The Return to Irithara (Children of the Sun Book 2)

Nira had been expecting a lot, but definitely not this. The Resistance—and that actually was what they called themselves—was based in tunnels beneath Irithara. And they weren’t Iritharian, they were Agryan. It was a shame Nira couldn’t really study the architecture of a completely different civilization because she could barely see her father next to her. The only light they had came from the two Eternals themselves who were dimly glowing. Nira had no idea why, but she was glad for that at least that.

“See, we were at war with Asharia very often, so our government just decided to build a nationwide subway system to get around,” Yris explained as the four of them walked through the old tunnel. Actually, ‘old’ probably didn’t cover it. It was ancient. Yet it looked remarkably preserved. Whatever metal the tunnel’s walls were lined with somehow held the place together, despite it having been built fifty thousand years ago.

Nira was having trouble believing it.

“I thought these tunnels were long gone,” said Yorin with amazement. Since they’d entered them, Yorin’d had a look on his face that Nira couldn’t tell if it was happy or sad. Like he couldn’t decide if he was happy that a part of his original country was still there, or if he was sad that this was all that was left of it.

“Yeah, well, some of them are destroyed,” Yris told him. “We needed a place to talk about Irif behind her back, so we started a rumor that all of them were gone. That was millennia ago, though.”

“And now you’re using them as a base of operations?” Yorin asked, clearly impressed as he walked closer to Yris.

Nira shook her head fondly. Of course Yorin completely forgot about everything else when he came across something he wanted to learn about.

“Since the last few places we used were blown up, yes,” Yris said casually, and Nira almost stopped dead in her tracks.

“What do you mean ‘blown up’?” she asked, even though she had a pretty good idea of what he meant. Yris looked over his shoulder at her and shrugged.

“Irif found out about our existence a few years ago and has been hunting us down. She hasn’t been very successful. Until recently….”

“And that means?” Nira pushed further. Even in the dark, she could tell Yris was a little annoyed by the question, but she didn’t care. If she was going to help them, she wanted to know the whole story.

“Uh, well, most of our….” He paused as he tried to come up with the right words. “Mortal friends were killed.”

Nira narrowed her eyes at him, even though he wasn’t looking at her and therefore couldn’t see it. “And how many of you are there, exactly?”

Yris sighed, shaking his head. “Five.”

“That, um, could be worse,” Yorin said, making it sound more like a question than a statement.

“Including you three,” Yris continued, and at that moment, Nira really did stop walking.

“Are you serious?” she asked, too shocked to even be angry with him. Yris turned around, raising his hands in a placating gesture.

“I know it sounds bad, but we’ll get some backup from Enoria. For the sake of secrecy, I can’t tell you who will provide the backup, but there will be one,” Yris promised, and Nira glared at him.

“And why should I believe that?”

“Please, Nira,” said Yorin, looking at her pleadingly. “I trust Yris with my life. I’m sure he doesn’t mean us any harm.”

Nira really wanted to argue about the issue further, but the more she looked at Yorin’s face, the more she just wanted to drop the subject.

“Fine,” she said finally. “But you better start telling us the whole truth. Understand?” Nira told Yris, who nodded with a grimace, clearly unhappy that he was taking orders from a mortal.

Nira’s father cleared his throat. “How far is this base of yours?” That was a very fair question because they’d been walking for at least an hour. At least, Nira thought so.

“We’re quite close now,” Yris said, sounding more friendly now as they started walking once more. “It won’t be much longer. About an hour.”

It figured that an immortal would see hour as ‘not much longer’.

“I… I see,” her father said. Only then Nira noticed that he was breathing more heavily than he probably should be at the speed they were walking.

“Dad, are you okay?” she asked, walking closer to him to look him over better.

“Yes, I just, um, I haven’t been at my best physically recently,” her father explained almost casually, and Nira gritted her teeth. She hadn’t expected her hate for Irif to grow still, but somehow, it found a way. And she also felt angry with herself for not noticing this earlier or remembering that her father was malnourished.

“Oh, I am so sorry,” said Yorin, immediately blinding Nira and her father by transforming into the white hippogriff. I completely forgot about your physical state. Climb on my back, I’ll carry you the rest of the way.

Nira’s father looked like he wanted to argue a little, but then he just nodded and with a very grateful thank you did as he was told.

“I apologize for the inconvenience,” her father said as they continued walking.

No need to apologize. I don’t mind in the slightest, Yorin replied. I wish I could fix the state of your muscle mass, but I don’t think I’d manage to do it correctly. I know how to heal wounds, but this….

