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

Kaleth had expected to be completely exhausted, and probably not even where he’d wanted to go after that teleportation, but he was more or less all right. He was just a little dazed as he stumbled through the portal he’d created, and he wasn’t given any time to collect his bearings as the sound of gunfire assaulted his ears.

He was…outside? Yes, he was standing on a snow-covered hill overlooking a barely recognizable burning town. And not just burning—there were bomb craters and ruined buildings everywhere. But Kaleth could tell he was in the right place—he could feel Mel was quite close. That was both good, and very, very concerning.

“Yikes. Enor is going all out, isn’t he?” Relioth said behind him, and Kaleth resisted an urge to flinch. For a moment he’d forgotten who he was here with.

He ducked automatically as an aircraft flew over their heads, no doubt noticing them immediately. Several more followed, forcing Kaleth to quickly run towards a cluster of trees at the bottom of the hill. Enor might know they were here, but there was no reason to remain here as a trivial target.

Behind him, Relioth asked if Kaleth was sure about what he was doing, but Kaleth was barely listening to him. If Relioth wanted to run away like a coward, he was more than welcome to. In fact, Kaleth would prefer it that way. He didn’t trust Relioth in the least, and no matter how much of an asset in a fight he could be, Kaleth wasn’t convinced it was worth it. But he didn’t have a choice right now—Relioth tended to do whatever he wanted.

Scanning the horizon for any signs of life, Kaleth glared at the remains of the town. The destruction was the worst kind of stunning. None of the buildings in sight was left intact, with most being reduced to just a pile of rubble and ash. All of it was slowly being covered up by snow, but that didn’t make the sight any less gruesome.

“What are you planning on doing?” Relioth whispered behind him. Kaleth sighed and turned around.

“Find Mel and the others, kill whoever stands in the way of doing so, get to safety.”

Relioth huffed out an amused laugh. “That is somehow the most Enor and un-Enor thing I have ever heard you say.”

Kaleth’s face twisted into a snarl as he grabbed Relioth by the lapels of his suit jacket and slammed him into the tree behind him. “I am. Not. Enor!”

Relioth just raised an eyebrow at him, unbothered by Kaleth basically attacking him. Kaleth shook his head and let go. This was pointless. He needed to find anyone still alive in that Umbra base. Or perhaps outside of it—they could have left, and most likely had, given that Kaleth was certain the craters must have uncovered the base.

As Kaleth was about to take a step towards the ruined town, Relioth grabbed his wrist. “Wait, you still have that bracelet.”

Kaleth blinked, staring at the suppression bracelet with surprise. He’d almost completely forgotten it was still there. Relioth waved a finger, making the thing fall to the ground, and Kaleth sighed, his shoulders sagging. It was amazing how lighter he felt immediately with nothing sapping his strength away anymore.

“Here,” Relioth said, offering his now glowing hand to Kaleth. “Take it.”

Kaleth frowned at Relioth, trying to figure out why he was doing this.

“Come on, take it,” Relioth repeated, raising his eyebrows. “You’ll need it more than I will.”

Kaleth frowned harder as Relioth looked down. He really didn’t get Relioth at all, no matter how long he knew him for.

Flinching as another explosion was heard in the distance, Kaleth just took Relioth’s hand, taking the energy he was being offered just like he’d done dozens of times before. This felt different though—Kaleth wasn’t sure how to describe it, he just knew the energy felt different. More familiar perhaps.

They both gasped as Relioth let go, letting out a few short, quick breaths. “I still need to keep some of it.”

Kaleth nodded, turning towards the town again. It was time to go. He shut his eyes, trying to visualize the wings Relioth had given him as clearly as possible. He was still wearing the same shirt so there was no need to worry about tearing it. A second later, the wings reappeared, looking exactly like they had the first time.

“You took to that quickly,” Relioth commented, making Kaleth sigh tiredly.

“Don’t try to be encouraging,” he muttered back, looking over his shoulder to see that Relioth had summoned his own wings as well. As blindingly gold as when Kaleth had seen them for the first time.

Without another word Kaleth walked from underneath the trees and spread out his wings, launching himself into the air with a few quick, mighty flaps. For the second time he wondered if wings were meant to work this way, if they were meant to be this easy to use, but he wasn’t complaining. The sooner he found Mel and the others, the better.

