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

Rayni watched in a disgusted kind of awe as Mereria cut Irif’s soldiers down one after the other in such a fast way that they didn’t even manage to aim before they were killed. She was now wearing a white version of her usual Umbra outfit, and while Rayni still didn’t get how she’d managed it, she had to admit it worked well as camouflage.

In fact, Mereria had somehow managed to turn Rayni’s scales white, as well. It was probably done by that shapeshifting ability all Eternals had, but Rayni hadn’t known it was possible for one Eternal to change another.

Rayni set that thought aside for later as a good way to prank people.

“How many did Irif send?” grumbled Mereria, wiping blood off the visible part of her face with her sleeve. Rayni would have said that now her camouflage wasn’t working, but since the other Eternal was already red all over from all the slaughtering, it pretty much changed nothing.

“I dunno, but after seeing that, I’d run,” Rayni said, nodding towards all the dead bodies. It was making her queasy, in fact, which was interesting because she’d thought she’d seen enough corpses to be immune to it by now.

“This is Irithara, not Enoria,” Mereria reminded her, climbing onto Rayni’s back. “They don’t go to war to win, they go to war to die for their country.”

Rayni wrinkled her snout in distaste.

“We need to keep moving,” Mereria reminded her gently but firmly. Rayni nodded and jumped up the mountain wall next to them, trying to get a good vantage point from which they could find newly arriving soldiers. They were clearly coming from the forest, but they had to be using vehicles to get here so fast, which would make ambushes much easier.

Rayni didn’t even know why she’d decided to go with Mereria on a scouting mission. She definitely wasn’t a master of stealth, especially now. Being a dragon was nice and all, but it also made being inconspicuous pretty much impossible. She could make the ground shake ever so slightly if she stomped, for gods’ sake.

But Mereria needed to get around fast, so Rayni couldn’t change back.

The rest of their group was hiding in a cave a few minutes away from them, and the fact that just days ago they worked for Relioth and were now without any supervision wasn’t making Rayni calmer. If they left, they would truly be screwed.

Four Eternals had died on the way here, and Rayni knew more had been shot down from Kaleth’s group.

Rayni sighed as she climbed ever higher, staying in the snowy patches to remain relatively hidden. She hoped Mel and Kaleth were okay, at least. She knew Kaleth wouldn’t let anything happen to her brother, but if he got injured or even killed, she didn’t want to imagine what the other Eternals might do to Mel.

She knew she would have hated herself for it, but maybe she should have forced the Umbra to go with them, rather than soldiers who had just changed their allegiance. It would have been safer.

Rayni flinched and pressed herself up against the snow, shielding Mereria with her wings as a jet flew past them. It wasn’t close enough to see them, but it was still too close for Rayni’s liking.

It came from the south, Mereria remarked in Rayni’s head.

I guess we’re going there?

I see Tharos’ brainwashing did nothing to slow down your sharp intellect.

Rayni snorted and shook her head, making her ears flap around. It was really strange how easily she’d changed her body language to suit this form like it had always been a part of her and she just hadn’t remembered.

Are you being sarcastic?

No.

Damn Mereria and her neutral tone.

Was that sarcastic?

Mereria groaned. Please, just go, Raynimara.

Rayni snorted in annoyance once again, but on the inside, she was laughing, if only a little. There was something funny about annoying people like Mereria. Their frustration when faced with conversations like this was just hilarious. And Rayni had had a lot of training in that area by irritating Kaleth for years.

She did as she was asked, though, and changed the direction so she could land and fly around the mountain closer to the ground. It would be less likely they would be spotted like that. Rayni still didn’t make the trip in one go, though. She flew over small distances, always making sure to blend into the snow and check if there were any soldiers near them.

They didn’t seem to be wearing anything like the Umbra cloaking technology, so it was pretty easy to spot them. The problem was that they had long-range weapons, and Rayni’s grasp of telepathy usually didn’t reach quite that far, so she could get shot without ever seeing it coming.

Thankfully, Mereria seemed to be doing better there. She had been really good at the whole time manipulation thing back when they had been getting shot at, so Rayni was hoping that she would do it again if there were any bullets going their way.

It didn’t take long to find out where the soldiers were coming from. Underneath one of the sharp mountain edges were several jets parked around what looked like a makeshift base, with tents and all. Damn Iritharians and their productivity.