Wasn’t it a little ironic that the god of medicine didn’t know how to fix this? Of course, the best way to fix her father’s health would just be to eat as much as he should for a few months, but they didn’t have that kind of time. Hopefully, absorbing some of the Eternals’ power would help him, though.

It would be so much easier if they could just fly through these tunnels, but it was obvious they couldn’t. Nira had no idea what Yris turned into, but if he had a wingspan close to Yorin’s, there was no way he could fly through here without breaking his wings on the pillars lining what Nira assumed used to be the subway stops, or the narrow walls of the corridors.

At least she could let her guard down around here. At least a little. Although she still didn’t trust Yris, no matter what Yorin said. People changed over time, and Yorin hadn’t seen Yris for a very long time. And after what had happened with Irif, Nira wasn’t going to blindly believe Yorin when it came to his old acquaintances.

“You should have said something earlier, Dad,” said Nira gently, and he smiled at her sadly. Yeah, she still hated that look.

“You’re right, but I thought it would be a shorter walk, so I thought I could make it,” he replied, lowering his gaze as if he were ashamed of being too weak to walk for two hours. “And…I didn’t want you to worry about me.”

“I already do that,” Nira argued. “All the time since I came back.”

Her father laughed quietly. “You’re so much like your mother.” Then his smile disappeared and a rather awkward silence filled the tunnel. Nira was sure he hadn’t meant to say this, that it had just slipped out, but it made her even angrier.

“Yorin, is it possible that my mother is still alive?” Nira asked, looking at the Eternal instead of her father.

No, I don’t think so, he replied after a moment. I’m sorry. Prolonged possession by an Eternal proved fatal in ninety-nine percent of hosts taken by force.

Nira was about to kick a rock that was lying on the ground in front of her when she did a double take. “Ninety-nine? So one percent did survive?”

Well, yes—

“So it’s possible that my mom is still alive?”

Theoretically, but you have to understand—it’s only one percent. That is a very small chance.

Nira was barely listening to him, though. She was just focusing on the fact that it was possible her mother wasn’t dead yet. And she didn’t care how small the chance of that being true was. It was possible, so she would take it as a certainty.

“You are not actually thinking about trying to get Irif to leave your mother’s body, are you?” Yris asked, half laughing, which Nira answered with a harsh glare.

“Yeah, I am,” Nira said, and Yris’ smile disappeared.

“I don’t think you realize just how powerful Irif is,” Yris said, now completely serious. “There’s a reason she’s been in charge for so long. We’ll be glad if we manage to overpower her for long enough to kill her. We’re not taking her prisoner.”

Since Yris had clearly already decided on this, there was no point in arguing with him, so Nira instead looked at Yorin, and her father.

I’m sorry, but I agree with Yris. You’ve never seen how strong she is and what she’s capable of. I know you want your mother back, but you barely remember her. Is putting this mission and your country in jeopardy worth just for a sliver of hope that she is still alive?

Nira glared at him so hard he actually had to look away. How could he even say this? He probably didn’t remember his own mother, but if there was a chance to save her, he would do it. Nira was sure of that.

“Sweetheart,” said her father, looking at her with pained sympathy. “I know how you feel. Trust me, I do. But your mother is dead. I’m sorry. Even Irif said so.”

“She could have been lying.”

“Why would she lie? If she wanted to hurt me, then pretending Sid was still alive and trapped would be much better way to go about it.”

Nira looked down at her boots. She didn’t have a good answer to that. She knew deep down they were all right, but she just couldn’t accept it. If it was possible that her mother was still alive, she wasn’t going to just give up. However, since no one seemed to take her side, she didn’t continue arguing with them.

During the next few minutes no one said anything, but Nira was so preoccupied with thinking about how she could go about making Irif powerless that she barely noticed. If those cuffs Yorin had had worked on him, they should work on Irif too, shouldn’t they? So the only issue was getting her hands on a pair of those. If Nira was going to directly fight Irif, it shouldn’t be that difficult to put the cuffs on her with or without the others’ approval.

Uh, Yris, Yorin suddenly spoke, which drew Nira out of her thoughts. You said there were five of us, which means we’re going to meet one other person. Who is it?

“Sylari,” Yris replied, not sounding especially enthusiastic about it.

Oh.

“Is that bad?” Nira’s father asked, looking from Yorin to Yris.

She doesn’t like me.

Yris snorted. “Yes, that’s one way of putting it. She blames Yorin for making this war as long as it is, and to be fair, yes, she does have a point.”

Yorin’s ears drooped. Nira hadn’t even known he could move them, but now she wanted to punch Yris for making Yorin sad.

“However,” Yris continued, “Enor would have probably found a way to make more Eternals one way or the other, so I don’t think she’s right. In fact, if you hadn’t helped him, Yorin, he might have grown desperate enough to do something much worse.”

