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

Rayni knew it sounded silly, but it only really hit her where they were going and what they were going to do a mere half an hour before takeoff. They were all standing in a random field, although Rayni was sure Kaleth had chosen it for a reason, whatever that was, most Eternals having already switched into their various dragon forms.

There were so many colors and kinds it was actually amazing, but instead of being impressed or in awe of the sight, Rayni was just annoyed. She still didn’t know how to change forms, no matter how much she tried. She was at full power now, she had been for days, in fact, but that didn’t seem to change anything.

She’d asked Mel about it, but he’d just said he had no idea how he did it, so that was incredibly unhelpful. Though the fact that Kaleth didn’t know how to do this either made Rayni feel a little bit better. The problem was that Kaleth had Mel to take him places. Rayni had no one.

“Nervous?” asked a voice next to her, and Rayni jumped a little. Edras was now looking at her, wearing Mereria’s full armor including the daggers. The only reason Rayni could tell it was Edras was that she wasn’t glaring or looking wistful.

“We’re just going to Irithara. Why would I be nervous?” Rayni joked, even though deep down, she wasn’t just nervous, she was terrified.

“I really get why Kaleth likes you,” Edras replied with a smile, apparently completely unfazed by the fact that she could die in the next few hours. “I’ll never forgive myself for never being there for him, but I am so grateful that at least you were. More than I can express. I know he’s not the easiest person to get along with.”

Rayni bit the inside of her lip. She wished she could say she’d always been there for Kaleth, but she hadn’t paid much attention to him the first few years. She regretted it, of course, but there was nothing she could do about it now. Still, that didn’t mean it didn’t bug her.

“Yeah, well, I don’t think he’ll need me for emotional support anymore,” Rayni smirked, looking over to a small cluster of trees a little away from them where Kaleth was currently being hugged by Mel’s giant wings.

“That’s not true,” Edras said fondly. “He can never have enough people like you in his life.”

Rayni wasn’t sure what this conversation was making her feel, but she did know that she wanted to stop talking about this immediately. Fortunately, after having said this, Edras changed the subject. Unfortunately, it was something Rayni wanted to talk about even less.

“I know you’re angry with Mereria right now, and you have reason to be angry, but please don’t push her out of your life completely.”

Rayni wondered if this was even Edras saying this.

“It’s not like I can stay away from her anyway, since we need her,” Rayni said, rolling her eyes. “Besides, isn’t this weird-ass relationship making you uncomfortable?”

Rayni hadn’t really thought about how this all must have looked from Edras’ perspective. Sure, Rayni and Mereria hadn’t actually done anything—ew—but it still had to have been weird.

“Trust me, sharing a body with a millennia old entity who mopes like a teenager who got stood up at the prom is way worse than a few deep conversations,” Edras replied, shaking her head. Rayni would have thought she was just joking, but there was not a hint of that in Edras’ tone.

“She mopes because of me?” Rayni asked. She wasn’t sure if she felt good or bad about that.

Edras smiled. “Right now, she’s saying she doesn’t, but yes, she totally does.” Then Edras’ eyes flashed, and she scowled. Immediately, Rayni could tell Mereria had taken control.

“I do not mope,” she spat, looking away and folding her arms. Rayni noticed the other Eternals’ eyes on them, and only then realized that Mereria had only days ago been their enemy. Even though Rayni didn’t want to talk to her, it was probably for the best to move the conversation somewhere else, so Rayni took a hold of Mereria’s arm and led her behind some nearby trees on their left.

For a while they just stood there, both with their arms folded. Uncharacteristically though, Mereria avoided Rayni’s gaze. It almost made her look vulnerable. Almost.

Then finally, Mereria spoke quietly. “I’m sorry.”

“What?” Rayni exclaimed. She hadn’t thought Mereria would ever say this, much less without any goading, but here they were.

“I’m sorry I lied,” Mereria repeated, this time more loudly. She looked up, shocking Rayni further because her eyes were actually a little glazed over. Rayni just hoped Mereria wouldn’t cry because she was completely unprepared for that.

“How about being sorry taking away our lives and memories?” Rayni said, putting her hands on her hips. Mereria looked away again, but before she did, Rayni managed to catch sorrow in her hazel eyes.

She really didn’t like herself for it, but she found herself feeling sorry she’d said this. It had been needed, but seeing Mereria sad wasn’t making Rayni feel good. Not in the slightest.

“I am sorry about that as well,” Mereria finally said, looking back at Rayni with actual regret. Wow, who knew Mereria could express all these emotions? “But if I could explain my side of the story…?”

