The Return of the Lifebringer (Children of the Sun Book 3)

Kaleth glared at the suppression bracelet he was holding in his hand. Did he really want to risk using this just because Relioth said he needed to? Elrin seemed to believe what Relioth was saying, and Kaleth himself hadn’t managed to find a logical flaw in it, but Elrin wasn’t exactly an unbiased party. But then again, neither was Kaleth.

Unfortunately, there was no one here with a neutral opinion of Relioth, so there wasn’t an unbiased party to ask. Mel seemed dead set against it, though, unsurprisingly. And that was really bothering Kaleth more than he was willing to show. But he would have to do this. The longer they let Enor do whatever he wanted, the more difficult it would be to stop him.

If Relioth wanted to stab Kaleth in the back in some petty need for revenge, so be it. Kaleth would just have to make sure to bring someone with him as backup to make sure Relioth wouldn’t be able to escape. If Kaleth had to choose between killing Relioth and letting him get away, he knew which one he would pick. Relioth was too much of a risk to keep alive.

“Kaleth, a word?” Alor’s voice suddenly interrupted Kaleth’s thoughts. He’d been on his way to get Relioth, so he’d assumed he’d see Alor again, but not quite this soon. Frowning, Kaleth followed Alor to a nearby storage room. This base seemed to have a lot of them.

“What did Relioth do?” asked Kaleth when Alor didn’t say anything for a few seconds. Alor blinked at him.

“Huh? Oh, um, nothing.”

Kaleth narrowed his eyes. Well, that was clearly a lie, but why would Alor even feel a need to lie about this?

“But, um, that’s not related,” Alor said, clearing his throat. Kaleth sighed quietly. He wasn’t the most patient person on good days, and today was not a good day.

“Well?”

Alor looked away, sighing. “I’m sorry.”

Kaleth stared at him, unblinking for several very long seconds. That was not at all what he’d been expecting him to say. “W-what?”

“I….” Alor let another sigh, this time an annoyed one. “I’m sorry, alright? For how…things have been between us since…always.”

Kaleth continued to stare at him. He was pretty sure his mouth was hanging open at this point, but he couldn’t get it together to close it. This was surreal. Never had Kaleth imagined that Alor would even address this, much less take the blame onto himself like that. And he shouldn’t—this was all on Kaleth.

“You’re sorry,” Kaleth repeated, raising his eyebrows. Alor just nodded, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “For me causing the death of your father?”

Alor shrugged, which, honestly, was almost comical in this situation. Kaleth kept a straight face though, despite the absurdity of the situation. Because this was incredibly serious, no matter how much his brain didn’t seem to be able to make sense of it. He just narrowed his eyes, frowning a little. The timing of this was a bit suspicious, as well.

“Did Mel put you up to this?”

Now it was Alor’s turn to look baffled. “Huh? He knows about this?”

Kaleth rubbed his eyes. “He was in my head briefly and apparently stumbled onto an incident.”

Alor cringed and looked away from Kaleth. “Uh, right. But that’s not it.”

“It isn’t?” Kaleth had tried to keep his skepticism away from his tone, but he seemed to have been only semi successful.

Alor shook his head, his whole body slumping forward a bit. Kaleth couldn’t remember a time he’d looked this miserable when talking to him. They both got mostly very passive and forcefully neutral, especially the past few years.

“No, look, I got a lot of my memories back when I saw my brother again, and in hindsight, I wasn’t being fair to you. Not totally,” Alor continued, his eyes flicking from Kaleth to the wall over and over. “So, um…I’m sorry.”

Kaleth frowned at him harder for a second before shaking his head. “I should be the one apologizing, Alor. You’ve done nothing wrong—”

“You have apologized,” Alor insisted, looking Kaleth straight in the eye. It was so intense it made Kaleth want to look away. “You’ve tried so many times, and I just kept brushing you off.”

