The Aperios (Children of the Sun Book 4)

“Are you sure you and Relioth have to go alone?” asked Mel with a worried frown. Kaleth sighed. Of course he would like nothing more than to not go with Relioth, but this was supposed to be an easy mission.

One of Relioth’s contacts, which he still apparently had, had told him about one of Enor’s bases where they would hopefully find out some of the locations of the facilities used to turn people into Eternals. And they needed those coordinates first to get anywhere, so even though Kaleth was staying skeptical of both Relioth and his contact, they had to go take a look.

And maybe they could capture one of Enor’s people too while they were at it, and try to find out if they could somehow break through their mind control.

“The fewer of us, the better, love,” Kaleth said, squeezing Mel’s hand. “And we are the only ones who can teleport. I’m still not that great at opening a portal, and it’s much more draining.”

Mel didn’t look happy at all about this, but he nodded with a pout that was far cuter than it had any right to be.

“Don’t worry, I can teleport right back if this goes wrong,” Kaleth said, hoping that would reassure him. But surprisingly, Mel wasn’t having any of it.

“Yeah, but will you actually do it?” Mel even narrowed his eyes as he said this. Kaleth grimaced. Mel knew him a bit too well.

“It will be fine, love.”

Mel sighed and drew Kaleth into a tight hug, which Kaleth gladly returned. He put his head on Mel’s shoulder, closing his eyes for a moment and letting out a breath. It was incredibly calming and pleasant to let himself be hugged like this, which of course meant that it wouldn’t last long.

“Kaleth?” Relioth called, walking into the room. “Oops, sorry, didn’t mean to, uh, interrupt.”

Kaleth let out an angry huff and very begrudgingly let go of Mel, turning around with a scowl. He really didn’t like the smirk Relioth was wearing.

“Um, I was just gonna say that we should go, so….”

“Yes, fine, I’ll be...right with you.”

Saying that last part in a neutral tone of voice turned out to be surprisingly difficult. Why couldn’t anyone else know how to teleport? He’d take Mereria with him rather than Relioth. At least she never bothered caring about him.

Thankfully Relioth disappeared from sight after that, so Kaleth could shift his focus on Mel again.

“Try not to hurt him,” Mel said, looking at him pleadingly. Kaleth sighed tiredly. “He really does seem to want to help.”

“Don’t you start, too,” Kaleth groaned, his shoulders sagging. As if hearing the same thing from Elrin every other time he talked to her wasn’t enough.

Mel’s puppy eyes only gained in intensity, which of course meant that Kaleth had to give in. “Fine. I’ll...try to tolerate him.”

The Eternal smiled and pressed his lips against Kaleth’s in a soft kiss, making Kaleth’s heart flutter. Kaleth would have to try to hold onto the feeling of warmness that had produced if he wanted to avoid yelling at Relioth too much.

Well, he didn’t really want to avoid it, but he should.

Mel walked with him all the way to the heavy, metal ladder that led to the surface, which was where Relioth was waiting. Kaleth glared at him immediately, for no actual reason aside from him being Relioth.

“Are sure you shouldn’t bring the shield with you, so you—” Mel started, but Kaleth interrupted him.

“It will be fine, love,” he said, stroking the other’s shoulder. “The only people I would need the shield for are Enor, or here at this base. It will just be a nuisance to carry around.”

That seemed to convince Mel, who nodded, though he still looked very worried. But Kaleth was worried about him all the time and for little reason, so he couldn’t exactly blame him.

Seeing Relioth raise his eyebrows at him in question, Kaleth gave him a nod. The sooner they left the sooner this would be over with. Although Kaleth had a feeling he and Relioth would have to team up on a regular basis due to their knack for teleportation.

And that thought was incredibly unhelpful.

Relioth started to climb the ladder up into the dark concrete tunnel it led up to, and so, after giving Mel a kiss on the forehead, Kaleth began to climb up after him. He wished he could just teleport outside, but if Elrin had had a device to track the bursts of Eternal energy associated with the action, then it was fair to assume that Enor had something similar as well, so the less attention they drew to this Umbra hideout they were staying in, the better.

When Kaleth reached the surface, Relioth was standing outside with his wings out already, the pure gold of his plumage glittering in the setting sun. He looked like he was flaunting them, which managed to sour Kaleth’s mood further.

With a little concentration, he transformed the back of his armor so it wouldn’t get torn apart by his own wings before summoning them. This so far was the pinnacle of what he could do in terms of shapeshifting, but it was enough for him. He didn’t need to walk around like a massive, golden lion, unlike some people.