That was actually something Rayni had been wondering about since Mereria had rejoined them. How it was possible that Relioth offered better working conditions than Mereria did. And since they still had time, Rayni nodded, feeling very curious about what Mereria had to say.

“Before I even officially decided to oppose Enor, I was putting together a force of like-minded people, so that we would actually have a chance at beating him. Unfortunately, some of them were cowards.”

Rayni had a feeling she knew where this was going, but she let Mereria continue, anyway.

“They told Enor about my plan, and before I knew it, most of my supporters were dead. After that, I and the few Eternals that remained fled to Aren, and we had to wait for almost an entire century before Enor stopped looking for us.”

Mereria’s shoulders slumped, and she sighed. “They’re all dead now. I barely remember them.”

Since Mereria seemed to be stuck in melancholy, Rayni cleared her throat. “Right, so what happened then?”

“Oh.” Mereria blinked and focused on Rayni again. “We tried reaching out to some of the Eternals we knew didn’t agree with Enor’s ideology, but none wanted to help us, and with six people, there was very little we could do to oppose Enor.”

“So you started to transform my people into Eternals so you could build your army. Yeah, sorry, that’s not really making me agree with your reasoning,” Rayni said, unable to help herself. On one hand, she was glad Mereria wasn’t trying to make herself look like the victim here, but on the other, she wasn’t really trying to show the positive side of this either. If there even was a positive side.

“What would you have done if you had to watch someone butcher thousands of innocents?” Mereria asked, surprisingly sounding more defeated than defensive. “I couldn’t just let him do it, but I wasn’t strong enough to stop him. I just thought sacrificing a few lives was worth saving thousands.” She paused for a moment, looking away once again. “I still do.”

Rayni wasn’t sure what to say to that. She was never good at deciding what was still morally correct or not. However, Rayni agreed with Mereria, even though she didn’t want to. She hadn’t really thought about this from this point of view. She’d just assumed Mereria had only done this to stop Enor from killing other Eternals, but Mereria seemed to be talking in general terms.

“That still doesn’t explain the freaking waterboarding,” Rayni said, not willing to let this go just yet. Mereria sighed once more.

“I was too afraid one of my soldiers might switch sides. If Enor found out where we were hiding, he’d destroy us.”

“And that makes it okay?”

“I’m not trying to justify it. I know it’s wrong, but it got so easy after so many years.”

Mereria actually sounded disgusted with herself, which made it impossible for Rayni to verbally confirm that it was indeed wrong and that Mereria should be ashamed of herself. Clearly, both those things were already in Mereria’s head, anyway.

“See, I told you you just pretend not to care about this stuff,” Rayni said, smirking. It felt good to be right. She didn’t get to experience it that often so she had to enjoy it now. “Was it worth it?”

Despite the lack of context, Mereria seemed to understand exactly what Rayni was talking about. “Yes. Why do you think Enor hadn’t tried to kill the entirety of Irithara in the last three thousand years?”

“What? There’s been plenty of wars,” Rayni argued, and Mereria smiled at her sadly.

“A lot of that was just your people. Once Enor realized I had a force big enough to threaten his life, he put Tharos in charge and mostly stayed in his labs, doing who knows what. And Tharos didn’t want a genocide, but he enjoys conflict, so he was more than happy to keep the wars going.”

“Of course he was,” Rayni said, rolling her eyes, which made Mereria chuckled very softly. “How did Enor die, anyway?”

Mereria’s smile disappeared. “I killed him.”

“Really?” Wasn’t that something she should be bragging about? Why was Mereria sad about this?

“Yes. Tharos contacted me about helping him kill Enor. And once the deed was done, and I was exhausted and injured, Tharos imprisoned me in Carcer. I should have known better. He never changes.”

Wow, Relioth sure knew how to come out on top. It was really a wonder Kaleth had managed to beat him.

“Yeah, but then Kaleth and Mel broke you out, right? And Enor’s still dead, so it’s not that bad,” Rayni said and Mereria suddenly looked almost hopeless. Only for a second though.

“Yes, it could be worse,” Mereria muttered, staring at Kaleth who was now barely visible over the other Eternals. Rayni wanted to ask what that had been about, but Mereria changed the subject.

“Thank you for listening. I did not expect that,” Mereria said, looking at Rayni with such sincerity Rayni was really starting to wonder if this was really Mereria and not Edras messing with her. Now that she was without an army, she seemed to be much less focused on not showing her emotions. Rayni really didn’t mind that, though—she already had enough people in her life who did that.