There were about forty soldiers around the base, but it was hard to tell from where Rayni was standing. The mountain blocked off a part of the base, so who knew how big it all actually was.

“This is too easy,” Mereria said with suspicion in her tone as she stretched out one arm.

“Wait, what are you doing?”

“I’m trying to take a few of their grenades and destroy a jet or two,” Mereria replied, and Rayni craned her neck to look at her with wide eyes.

“But that will kill all of them,” Rayni protested. A mass murder just didn’t sit right with her, no matter who it involved.

“It’s us or them, Rayni,” Mereria reminded her. “They won’t hesitate to kill us, so we can’t afford not to act the same.”

“We don’t need to kill them, we just need to keep them busy,” Rayni said, not letting Mereria win just yet. “Just blow up one or two of the jets that are a bit away from the people. That should distract them for a while.”

Mereria sighed dramatically but agreed, and Rayni smiled to herself. These people were just following orders, they didn’t have to die, and it was good knowing Mereria valued her opinion enough to not do the safe thing.

Rayni narrowed her eyes, trying to see the grenades Mereria had stolen. She’d noticed how much farther and with more detail she could see in this form, but she hadn’t used this ability to its full potential yet, so now was the perfect time to do so.

In the end, she didn’t find them herself—a group of soldiers did. Thankfully, they were too confused by the self-moving grenade that they didn’t attempt to stop it in the few seconds they had, and when it rolled under one of the jets’ fuel tanks, they wisely decided to take cover instead of trying to save the jet.

The small base was now covered up by fire and thick, black smoke, and the loudness of the explosion made Rayni want to cover her now very sensitive ears. Then another boom sounded, presumably another jet blowing up, though Rayni had no clue how Mereria could see what she was doing right now.

“That should be enough for now. Now they will call for backup,” Mereria said. Rayni had no idea why she just hadn’t said they should get out of here, but she just took flight without a comment. Even with the base in flames, she had to be careful, though. They could get shot down at any minute.

Suddenly noticing something in the corner of her eye, Rayni flinched and turned her head to look in the direction of whatever or whoever it was.

She breathed out a little when she saw another dragon, and noticing he was following her Rayni landed and turned to face him. Almost immediately, he landed as well. He gave Mereria a glare and then spoke.

“That explosion of yours barely killed anyone, Commander,” he sneered.

“That was on purpose, you moron,” Rayni snapped, already feeling a headache coming. Why did everyone have to have a huge ego? “How many of you died?”

He seemed a bit taken aback by her attitude, but he looked more impressed than angry or annoyed. “About eight, thanks to your Umbra friend.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Rayni asked, immediately defensive. There was no way Mel caused their deaths, so this guy was most likely just twisting facts.

“Eight?” Mereria repeated with irritation, changing the topic. Rayni couldn’t help but feel a little annoyed, but she supposed she could ask Mel later. “Perfect. Where are the others hiding?”

“In a crevasse to the south,” the Eternal replied, his tone once again unfriendly.

“You’ll go with us to retrieve the rest of my group and then lead us to this crevasse,” Mereria ordered him, and the Eternal huffed.

“I have orders—”

“Not anymore,” Mereria growled, and to Rayni’s shock, the Eternal actually lowered his head and nodded. Maybe this one just followed whoever was the least nice to him.

Rayni took flight again, heading for the cave in which they’d left the others. She couldn’t really remember where it was, but thankfully, Mereria gave her directions. Though they had to stop a few times to avoid being spotted, they soon enough reached the others, anyway.

As expected, the other Eternals questioned nothing and followed Mereria when she told them to. Then she turned to the Eternal they had met before.

“Lead us to the crevasse.”

He looked like he was about to argue, but a single glare from Mereria kept him silent. Rayni had her own doubts, however. There were more than twenty of them. There was no way someone wasn’t going to notice them.

Unfortunately, there was no better way of doing this. There was only one person who knew where to go, which meant that the only way they could split into small groups would be always sending someone back to lead the next group to the crevasse.

So, even though Rayni didn’t like this, she didn’t argue with Mereria about it. For once.

Before they left, Mereria made sure everyone was white, and to Rayni’s surprise, it turned out a lot of the other Eternals had no idea how to do it. That made her feel a bit better, but it didn’t help her understand how any of this worked.

