alarmed as well. Everyone except for Kaleth, that is.

“You’re overreacting again.”

“No, I’m not!” Rayni yelled, and then froze, sitting down a second later. “Okay, maybe I am. Why am I so goddamn angry?”

“Maybe it’s some kind of failsafe. To make you avoid learning the truth,” Kaleth said, while Rayni looked like she was trying her best to calm down. “Mel, could you tell us how you know Rayni?”

Mel blinked as if it surprised him that someone actually addressed him. He looked a bit spooked, most likely because Rayni still looked pissed. “We…didn’t know each other that much.” Mel turned his eyes to Rayni, looking even more nervous. “You were one of Mereria’s lieutenants. But you were one of the few people who were nice to me.”

Rayni’s anger slowly dissipated as her eyes glazed over. Mel continued.

“You defended me once when I refused to hurt someone, who I thought didn’t deserve it.” Mel’s eyes fell. “I mean, I got punished anyway, but it’s the thought that counts, right?”

“I can’t remember any of this,” Rayni said. “But I believe you. I never liked thinking about the past, and now…. Maybe I don’t like thinking about it because if I did, I’d realize it was all fake.”

There was a moment of silence. Nira couldn’t imagine what it had to be like to realize a person’s entire life was a lie, but the detail she was focusing on was the fact that Rayni had been Mereria’s lieutenant. Did that make her thousands of years old? Nira couldn’t think of an Umbra called Rayni, but then again, Nira barely knew anything about Mereria.

“That bastard Morthan did this, didn’t he? I knew there was a reason he always looked like he was laughing at me in his head! Who is he anyway?”

“H-he was Enor’s general. In charge of his army,” explained Mel, making Nira frown in confusion.

“Wasn’t Enor’s general called Tharos?” Nira asked, unable to help herself.

Mel nodded. “He was. But he doesn’t like that name anymore. Ever since Enor was killed….”

Nira backtracked. Enor was…dead? She was sure Irithara would have made the day of his passing a national holiday if people knew. But the people didn’t even know the gods were real and among them, did they? Come to think of it, how many gods were there, really? She didn’t want to risk asking, so as not to draw Edras’ attention, but looking at her pale face, maybe the woman wouldn’t even notice her.

“Um, excuse me,” said Edras suddenly, quickly leaving the room while reaching for something in one of the pockets of her leather jacket. Kaleth sighed softly and got up too, following his sibling. Edras must have been struggling with what had been said so far, not that Nira could blame her.

Rayni didn’t even wait for Kaleth to leave before continuing the discussion, focusing solely on Mel, who shifted in his seat and stared at the table. “I don’t get it. I mean, I want to punch Morthan in the face but at least he doesn’t do terrorism. Or didn’t until now, at least. What I’m trying to say is—the Umbra are terrible. Why would I ever want to help them?”

“No, we aren’t!” Mel defended the organization and then shrunk back, realizing he had raised his voice. He probably thought they’d get mad at him. “I mean, we weren’t. Mereria just wanted to stop Enor and Relioth from attacking Irithara again. I don’t even know what their problem with Irithara is—they’ve been trying to destroy it for so long.”

“So what happened? Why are the Umbra terrorists?”

“Mereria disappeared. At the same time as Enor. I thought they killed each other, but we found her in Carcer and freed her. I think she’s angry, but maybe she’ll lead the Umbra again now. Ikara scares me.”

“Ikara is in charge of the Umbra right now?” Rayni paused. Mel nodded. “So she’s…. Is that a he or a she?”

“He. But technically, Eternals are neither.”

Everyone in the room frowned at Mel. “Uh, no offense, Mel, but you look like a he to me.”

Mel started to fidget nervously and kept his eyes trained on the table. “This body…isn’t exactly mine.”

“What does that mean?” Alor spoke up, sounding suspicious and a little angry, which didn’t seem to help Mel relax at all as he grimaced.

“U-usually, we can’t really…do much.” He swallowed thickly and looked more nervous by the second. “S-so, t-to interact with the physical world, and to channel our power, too, w-we need physical bodies.”

Actually, that wasn’t that surprising to Nira in terms of mythology. A lot of the time, the gods were described as made of light, so this was basically what she had imagined, except she had thought that the Eternals did it to fit in with the mortals. If they couldn’t interact with anything, then all they could do was watch, which sounded pretty horrible since they were supposed to be immortal.