Rayni’s heart clenched a little as she remembered that Kara still hadn’t contacted her, and since Rayni was going to Irithara, they might never see each other again, but she did her best to ignore those thoughts.

“Hey, if there’s one thing I can do, it’s listen,” Rayni told Mereria, hitting her shoulder playfully.

“Actually, it isn’t. You never listen and always talk,” Mereria corrected her, and Rayni burst out laughing. Something about the deadpan tone of voice Mereria had used was hilarious to her, even though it was kinda insulting.

When Rayni finally managed to get her laughter under control, she noticed Mereria was looking at her with a fondness that would have made her uncomfortable a while ago, but now it was almost heartwarming. It did make Rayni wonder whether or not she hadn’t changed at all if Mereria could become nostalgic by seeing Rayni laugh like an idiot.

“Something tells me you’re not the listening type, either,” Rayni teased, and Mereria scowled in annoyance, which was exactly the reaction Rayni had been hoping for.

“I only listen when the things said are worth listening to.”

“You sure you don’t like Kaleth? Because you have some very similar opinions.”

Seeing Mereria’s sour expression, Rayni started laughing again. Maybe she was just hysterical from what they were about to do. That would explain it.

“You still can’t shapeshift, can you?” Mereria asked once Rayni stopped laughing. Surprisingly, she’d managed to make it sound neither mocking nor nagging. It still made Rayni feel annoyed though.

“No,” Rayni replied, folding her arms.

Mereria frowned in what Rayni supposed was concern, but it was kind of hard to tell with her sometimes. “Strange. You were always better at it than me.”

It was strange receiving a compliment that wasn’t at all meant as a compliment. Rayni still took it as such though. Being better at something than Mereria and hearing her admit it felt nice.

“If you would allow me, I could look into your mind and see what the problem is,” Mereria suggested, seeming about as enthused by this idea as Rayni felt.

“You’re not just saying that so you can try to get me to remember stuff to make me like you, are you?” Rayni asked, narrowing her eyes at Mereria, who looked hurt by the question.

“No, of course not,” she replied sadly, and Rayni was starting to wonder if she hadn’t preferred it when Mereria had been emotionless and cold. At least then she didn’t have to worry about hurting her feelings.

“Do it then, I guess,” Rayni shrugged, trying not to feel unnerved by the fact that Mereria was about to look inside her head. Still, if this meant being able to transform into a badass dragon, Rayni would take it.

Mereria took a step closer to her, which meant they were now standing right in front of each other, and before Rayni had a chance to change her mind, Mereria put her index finger on Rayni’s left temple.

What happened next was frankly much less impactful than Rayni had been expecting. Rayni could see flashes of images, and she knew they were the memories she’d lost, but seeing them didn’t really make her feel…well, anything. They were gone as quickly as they appeared, which made it impossible to even fully take in what she was seeing.

But then it started to slow down a bit as Mereria seemed to get closer to whatever she was looking for, and Rayni could finally see a few clear memories. Her standing on some very tall building, staring down at a city Rayni couldn’t recognize, fighting another Eternal, looking at a dark-skinned woman who was definitely Mereria and who sported an uncharacteristically wide smile….

Even though the images continued changing, Rayni kept thinking about that. There was a point in time when Mereria was happy enough to look this way? Rayni wouldn’t have believed that if she hadn’t seen it.

Finally, the images came to a near halt as Rayni watched herself transform. Or maybe experienced herself transforming would have been a better way of putting it. Unlike the other memories, Rayni actually felt like she was right there, doing what her past self was doing. And the act itself was remarkably simple—she just imagined what she would turn into and then she suddenly was in a completely different body.

Rayni gasped as she was brought back to reality and blinked. Mereria wasn’t looking at her and had already taken two steps away from her. She looked, well, depressed. And Rayni could have sworn her eyes glistened for a second.

Rayni wanted to put a hand on Mereria’s shoulder in an effort to comfort her a bit, but then she froze and stared at her black, scaly arm, which was technically now a leg. She must have transformed while she had seen her younger self do it.

Feeling excited, Rayni quickly turned her head to look behind her, waving her long tail around and flapping her wings. It should have been weird that she now had three more appendages, but somehow it wasn’t. It was just cool.

Rayni really wondered what her face looked like now, but there was nothing reflective around her, so she couldn’t check. She jumped around a bit, taking note of how easy it was when she had wings to help her. It was actually really fun. She could jump really high up as if she were on a trampoline, so she was now really looking forward to flying.

If she managed to take off.

Rayni stopped when she noticed Mereria was looking at her with a fond, yet still sad smile. She didn’t get to say anything though, because a second later Mel landed next to her.