He ignored the aircrafts flying above him, only focusing on the mental bond to lead him as he flew over the town at a speed he hadn’t thought was possible for him. And the closer he got, the more he could hear the sounds of fighting—metal clinging against metal, gunshots, yelling…. And the closer he got, he could also feel Mel’s emotions. That mix of anger, grief, and confusion just made Kaleth push himself to fly faster.

He finally found them when he got over the hill behind the town. And he was almost relieved when he didn’t find anything worse than what he’d imagined. Everyone, including the couple of Umbra who had also been in the base, were fighting against a seemingly unending wave of Enor’s soldiers.

Kaleth? came from a shocked Mel just as Kaleth drew his wings in, dropping down so fast he actually lost his footing a little as dirt gave beneath his feet. He didn’t let that stop him from shoving a nearby soldier away while wrestling his sword out of his hand and stabbing it through his heart in one fell swoop.

This didn’t seem to deter the enemy soldiers, unfortunately. In fact, they looked even more determined to kill them as they continued to make their way towards their group, weapons at the ready. Whatever brainwashing Enor subjected them to, it must have been really effective. Kaleth really didn’t like killing them, but there was no avoiding it if he wanted to keep the others alive.

“Great wings, man! Welcome back,” Rayni said, out of breath and grunting as she fought against two of Enor’s Eternals at once. Mereria was right next to her, unlike Rayni managing to hold her own, but she was the exception. Surprisingly Nira seemed to be doing quite well, but as a whole, everyone was slowly being forced back. And there was nowhere to go back to. They were in quite a small circle at this point. It was clearly time to get some more space.

Kaleth spread out his arms, giving off a burst of his golden energy which immediately threw most of the soldiers back far enough to actually discuss a strategy. The next thing he knew he was being hugged almost too tightly by Mel, his face pressed into Kaleth’s shoulder. Kaleth grimaced as guilt tugged at his heart.

He hugged him back, both with his arms and his wings, and looked around as Mel began babbling in his head how worried he’d been. The enemy Eternals were already making their way back. Well, those who could walk. Some, it seemed, he had managed to injure more seriously than he’d been expecting.

“We need to move. Immediately,” said Kaleth, wishing he could just give everyone a moment to breathe, but they didn’t have that luxury.

“Great! Yeah. Teleport us!” Nef yelled from somewhere, probably invisible. Kaleth had seen him while flying over here, so he knew he was around.

“He can’t,” Relioth said, giving Kaleth a pause as soon as he looked his way. Relioth had in the meantime transformed fully, and the sight of him as a massive, golden lion really was something. It wasn’t even the size, though like this he was as tall as a two-story house. It was how Kaleth couldn’t deny that no matter how much he hated Relioth, he looked majestic like this. The lion fur sparkled as if it were actually made of gold. Knowing Relioth, Kaleth wasn’t going to assume it actually wasn’t. “Enor can trace wherever we teleport.”

Kaleth was about to begrudgingly agree when Mel suddenly separated himself from him and took a defensive stance between him and Relioth.

“Stay away from Kaleth!” Mel growled, pointing his dagger towards Relioth’s snout, which was quite a bit above Mel. Relioth let out a deep, reverberating chuckle and lowered his massive head to him. Any sound Relioth made actually sounded a bit scary when he was like this. Kaleth resisted jumping in front of Mel to protect him from possibly being eaten.

“You’re adorable, Melly. I might be kinda starting to get why Kaleth likes you.”

Kaleth rubbed his eyes. While he was proud of Mel for standing up to Relioth, they didn’t have time for picking pointless fights. That said, Relioth needed to go far away as soon as he stopped being useful. Which was bound to be very soon.

Kaleth scanned the soldiers making their way towards them. Very, very close now. And there was no running away from this—they would be too much of a target in the air, with those aircrafts up there. So fighting it was. Kaleth wasn’t happy about that at all, and when he shared this with the others, they didn’t seem to be either. Not even Relioth looked like he wanted to fight, probably scared Enor would show up.

“Relioth, Mereria, Alor,” he said, looking from one to the other. “Hold the line, I’ll be right back.”

“Where are you going?” Mel asked, actually looking hurt. Kaleth smiled at him, though he felt guilty about continually causing him distress.

“I need a proper weapon.”