Nevertheless, once everyone was camouflaged, Rayni finally got the go-ahead from Mereria to step outside. She didn’t get to do much else though because almost immediately she had to jump back inside as a jet flew directly overhead.

However, after that initial hiccup, the rest of the trip was fairly uneventful. Sure, they had to lie down in the snow a few times, and maybe an Iritharian soldier or two got ripped apart by dragon claws, but otherwise, it was much easier than Rayni had been expecting.

So she let her mind wander a little, mostly thinking about her twin and her friend. She knew they were alive. If they weren’t, she’d hear about it, surely. But that didn’t mean she didn’t want to make sure herself. She was aware that it was probably pretty paranoid, but she just needed to make sure they were okay.

As they kept going and going, Rayni was starting to question if the Eternal leading them actually knew where they were going. Just as she couldn’t take it anymore and had to say something, the Eternal stopped and turned to them.

“We’re here,” he announced and suddenly bolted, disappearing as he jumped over the hill of snow in front of them. Rayni gritted her teeth and sunk her claws into the frozen ground beneath her feet, preparing to run after him.

She never did, though. Before she could move, a helicopter appeared from behind the very hill Rayni had wanted to jump over. She froze, staring at the helicopter in shock. The moment she heard was the sound of its machine guns starting to fire she thought she was done for. All she could do was shut her eyes.

But to her surprise, she wasn’t shot to smithereens.

Rayni opened her eyes again to see bullets hanging in the air in front of her, and it was immediately clear what had happened. Mereria had saved her.

Rayni heard the Eternal sitting on her back grunt of effort and a second later the helicopter began to tip to the side and start to fall.

Run! Quickly! Mereria said urgently, and Rayni did so immediately, trying to ignore the loud crash as the helicopter finally fell to the ground, its still spinning, now bent blades creating a sickening screech as they came in contact with rock.

As Rayni rushed over the hill, she noticed even more aircrafts closing in on them, but she forced herself to ignore them. She just needed to do one thing right now—run to the crevasse that was now clearly visible and jump into it, and by doing so getting her and Mereria to safety.

It was only after she’d jumped into the huge crack in the ground that she realized she hadn’t even considered the other Eternals. She couldn’t make herself feel that much guilty though—they had been Relioth’s followers, dammit.

As soon as she landed, she was surrounded by Eternals from Kaleth’s group, but they seemed to relax almost immediately, most likely realizing she wasn’t a threat. As Mereria climbed off her back, Rayni fell something press into her side.

It was Mel, of course.

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” he said softly, and she smiled at him, putting a wing over his smaller body.

“Right back at ya,” she replied and moved away a bit to give the currently landing Eternals some space.

“Hey, big brother,” said Edras, which made Rayni look over at her. Edras hugged Kaleth which he returned immediately. Rayni felt a weight lift off her chest when she saw him. He looked tired, angry, and worried, but he seemed fine.

A sudden crash sounded above their heads, making everyone’s head shoot up.

Right, the Iritharians knew where they were hiding. At least the crevasse was too deep to drop a grenade into without it exploding on the way, but that didn’t mean they could stay here.

“I think we need to run,” Edras said, and Kaleth hummed. Rayni blinked. He was taking this way too calmly.

“This crevasse isn’t very long. There’s nowhere to run to,” Kaleth said, glaring as a grenade exploded far above them. “But I suppose we can try to surprise them by where we choose to leave.”

“Yeah, great, let’s go,” Edras said, slapping Kaleth’s shoulder, and he sighed. Rayni flinched and drew her wing back as Mel separated himself from her, running to Kaleth. She couldn’t help but notice that her brother seemed a little bit more hesitant than he usually was when doing something like this.

Mel visibly relaxed when Kaleth put his hand on the Eternal’s forehead, though, and Rayni smiled to herself. She was really glad these two idiots had found each other.

As a few more explosions happened above them, making rocks fall down, everyone became more and more on edge. It was clearly time to move.

“All right, here’s the plan,” said Edras as she all but jumped back onto Rayni’s back. If they didn’t have better things to do, Rayni would have complained. “Run this way as far as you can, then we go topside.”

Edras pointed behind her, so Rayni turned around to face the right direction. As the others began running farther into the crevasse, Rayni sighed internally. She couldn’t wait for the moment they finally reached those subway tunnels.