“You are justified,” Kaleth argued, though this time it was much weaker. He didn’t have the constitution for this. If Alor really wanted to forgive him, he wouldn’t put up a fight, no matter how much he didn’t think he deserved it.

“I don’t care,” Alor said, folding his arms. “It’s gone on for long enough.”

Kaleth hung his head and closed his eyes. It was really hard to keep his emotions at bay right now. The fact that he found it much easier to handle negative things aimed at him rather than positive was quite disturbing to think about.

“T-thank you, Alor,” Kaleth said quietly, clearing his throat and looking up at the other man again. He clenched his fists, trying to keep his hands from shaking.

Alor didn’t smile exactly, but his face did seem to brighten a little. “I wish I figured this out sooner.”

Kaleth shook his head. “Once again, you are perfectly justified in feeling the way you did.”

Alor shrugged. “Yeah, maybe. But it got really awkward at times.”

Kaleth huffed out a tired laugh. That it had. Being alone in a room with Alor had usually ended up being incredibly unpleasant, and it had definitely been due to both of them. “Why didn’t you ever ask for a transfer?”

Alor laughed. “I don’t know. I liked Rayni and Kara.”

Kaleth smiled. He’d thought that was the case. It had been either that or being spiteful enough to stick around so more silent glaring with Kaleth could ensue, but Kaleth had never thought Alor was that petty. That was more of his mother’s thing, and Kaleth was glad neither of the Arithar brothers had inherited it.

Alor coughed into his hand awkwardly. “Erm, anyway, I should….” He traced off, pointing behind him with his thumb. Kaleth nodded, more than ready to end this conversation, no matter how lighter he felt now. He watched Alor leave the room, his mood quickly souring when he remembered what would happen now.

Kaleth ran a hand over his face. This was going to be as fun as always.

He quickly made his way back to where he’d left Relioth. For far too long already. He could hear him talking about something, but Kaleth wasn’t paying enough attention to make out the words. He had no interest in whatever Relioth had to say aside from things he could use against Enor.

“—and there was this moron who kept—”

“Shut up and get moving,” Kaleth interrupted whatever Relioth had been saying. Nira and Nef were also at the table Relioth was handcuffed to, visibly relieved that they wouldn’t have to keep an eye on him anymore.

Before Relioth could point out that he couldn’t get moving given that his hands were currently stuck to the table—because he definitely would have done that—Kaleth reached out, making the dagger fly into his hand. He tried very hard not to fantasize about stabbing it in Relioth’s back.

“You’ve made the right choice,” Relioth said as he got up, grinning at Kaleth, who gave him a blank stare. It seemed he had regained a lot of his usual arrogance and smugness. What a shame.

“Whatever you see as the right choice is probably the wrong one,” Kaleth replied, nodding at Nef and Nira. He frowned briefly, noticing something off about the princess. She had absorbed Eternal energy again, that much was clear, but like this she looked a bit too much like…Relioth? Kaleth hoped he had nothing to worry about there, but he would stay cautious.

“Aw, Kaleth, that’s mean,” Relioth argued, his tone whiny as he made his way towards him. “I have plenty of great ideas. What about that drink I made up? You liked that.”

Kaleth sighed tiredly, grabbing the chain linking Relioth’s hands and dragging him out of the room. Elrin had told him that there was a room for training underneath this floor, which had come as a surprise to him given that he’d assumed this base only had one floor, but he definitely appreciated it. And it also made sense—surely the Umbra weren’t just naturally great at fighting without honing their skills.

“Don’t think I trust you. I don’t. Not in the slightest,” Kaleth said as they headed in what he hoped was the right direction. This place was such a maze. How did the Umbra get around?

Love, mind coming down to that training room Elrin mentioned? he told Mel. He wasn’t sure where he’d disappeared off to, but he was pretty sure it was somewhere with Rayni.