They flew for a good hour and a half just to make sure Enor wouldn’t be able to trace them back to the base, and it was actually rather pleasant. Relioth was staying silent, which was always a good thing, and flying was always incredibly relaxing and freeing. No wonder Mel liked doing it for no reason sometimes, even though he didn’t like being in his dragon form for long.

It almost made Kaleth forget that Relioth was around, but those stupid, glittering wings were always in his line of sight. So when Relioth began losing altitude, Kaleth knew immediately, and begrudgingly followed behind him. He wouldn’t have minded flying around for a bit longer, but time was of the essence.

They both put their wings away as they would only get in the way in what Kaleth assumed would be an underground base full of confined spaces.

“Are you sure you’re confident you can get yourself to the base? I can take you there instead,” Relioth offered, making Kaleth’s urge to yell at him all the more intense. But he resisted, and in fact didn’t bother saying anything, instead picturing in his mind the exact location he had been shown by Relioth earlier.

Within a few seconds of concentration, he found himself standing in a dark, grey corridor, right in front of two enemy Eternals. They looked very alarmed for a moment before drawing their swords, prompting Kaleth to do the same.

But before he could actually attack, Relioth appeared behind the two soldiers and effortlessly killed both of them in two quick strikes.

“You’re getting really good at that,” Relioth said, and Kaleth rolled his eyes. His teleporting was still a work in progress, and Relioth’s insistence on constantly encouraging him wasn’t helping.

“Let’s just find the information we need and get out of here,” Kaleth grumbled, adjusting his grip on his sword.

Being in one of Enor’s bases was putting Kaleth on edge, especially since this one was in Irithara. Had this building been here all along, or had he somehow built it recently? Either way it was only a matter of time before Enor found out that they were here, but hopefully they would get enough time to find out just where Enor was turning people into Eternals before any alarms were raised.

But then again, he was here with Relioth.

“What? It’s true. You need to learn to accept compliments, Kaleth.”

Kaleth stopped in his tracks momentarily to shoot Relioth a disbelieving look. “You of all people are going to give out criticisms concerning personal flaws?”

Kaleth didn’t get to hear whatever Relioth would have said to that because two more Eternals appeared then, attacking them from behind. But Kaleth actually welcomed it because it gave him the opportunity to let out some of his anger on them.

He automatically caught the wrist of the Eternal who had tried swinging his sword at him, and slammed his fist into the soldier’s face, pushing him against the wall and stabbing his sword through his heart.

He didn’t bother checking if Relioth had killed the other before continuing to walk down the corridor. It didn’t help that every corner of this place looked the same, but it was supposed to be relatively small as well, so that was at least something.

And that also meant that there couldn’t be many Eternals around either, which while not as important as finding their way around, was good too. Though ever since Kaleth had figured out how to conserve his energy, fighting regular Eternals had gotten incredibly easy. He wondered how many he could take on at once before risking any serious injuries, but he wasn’t going to put himself in harm’s way just to figure out the answer to that.

After killing a few more Eternals, they finally found themselves in what was definitely a control room. It was relatively small, but there were several huge computer screens operated by two of Enor’s people. Kaleth raised his sword, expecting a fight but instead both of them pressed something on the screens, which resulted in alarms blaring throughout the entire base.

Kaleth sighed before teleporting to them. He managed to kill the first one before she could draw a weapon, but the second one put up more of a fight, forcing Kaleth to jump back as he made an attempt at stabbing him in the chest. He wasn’t going to let himself get stabbed there again.

“Find the locations!” Kaleth yelled over his shoulder to Relioth as his sword met the one of his adversary’s with a loud clang. Being much stronger, Kaleth pushed against the other’s sword as hard as he could, easily forcing the weapon down and wrenching it out of the Eternal’s grasp and stabbing him with it.

He let out a breath before teleporting back to the door, waiting for another wave of Eternals to appear. It was only a matter of time before they would with this alarm blaring constantly. And that time turned out to be incredibly short as Kaleth could already see more of Enor’s soldiers running to the control room. Except a second later he realized that these one looked different than the ones they fought so far.

Kaleth could feel Eternal energy radiating off them. In fact, they were dimly glowing, he noticed as one of them finally reached him and swung her sword at him. Kaleth raised his own sword to meet it, gasping when the blades met with such force that he was forced back.

What the hell was this?

He pushed back harder, gritting his teeth, but all he managed was to throw the Eternal off the sword, but not enough to give himself an opening to attack her. He backed away as more of them joined her. It was then that Kaleth spotted some sort of metal devices on their wrists. Whatever that was, that had to be why they were so strong.

“Are you done yet?” Kaleth yelled over at Relioth, who was staring at the scene in surprise instead of looking for the coordinates they needed. Like he was supposed to.