Yorin perked up a little at that.

“I wish you didn’t tell Irif how to do it as well, but what’s done is done. We’ll just have to act quickly.”

After another half an hour, they finally reached the base. If it could even be called that. It was really just one large room hidden behind a fake wall that was very convincing. Nira would have completely missed it if Yris didn’t stop before it.

Inside the room were a few chairs and tables, several large crates, an alarmingly large amount of alcohol, and a tall woman who looked very unimpressed.

This must have been Sylari. She looked a little older than Nira, had blond, shoulder-length hair, and a scar over her left eye and cheek. It was so strange, seeing an Eternal with any scars, much less one on the face. Then again, maybe she just didn’t care what she looked like enough to fix it.

“Yorin,” she said, not bothering to hide her disdain for him before changing her tone into a more pleasant one. “Your Majesties.”

“Uh, hi,” Nira said awkwardly. The woman’s penetrating gaze was making her nervous. It was just so invasive, like she was looking directly into Nira’s mind. Maybe she was, and Nira just didn’t realize it.

That thought didn’t help her one bit.

She looked over at her father as he climbed off Yorin’s back. He looked okay for the most part, but that didn’t stop Nira from worrying.

“I assume Yris already told you what we need from you,” Sylari continued, saying it in a way that got across that she didn’t expect them to answer. “Under normal circumstances, we usually give members of your bloodline only small amounts of our power per day as giving too much can sometimes prove fatal. However, seeing as you’re both able to host and withstand the power of an Eternal like Irif, I think we can go faster than that. We also don’t have much time thanks to a particular individual.”

Sylari glared at Yorin who had already transformed back and was now staring at his feet in shame.

“It’s not his fault Irif tortured him into telling her,” Nira defended him immediately, glaring at Sylari with all she had. “It’s my fault I led him to her.”

“Oh, please, Yorin has always been weak,” Sylari said, shaking her head, and then turning her attention to the Eternal in question. “What did Irif do to you, Yorin? Did her people beat you up? Did they rip off a few fingernails?”

Yorin continued looking at his feet, a look of misery on his face, and Nira was fuming. Why was Sylari mocking him like this? Yorin didn’t deserve someone mocking his pain.

“When I was captured by Irif and interrogated, I was set on fire, burnt until only ash remained. I was given no other host, so I had to rebuild my body from the few cells that still remained, and then they set me on fire again. And still, I told her nothing,” Sylari spat at Yorin looked more and more like he wanted to run away. “You’re pathetic.”

“Okay, calm down, Sylari,” said Yris, walking between her and Yorin. “Not everyone is as hardcore as you. Maybe Yorin isn’t the most strong-willed of us, but he is probably the smartest, and he wants to help. The least you can do is be frien—um, not hostile.”

“You’ll always take his side, won’t you?” Sylari scoffed. “No matter what he does. He practically doomed this entire rebellion. Even with that abomination helping us, we now have only a few weeks to plan everything out.”

“What ‘abomination’?” Nira asked, unable to help herself. She was still angry at how Sylari was treating Yorin, of course, but this was odd enough to make her forget about that for a second.

“I can’t tell you. Any Eternal can read your mind,” Sylari explained. Nira huffed, but didn’t say anything. That was finally a good reason not to tell her things.

Only then did Nira realize that Yorin had disappeared. And only because Yris pointed it out.

“Oh, great, Sylari. You just had to be yourself, didn’t you?” he complained. “Now I’ll have to explain to him that we don’t hate him or want him dead.”

“Maybe you don’t,” Sylari said and Yris gave her a death glare.

“Shut up!”

He stomped out of the room, muttering something angrily under his breath. Nira expected an awkward silence to follow this outburst, but Sylari continued as if nothing had happened.

“So, to get back to the matter at hand, am I right to understand that you’ve already absorbed and used Eternal power in the past?” she asked Nira, who nodded.

“Yes, three times now,” Nira replied, not bothering to sound friendly after what Sylari had just said. At least Yris was there to make Yorin feel better. Nira hoped, at least. Sylari seemed completely unfazed by both her tone and what Nira had said and looked over at Nira’s father instead.

“And you haven’t done this before?”

“I’m afraid not,” he answered, looking a little nervous. Which, to be fair, was understandable. If Nira hadn’t done it almost subconsciously the first time, she would have been nervous too.

“Hold out your hand,” Sylari instructed Nira’s father, who did as requested, albeit very hesitantly. Before Nira could warn him, Sylari put a hand over her father’s and let her energy, which was a deep green in color, flow into him.