But, while she understood that it was necessary, it didn’t mean she liked it. People’s bodies were their own, not of some entities who took possession of them. And what was it like for the people who had their bodies stolen? Did they know what was happening to them? Or did they die as soon as they were possessed?

“So, essentially, you’re controlling some poor bastard,” Alor summed up with a glare so intense it made Mel shrink back into the couch with a look of great guilt and shame on his face.

Nira scowled at Alor with disapproval. Sure, it wasn’t exactly ethical, but Mel obviously realized that it was wrong, so there wasn’t a need to be a dick about it.

“Oh, shut up, Alor,” Rayni said, “Mereria’s people don’t possess people who are alive.” She froze as soon as the words left her mouth. “How did I know that?”

“M-maybe you’re starting to remember?” Mel suggested quietly, clearly still scared that Alor would yell at him. Rayni nodded, apparently deciding that answer was good enough for now.

“You…you can take control of a dead body?” Kara asked, sounding intrigued, if a little disgusted. It sounded a little nauseating, and also creepy and disrespectful to the dead, but Nira supposed she was okay with this. It sounded much better than the alternative.

“Y-yes,” Mel muttered, looking up at her slowly. “B-but most Eternals don’t do it. They think it’s beneath them.”

“Why do you look so guilty, then?” asked Nef, sounding more curious than judgmental.

“My, um…my original host…wasn’t dead.”

“You mean you used to work for Relioth,” Alor said with the same unfriendly tone, saying out loud what Nira had been thinking, and judging by Mel’s miserable, scared expression, what Alor had said was true.

“B-but I don’t anymore,” the Eternal defended himself weakly. It was amazing how such a powerful being was intimidated by Alor of all people. If Mel’s eyes weren’t glowing, Nira would have completely forgotten what he was. And why were they glowing, anyway? They hadn’t been doing that before now.

“Why are you interrogating him?” Kaleth asked with an irritated tone as he entered the room again, making Nira flinch in surprise. She hadn’t heard him coming at all.

“We’re not doing that,” said Rayni, and then shot Alor a look. “Alor’s just being paranoid.”

Kaleth shook his head a bit and sat down next to the Eternal whose mood seemed to immediately improve. He didn’t look happy exactly, but he wasn’t sad or scared either. He mostly just looked grateful that everyone wasn’t looking at him anymore.

“I’m not paranoid. I’m just being careful,” Alor said, looking back at Rayni with annoyance. “We can’t trust anyone right now. Especially someone who used to work for the enemy.”

“Yes, Mel told me on the way over here,” Kaleth said. “And he also mentioned he joined Mereria almost four centuries ago. I don’t think his past affiliation with Relioth means much. Also, we all worked for the enemy, in a way.”

The Eternal smiled slightly at Kaleth, and his eyes finally stopped glowing.

“Unknowingly. And I still don’t trust him,” Alor concluded after a few seconds of silence, and Rayni glared at him. She said nothing, though.

“Duly noted.”

“Where’s your sister?” asked Rayni. Only then did Nira realize that Edras hadn’t come back.

“She’s, um,” Kaleth started, but then he shook his head. “Oh, it doesn’t matter. Let’s just say she has a lot on her mind.”

That sounded like Edras was dealing with more than just being told that gods were real. But Nira supposed that it wasn’t any of her business. Besides, she could probably find the answer on the internet. Edras was famous, after all.

“I think what we should do first is to find every single remaining Luxarx agent and get them here,” Kaleth continued, clearly not in the mood to discuss what had happened with his half-sister. Nira frowned. It hadn’t really occurred to her that there were other agents still alive besides the four that were in the room with her.

“I’ve been thinking about that,” Kara said, tapping a finger to her chin. “Most of the ones who should still be alive were on missions at the time, so they all have their goggles. We could use yours to connect to the network and contact them.”

Kaleth looked a little impressed. “Good. But we should try this somewhere else. If Relioth is truly responsible for this, then he might be expecting us to do just that and trace the communications.”

“Those goggles have their own communications network? Awesome.”

Leave it to Nef to focus on the least important details.

“All right,” said Rayni with a grin, raising her hand. “I vote we go south, somewhere tropical.”

It was fascinating how easily the woman could switch moods.

“Well, it is probably a good idea to leave Imbera at least,” Kaleth said thoughtfully. “But I think subtropical is the furthest we can go in order to make it back here before midnight. It would be best not to waste more than a day on this.”

“Close enough. Let’s roll!”