“Uh, almost!” he called back, turning back to the computer. Kaleth raised his sword again as the female Eternal swung her sword, somehow with even more force than before, forcing Kaleth to use all his strength just to keep her at bay. And he could see the other three ready to attack him from the sides.

Realistically, Kaleth knew he could teleport out of here at any moment once Relioth had what they needed, but he was now morbidly curious as to what that device on these Eternals’ wrists was. If he could get one of them, they could try to figure out what exactly this was, and if it was making them this strong, figure out how to switch it off.

As they surrounded him, Kaleth quickly teleported behind the woman, but before he could run his sword through her back she swirled around, resulting in only a cut on her arm. Kaleth was already starting to feel the effect of teleporting around so much, but he would have to keep it up because that was the only advantage he had against them, it seemed.

And so he teleported again, this time behind one of the others, and he was much quicker this time. Before the remaining three Eternals could react, Kaleth grabbed the dead one’s arms and pulled the device off his wrist, his eyes turning wide when he saw blood start to drizzle out as the device slid off and out of the Eternal’s wrist.

He didn’t get a chance to inspect it further though because the remaining three were already attempting to kill him. Kaleth teleported yet again, stabbing another as his head started to spin ever so slightly. He didn’t think he could do this again without becoming completely useless, and that was very bad news.

Still he pressed on, meeting the blade of the Eternal running at him. He’d just had to be stubborn and not bring his shield. Just a quick, easy mission, indeed. Gods, why did he never listen to Mel?

But as he continued to fight them, they seemed to get less precise with their attacks, looking pained as they continued striking with their weapons. Kaleth continued to parry them with difficulty as they were still as shockingly strong as ever.

He jumped back yet again when he couldn’t raise his sword to block another attack in time, but seeing the two Eternals’ glowy auras rapidly gain in intensity made him freeze for long enough to give the woman enough time to strike, cutting his side.

Kaleth cried out as pain stabbed through the wound and barely managed to parry the next set of attacks. But he wasn’t pushing them back anymore. They were pushing him into the corridor and against the wall, and between trying to heal the wound and his previous teleporting, Kaleth just didn’t have enough strength to do much else than defend himself.

He was about to yell at Relioth to hurry up again when suddenly the Eternal appeared next to him as if summoned by thought and grabbed his hand. The next moment Kaleth found himself in the middle of a forest, with the moon above them, making the tall pine trees cast long shadows over the dark, forest floor.

Kaleth wrenched his hand out of Relioth’s hand, and put his sword back in its holster before pressing a hand on his side. He hissed as the action stung, but it was much more manageable now. He should be fully healed in just a couple of minutes, though the same couldn’t be said about the hole in his armor where the Eternal had cut him. Despite being able to modify his armor to accommodate his wings show up with barely any effort now, Kaleth was still quite useless at modifying matter in general.

“Are you okay, Kaleth?” asked Relioth, his eyes full of worry. Kaleth wanted to yell at him, but he managed to resist it. He’d already accepted that Relioth was most likely not faking any of this affection, but that didn’t mean Kaleth had to like or put up with it.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Kaleth grumbled, keeping his hand over the slowly healing wound. He looked down at the thing he had taken from the soldier he’d killed and was holding in his other hand. The device looked even more strange now that he could see it in detail. It looked like a metal bracelet to which a glass vial was affixed, with at least ten thin needles sticking out of the metal.

“What the hell is that?” Relioth said, reaching out to grab the device, but Kaleth drew his hand back. He didn’t trust him, even with this.

“We can figure that out later,” Kaleth said, closing his fist around the bracelet, mindful of the needles. “Did you get those coordinates?”

“Yep, sure did,” Relioth replied glumly. In fact, he was apparently pouting because Kaleth hadn’t let him look at the mysterious new technology. Kaleth got a sick sadistic glee from that. Relioth raised up the flash drive they’d brought with them before putting it in the pocket of his suit. Even though they didn’t have armor for him, Kaleth was sure Relioth wouldn’t want to wear it. Foppish bastard.

“Great, then we need to get back to the base.” Kaleth couldn’t even summon enough strength to sound glad that this was over with. He hadn’t had time to process what had happened until now, but now his mind was reeling. What was that device he was holding in his clenched fist? He had a feeling he already knew the answer to that question.

If this was Enor’s answer to Kaleth, Mereria, and Relioth teaming up against him then he would have to try harder. Kaleth could still teleport around well enough. If Enor’s soldiers were all going to be this strong, he could just bypass them like that. Kaleth wasn’t going to let Enor intimidate him that easily. But it was still a problem that deserved being looked into.

But for now, they needed to bring the coordinates back. Kaleth summoned his wings, stumbling a bit as more power drained from him. But there was no time to rest. He shook his head and took flight. He would heal and regain energy on the way.