Her father took a few deep breaths, but otherwise he seemed to be doing okay. He looked like he was in control of the power he’d just been given as he looked over at Nira, his usual blue eyes now glowing with the green light.

“Are you…okay?” Nira asked slowly, frowning at him in worry. He grinned at her widely, looking amazed.

“Yes. In fact, I think I’m more than just okay,” her father replied. “This is incredible.”

“This is but a small portion of what we plan on giving you. And you seem to be reacting to the power very well, which is good,” Sylari said and started walking towards the crates in the back.

“You’re handling this way better than I did,” Nira said, still cautious. It was very strange how easily her father had adjusted to the power. Sylari didn’t seem that surprised by it, but it seemed it was very hard to surprise her in general, so that didn’t really tell Nira much.

“What happened to you the first time?” he asked, his voice immediately worried. Nira smiled to herself.

“I dunno, I barely remember it. It was like the power was controlling me more than I was controlling it.”

“A common occurrence,” Sylari joined the conversation as she came back with two glowing syringes. “Our power can sometimes overwhelm the consciousness. But I assure you, whatever you did, it was you doing it. The energy itself is not sentient. At least, not enough to take over.”

Nira blinked. “You mean it is sentient?”

“Not in the way you think. There can sometimes be echoes of the donors in the energy—memories, personality traits, things like that. But they barely ever have an impact on the recipient in any significant way.”

That didn’t make it less unsettling. Nira didn’t want other beings’ memories or preferences. Then again, she’d absorbed the energy three times now, and there were no such side effects, so maybe this was rare.

“However, all of this is highly unlikely because to make you stronger, we don’t actually transfer our energy the way I just did. That was just a test to see how capable you are of absorbing it.”

Sylari raised the syringes into the air, so they were easier to see. One was glowing with an orange light and other with a light blue.

“The Eternal energy contained within these syringes has been processed so that not only is there no trace of the donor remaining in it, but also that the energy transfer is permanent. It will adjust to you, and it will be yours and no one else’s. Unless you use it up or come in contact with othrin. Your bodies aren’t able to regenerate Eternal energy, so we’ll have to start this process all over again if that happens.”

Nira let out a breath as Sylari finished explaining. That was a lot to take in, and frankly, it sounded a little too good to be true. However, the idea of being powerful once more, and better yet, being so powerful permanently, was so appealing she pushed her doubts aside.

“I’ll be taking that back, if you don’t mind,” Sylari said and touched Nira’s father again, drawing her power out of him once more. He stumbled a little, dazed by the sudden change, but composed himself quickly. Sylari then gave them the syringes. “You don’t need to look for a blood vessel.”

Nira gripped the syringe tightly, watching the orange light dance inside of the plastic tube. For a second she wondered if this was really a good idea, but then the part of her that wanted the power pushed those doubts away. Feeling determined once more, Nira stabbed the needle of the syringe into her left arm.

She gasped at how different this energy transfer was compared to the others. This one felt so much more real somehow. Like the energy that was seeping into her body was running directly through her veins.

As always, it felt wonderful, though. Maybe even more so than usual because of how direct it all was. Nira didn’t hesitate and squeezed the plunger. Since there was barely any resistance, she ended up pushing the entire contents of the syringe into her body in one go. It left her dizzy momentarily, but after a few seconds, it stopped.

As Nira pulled the needle out, she watched the small hole left by it disappear, and she couldn’t help but grin. Her heart was racing, but surprisingly, she didn’t feel that different. She could tell she was stronger, much stronger, but that was about it. And Nira actually preferred it this way. She felt more in control than ever because of it.

Nira looked over at her father, who’d already injected himself with the Eternal energy as well. She was sort of expecting him to take off the eyepatch to reveal that his eye had grown back, but nothing like that happened.

“Your eye didn’t heal?” she asked him, and he frowned at her.

“You mean it should have?”

“No, you can only heal what your bodies can heal, albeit with better results,” Sylari explained, looking quite impressed for some reason. “You are more limited than we are when it comes to…well, most things.”

“Can’t you heal him, then?”

“I could try, but I don’t think that the new eye would work. This kind of healing is just too complicated, so it would be purely aesthetic,” Sylari told them, actually looking apologetic, which was very surprising. Nira hadn’t thought Sylari would bother with something like that.

“That’s okay. I’m used to the eyepatch,” Nira’s father said, smiling, and for once it didn’t look sad. He truly seemed content with it, which was a little sad, but if her father didn’t mind, Nira wouldn’t say anything.

Despite still being too thin, he looked much better now. The injection must have really helped. Even his hair looked healthier, which was just weird, but it had to be a good sign.

“Well, if you have adjusted to the energy,” Sylari said, “we can move on to testing just how much in control of it you are.”