Kaleth threw away the dagger he’d just taken from one of the enemy soldiers and teleported to the remains of the half-destroyed Umbra base, right where he’d left his armor and weapon. He could still feel the strain of moving from one place to another, but it was much easier than ever before. It seemed Relioth hadn’t been lying about this after all.

Kaleth didn’t waste more time thinking about this before grabbing the sword and shield, and using his mind to put on the armor. It was a bit cumbersome, but it was much quicker than if he had done it by hand. He had to get rid of his wings, though—there was no other way of doing this.

As soon as he was ready, he ripped through space right back where he had just been. Bodies littered the grassy field now, thankfully of Enor’s soldiers, but there were just as many of them fighting as when Kaleth had left. Maybe more. He hadn’t expected things to take such a dramatic turn, but he quickly jumped into battle, cutting his way through Eternals without a second thought.

There wasn’t a circle now—instead everyone was fighting in small groups, and that was definitely worse than before. Not even thinking about it, Kaleth immediately searched for Mel, and once he saw he was barely keeping the two soldiers attacking him from stabbing him, he immediately flew over to him, running his sword through one of them, which Mel used as an opportunity to kill the other.

There was dirt and blood on the part of his face that wasn’t covered up by the Umbra mask and hood. Kaleth really hated the sight of that. He could tell Mel was upset with him, but there was no time to discuss anything right now—not when enemies surrounded them.

Kaleth touched the sword, drawing the energy it had taken from the Eternal he had just killed and focused it all into once again throwing at least a part of Enor’s army away from them.

No matter if Relioth was right about not needing a lot of energy to do these things, this was still tiring, and Kaleth couldn’t afford to waste his strength on something that didn’t even kill them.

“How can there just be more and more of them?” Mel muttered, breathing hard. Kaleth was about to reply when behind them, the sound of engines was heard. Kaleth spun around, staring at the two aircrafts about to shoot at them. Automatically, Kaleth’s arm shot up as he took hold of the aircrafts with his mind and dragged them to the ground, making them crash into each other. The screech of bending metal filled the air as the aircrafts made impact, creating yet another crater and crushing quite a few of Enor’s soldiers.

Kaleth hadn’t even tried to do that, but they hadn’t even seemed to try to move out of the way for the most part. He gritted his teeth. If not even survival instincts broke this brainwashing, what could? There had to be a way to do it—Alor had managed it. And without an army, Enor would just be one Eternal. Very powerful, yes, but only one.

“If we fight through that,” Mereria said, pointing her finger towards the advancing crowd of soldiers that was not blocked off by crashed aircrafts, “we can escape.”

“On it, Merry!” Relioth called out, his voice too loud as he jumped up, making the ground shake when he landed in front of Kaleth and started running towards the army. Kaleth grimaced. This wasn’t going to be nice to look at.

“Call me that again and I will stab you myself,” Mereria growled, following after him with far too much grace. Kaleth forced himself to look away before he could get resentful towards her again. And since watching Relioth tear soldiers apart wasn’t exactly pleasant either, Kaleth turned to the others.

While Nira, Kara, Alor, and the Umbra looked determined, Rayni seemed more disgusted as she watched the scene in front of her, and Nef was nervously looking behind himself. Unsurprising, since already Kaleth could see Enor’s soldiers making their way over the broken and burning remains of aircrafts.

Kaleth’s eyes settled on Elrin, who shrugged at him awkwardly.

“Come on, Relioth is creating an opening. We need to keep going,” Elrin said, which got the others to move at various speeds. As she walked behind them, Elrin stopped next to Kaleth and looked him right in the eyes. It was a little difficult to not look away then, but Kaleth resisted the urge.

“Look, Kaleth—”

“Just go,” Kaleth cut in, setting his jaw. He wasn’t going to have this conversation while they were running from their deaths. He wasn’t all that enthusiastic about having this conversation in general, but right now it was about the worst time possible.

Elrin gave a firm nod, and without any further arguments quickly followed behind the others, apparently entirely unbothered by the massacre all around her. Kaleth grimaced at the sight of the mauled bodies covering the field. If the sight wasn’t enough to make his stomach churn, the smell definitely was.

He was just about to set out as well when a voice forced itself inside of his head, past every barrier he was maintaining.

Come to the chapel. We will talk.

Kaleth gasped as he came back to reality, only then noticing that the force at which Enor had torn inside his mind had sent him to his knees. Mel was holding his shoulders, looking almost panicked.