We’re already there, came Mel’s grim reply. Kaleth grimaced. He knew Mel wasn’t blaming him, but it definitely felt that way. At least he and Mel wouldn’t be there on their own. Rayni would be there as well. Or Kaleth assumed at least. But no matter who it was, hopefully it would diffuse the tension a bit.

“Oh, come on, Kaleth. You have to trust me at least a little bit. You are about to temporarily get rid of ninety percent of your power because of me,” Relioth said, his tone almost teasing. Kaleth didn’t reply, just jerked the chain forward, making Relioth stumble.

“Hey!” Relioth protested. Kaleth kept walking, not giving Relioth even a second to regain his footing. He didn’t let himself smile at it, but it had improved Kaleth’s mood at least a little.

“You didn’t say it would be ninety percent,” Kaleth said, finally finding the staircase Elrin had mentioned. He was almost proud of himself for that since Elrin’s instructions hadn’t been the most useful. Not that he wasn’t used to that by now.

“Well, what did you expect? The less you have, the better for this,” Relioth said. “If you learn how to get by with little, you can make more use of a lot. Makes sense, right?”

“So you’ve said,” Kaleth muttered. He kind of hated that this did make sense. Assuming it were possible to use Eternal energy like this.

Once they reached the bottom of the stairs, Kaleth turned around and pointed the othrin dagger at Relioth, who actually swallowed nervously. Good, he would take Kaleth’s threat seriously then. “If you even try to run or hurt Mel, I will kill you.”

Relioth just nodded, avoiding Kaleth’s gaze until the dagger left his personal space. “Just Mel, huh?”

Kaleth just glared at him and dragged him the rest of the way into what he assumed was the training space. And there Mel was, standing in a corner with Rayni next to him, his arms folded and brows furrowed in what was definitely disapproval. Rayni mostly looked conflicted about the whole thing. Fair, so was Kaleth.

And then there was Mereria, who Kaleth hadn’t been expecting to be here given how she’d acted towards Relioth so far. She was mostly just glaring at him so hard Kaleth was convinced she was trying to kill Relioth with just her gaze. Which might have been possible—Kaleth wasn’t sure how those handcuffs worked.

“Hi, Mery,” Relioth said, his usual annoying cheer very awkward now. Mereria glared harder.

The room was surprisingly bare, with only a few swords hanging from the metal walls, and one of those Umbra uniform-making devices in one corner. There wasn’t even a mat on the ground, which Kaleth supposed made sense—the Umbra hardly had a need for that.

“Still mad at me for locking you up?” Relioth continued as the awkward silence stretched on. Rayni sighed and rubbed her eyes.

“Next to everything else you’ve done, that seems like an afterthought,” Mereria growled. It was still hard for Kaleth to see his sister’s face, especially with Mereria’s signature scowl, but at least now it didn’t make him so resentful he couldn’t keep looking at her.

“I’m not on Enor’s side anymore,” Relioth muttered, practically pouting. Kaleth sighed and just left him standing in the middle of the room. He looked back at where they’d come into the room, noticing the heavy doors that were pressed against the walls. With barely a thought he made them close. There was no reason to leave this to chance.

Kaleth took the suppression bracelet out of his pocket, glaring at it. Well, they were about to find out if Relioth was lying or not, he supposed.

Are you really sure about this? Mel’s voice sounded in Kaleth’s mind. Kaleth didn’t reply. Of course he wasn’t sure about this—about any of this—but what choice did they have? If Relioth was to believed, this would be the key to defeating Enor. And so he proceeded with what he’d been planning on doing.

He put the open metal ring around his wrist and gasped as it automatically snapped in place. He swallowed, feeling most of his strength leave him. It was incredibly unsettling, and it made him feel far too vulnerable for comfort. Kaleth suddenly found himself clutching the dagger close to his chest, and he quickly forced himself to try to relax.

He scowled at how interested Relioth looked and cleared his throat. And just as he was about to ask what to do next, the ground beneath their feet shook.