“You shifted!” he said, beaming at her and pressing his head to her neck in some strange version of a hug. Although she supposed there were very few options of hugging as she stared at her paws. Or were they claws?

Oh, who cared?

“Sure did,” she said, smiling back. She was noticeably bigger than Mel like this, which was very strange since Mel was definitely taller than her, but otherwise, they looked pretty similar. Maybe it was a twin thing or something. Sure, Rayni couldn’t see herself well, but the parts she could see seemed similar. She even had the ears it seemed, although she couldn’t see those. The only major difference was that she wasn’t just black. Her scales had a purple sheen to them, and some were also gold, forming a few large, swirling patterns on her body.

Well, Rayni had always wanted a tattoo or two—close enough.

She frowned as Mel froze and shrunk away, staring at the ground. Rayni almost asked what the problem was, but then she figured it out herself.

“Hey, c’mon, Mereria doesn’t call the shots anymore, all right?” Rayni said, nudging Mel with her wing. “It’s okay. You can tell her what you think about her now.”

Rayni gave Mereria a challenging look, which the other Eternal seemed to understand immediately. Mereria just nodded, putting her hands behind her back and staying silent. Mel looked incredibly uncomfortable with the situation, but Rayni didn’t want him to waste this opportunity. It would be good for him to stand up to his ex-boss.

“You’re…” Mel began, pausing for a second. “You’re really brave.”

Both Rayni and Mereria stared at him in bewilderment, but Mel didn’t let that stop him from continuing.

“I always admired that you decided to fight against Enor. I always wanted to be just as brave as you.”

“Um, thank you,” Mereria said when it was clear Mel wasn’t going to continue. She sounded like she couldn’t believe he’d just said that, and, frankly, Rayni couldn’t either.

“Mel, you were supposed to say something bad about her,” Rayni explained to him, and Mel let out a displeased huff.

“I don’t like being mean.”

Well, this was technically standing up to Rayni, so she would take it. It was better than nothing.

“You’re such a big dummy,” Rayni said affectionately, draping her huge wing over most of her brother. Mel seemed a little confused and hurt at first, but soon seemed realized Rayni hadn’t meant it as an insult and pressed up against her. It was a little strange, but it felt nice.

“I’m sorry for keeping the two of you separate,” said Mereria randomly, looking at both of them with a pained expression. “It was just easier that you didn’t know each other well. It was safer if one of us ever got captured.”

“But it’s totally fine that the two of us were dating?” Rayni couldn’t help but say, not enjoying the way Mereria winced at that as much as she thought she would.

“My willpower is not as strong as I would like,” Mereria replied and sighed. The conversation ended there, however, because a second later they all heard Kaleth’s voice in their heads.

You all know where to go. If anyone has any reservations, I suggest you leave now. You won’t get a chance later.

There was a pause during which no one moved. Rayni couldn’t even see Kaleth anymore among the many, many dragons.

Good. Then it’s time to take off.

Without a single question, the fifty or so Eternals flapped their wings and quickly started gaining altitude. Rayni watched them with as much concentration as possible, trying to figure out if there was a trick to the whole process of flying. She was glad to find out it really seemed like it was just about flapping her wings.

“Would you mind if I…?” Mereria asked, gesturing to Rayni’s back. It was pretty clear what she wanted, but that didn’t mean Rayni got it.

“Can’t you shapeshift?”

“Of course I can, but if I am to alter the flow of time itself, I’ll need full concentration. I can’t waste energy on flying,” Mereria explained, and Rayni shrugged. That probably made sense. Rayni crouched down a bit as Mereria climbed onto her back. It was a little weird, having that extra weight on her, but for the most part, Mereria, or rather Edras, was pretty light.

“Oh, this should be fun,” Edras said from where she was sitting. Rayni was a little uncertain why Mereria chose to stay back again, but then she turned around and noticed that Kaleth was only a few steps away from them.

“You are way too excited,” Rayni commented. Did Edras not realize they could die?

“You would be too if you were about to ride a dragon,” Edras replied, touching the back of Rayni’s long neck, as Rayni fought with herself not to turn that into an innuendo.

“Ready?” Kaleth asked, his voice completely lacking enthusiasm. He directed the question mostly at Mel, who nodded firmly, and Kaleth’s shoulders slumped a tiny bit. Nevertheless, he climbed onto Mel’s back. Mel smiled slightly at Rayni and jumped up, flapping his wings so quickly he was high above the trees in a couple of seconds.

Well, here goes nothing, Rayni thought to herself as she spread out her wings and jumped up as well.