“Are you okay, honey?” he asked, his voice shaky.

“Yes,” Kaleth breathed, getting up and brushing snow off his armor. “Yes, of course.”

“What happened?” Mel still looked far too worried. Kaleth wished he had some good news to share.

“Enor. He wants to talk to me.”

Just like that, Mel’s worry changed into fury. It was almost staggering. “You’re not going there without me.”

The resolute tone he’d used was far more surprising than the fact that Mel knew exactly what Kaleth was planning on doing. Their bond had probably let him know that, anyway. Kaleth sighed as he gave in.

“Alright, love. Just…watch yourself.” Kaleth grimaced as he looked over at the small army marching towards them from the remains of the aircrafts. They needed to leave either way, quickly. He offered Mel his hand, which Mel took without hesitation, determined fire dancing in his eyes. Kaleth nodded at him, closing his eyes as he tried to visualize as best as he could the chapel Enor had referred to. He was sure he’d seen it while flying over here.

While he couldn’t remember it exactly, it seemed some part of him did because a second later, he and Mel were standing before the aforementioned building. It wasn’t much to behold—just a simple wooden structure with a base made of stone and a dragon statue on the roof. It barely stood out next to the rundown buildings stacked around it in this rather wide street. Though one thing did stand out about it—none of the surrounding buildings had been destroyed by the bombing yet. The only evidence of battle were the distant screams of Enor’s soldiers as Relioth presumably ripped them apart.

“You are an enigma,” said a voice behind them. Kaleth whirled around to meet it, sword raised up and ready to defend himself or strike. Enor was just watching him, standing there on the cobbled street, still in the suit and nothing else aside from the sword strapped to his back.

Kaleth swallowed thickly as his mind flashed back to almost dying at the hands of this being. This being that was wearing the face of his father. Kaleth gritted his teeth. He’d thought this time it would be easier, but it wasn’t. Why wasn’t it easier? He hated his father. If anything, this should have made it simpler.

“You are myself,” Enor continued, narrowing his eyes as if he were trying to decode him. Kaleth was really getting tired of that. “But you also aren’t. You behave just like I used to, but at times I don’t understand you at all. You aren’t brilliant, or a scientist. You don’t try to cure society of its ills. Yet at the same time, you want to make this world better in your own, misguided way.”

“That’s because I’m not you,” Kaleth growled, and Mel tightened his grip on his hand. First Relioth and now Enor. Kaleth had better things to do than listen to this. But if he just left, Enor might kill everyone Kaleth held dear, so he gritted his teeth and let Enor respond.

“You are….” Enor paused, as if looking for the right words. “You are an imperfect replica of a younger version of me. And I find that infinitely fascinating.”

He didn’t sound fascinated in the slightest. The deadpan tone Enor used to say everything always made everything sound incredibly sarcastic, so Kaleth wasn’t sure if he was being serious about this. Although, was Enor even capable of expressing sarcasm?

“Is Tharos happy with his work, I wonder,” Enor mused, taking a few steps closer to Kaleth, who immediately tightened his grip on his sword, while Mel took a step forward to take a defensive stance. Though Kaleth could easily tell he was terrified of Enor. And for good reason—Enor could kill Mel with no effort. He was so incredibly brave.

“He seems to be,” Kaleth replied in the same toneless voice. He had no idea why Relioth seemed happy about how Kaleth had turned out, but he would have preferred if they hated each other equally.

Enor hummed, though he didn’t sound like he cared much.

“Why did you call me here?”

“Well, you see, I came to the conclusion that killing you is a waste. I would much prefer to study you.”

Kaleth narrowed his eyes. Something felt wrong about this, aside from the obvious. Why was Enor here, just telling him this? Even if he wanted to capture Kaleth himself, he could have done that without explaining anything.

“I don’t think so,” Kaleth deadpanned, already trying to put together an attack plan. He felt much stronger than he had the first time he’d fought Enor, partly due to Relioth giving him a considerable amount of his own power, but that didn’t mean he could defeat him.

Of course you can, Mel said in Kaleth’s mind suddenly. Kaleth gave him a small smile. His trust in him was always so unwavering.

“I will take care of that soon enough, not to worry,” Enor said, pulling his half of the sword out of the sheath on his back and walking towards them. Kaleth didn’t dare think about what that was supposed to mean as he raised up his shield. “Despite my age, I still remember what it was like to remove that constant distraction from my mind.”

And with that, Enor swung his sword, which Kaleth easily blocked with the shield.

“You’re stronger than you were last time.” The bored way everything Enor said was really grinding on Kaleth’s nerves. And it probably wouldn’t if Enor had chosen a different person to possess, but there was no time to think about this right now. It was time for Kaleth to strike back. And he had an advantage—Enor didn’t have a shield.

The screech of metal filled the air as their blades—two parts of the same weapon—crossed, othrin grinding against othrin as both of them pushed as hard as they could against the other. And just as Enor was about to win, and force Kaleth back, Kaleth slammed the edge of his shield into Enor’s face.

The fraction of a second of confusion on Enor’s side was just enough time for Mel to make an attempt at stabbing him. Kaleth watched with wide eyes as Enor moved back at the last moment, resulting in Mel only cutting his forearm. But the cut looked deep, given how quickly Enor’s gray suit became dark with blood.

Immediately, Enor threw his arm out, making Mel fly back towards a building at a speed that would have probably broken his neck if Kaleth hadn’t dived in to catch him on instinct.

Mel grimaced at him as he helped him onto his feet again.

You did great, love.

That seemed to cheer Mel up at least a little. Kaleth focused back on Enor, who was staring at his arm with a frown. But even then, the expression was somehow incredibly devoid of emotion. And then he aimed his gaze at Mel. As if he had only now noticed his presence.

Kaleth resisted stepping in front of Mel protectively.

“What did Tharos do?” Enor asked, his eyes glowing.

“He helped me use my potential,” Kaleth replied, glaring. He didn’t wait for Enor to finish whatever he was doing with his powers and ran at him, shield raised and sword ready to kill him.

But just as Kaleth was about to deliver a blow, his sword hit an invisible shield around Enor. Of course. This trick again. But as Kaleth continued delivering blow after blow with no effect, he noticed something. Enor wasn’t using his sword at all right now, only keeping one hand raised to presumably keep up whatever he was doing. And he seemed to be straining just a little. Kaleth took that as a signal to hit harder and harder, forcing Enor to stagger back and try to throw Kaleth back with his mind.

Kaleth just pushed back, though, not letting Enor get the upper hand now, and just kept attacking until finally, finally, Enor lost his concentration and Kaleth hit, cutting through Enor’s arm, and forcing a pained cry out of him.

And Kaleth enjoyed hearing that from essentially his father frankly a bit too much.

“I underestimated you,” Enor said, his voice pained, yet somehow still staying completely emotionless. “You will be very, very useful.”

And just as Kaleth was about to attack him again just for saying that, Enor’s whole body glowed as it transformed into a massive red dragon, even larger than Relioth’s lion, with four wings and two tails, and he flew away before Kaleth could do anything. His mouth forming a snarl, Kaleth was about to summon his wings, no matter what that would do to his armor, and follow him when Mel grabbed his hand.

“No, we need to help the others.”

He was looking at him so damned pleadingly.

“If I kill him, this all can be over, Mel,” Kaleth argued, but he didn’t fight Mel’s hold on him.

“You don’t know that. And you following him might be exactly what he wants.”

Mel sounded much more certain of that than Kaleth was of actually being able to kill Enor. Which he supposed just made Mel’s point. Kaleth sighed as he gave in. Mel was probably right. Kaleth wasn’t liking how silent everything had gotten now that Enor was gone.

“Okay,” he said, his shoulders sagging. “Could you—”

Before Kaleth could finish that sentence, Mel had already transformed, ready to fly.

“Oh. Thank you.”

Mel just wagged his tail.

It took only about a minute to find the group, mostly because Relioth stuck out like a sore thumb, and also because all they had to do was follow a trail of bodies neither Kaleth nor Mel wanted to look at. But the still alive soldiers seemed to be retreating. Was Enor calling them back? There weren’t even any visible aircrafts around, as far as Kaleth could tell.

Whatever was happening, Kaleth decided to use this opportunity to get everyone in the air, and to head for a safehouse of any kind. Mereria, on Rayni’s back, took the lead then, probably aiming for another one of the Umbra structures.

They needed to regroup and figure out what to do next. Because this was far from over. But unlike last time Kaleth had faced Enor, he was more than ready and willing to keep fighting.