The Aperios (Children of the Sun Book 4)

Nef wasn’t sure how long they could keep this up before they got killed. Or he, his mom, and Kara got killed because he had no idea what happened if an Eternal got shot to pieces, but they would probably survive it.

The three of them were wearing the invisibility generators, but there was only so much they would help with not getting killed. Especially since everyone kept using their powers, which tended to disturb the invisibility. Nef still had no idea why, but he was still glad he had it.

Some of the soldiers that they’d managed to free from Enor’s control had joined them in fighting, but without more of those telepathy amplifiers, it wasn’t like they could do much. And also given that they just remembered that they shouldn’t work for a murderous psychopath, their concentration wasn’t one hundred percent on the battle around them.

But Nef barely focused on any of this because all he could manage to worry about in these moments was Nira, who was holding ten or so aircrafts in place to stop them from attacking them. Her whole body was glowing with multicolored light. There was a kind of horrific beauty to it because even though she was incredibly powerful right now, it was like she wasn’t really there anymore.

He’d tried telling her to stop at this point. Almost everyone agreed that they should try to get away as fast as they could since clearly something had gone wrong. It had now taken far too long to kill Enor. No one wanted to admit it because that meant that they lost completely, but it was probably what had happened, and they needed run.

But Nira didn’t even seem to be listening as she kept breaking the vials of Eternal energy Relioth had brought for her, and continued holding back any aircraft coming their way that she could manage.

Nef’s heart beat even faster when he saw the wave of new aircrafts coming their way. They really, really needed to leave. Right now.

Not knowing what else to do he grabbed Nira’s arm, which made the invisibility go completely crazy, but he was immediately thrown off without Nira even moving a muscle.

“We need to go!” he yelled at her as he jumped up again, flinching as bullets whizzed past him, dangerously close.

“No!” she yelled back, not bothering to look at him. “I can do this. I can do this.”

She repeated that a few more times, as if trying to convince herself rather than anyone else. Nef threw a desperate look to the others, but they were all too busy to notice or worry about anything but themselves.

And Nef was completely at a loss as to what to do. He tried again, grabbing her shoulder this time, but she pushed him away with her mind, raising her arms up even more as she caught more aircrafts.

He got up again, gritting his teeth. “Please! I can’t lose you.”

Finally, Nira turned her head to look at him. Nef couldn’t even see her eyes through all that energy flowing out of her. It was incredibly hard to look at, but Nef stubbornly did his best.

He flinched when Alor grabbed his arm. “Nef, we need to go. We can’t win this.”

But judging by Alor’s solemn face, he already knew Nef wasn’t going to leave without Nira. Nira, who was starting to look like she was losing control, having exhausted most of the vials and was now running out of energy.

Nef blinked away tears. There were what looked like hundreds of aircrafts flying towards them now. He was starting to doubt even if they ran that they would live for much longer. Alor looked like he was also trying not to cry as he pulled Nef in a hug.

“I love you, little brother.”

It was as if time froze. Nef could hear the sounds of far too many engines rumbling closer and closer. Explosions shook the ground. He could hear their mother yelling at them to save themselves, but Nef didn’t look at her. He just kept staring at Nira as her hold on the aircrafts grew weaker and weaker.

And when she fell to her knees, completely exhausted and barely conscious, Nef rushed towards her, hugging her close. Even though it was stupid to think they could get away from this at this point, Nef was still about to try to get everyone away as much as they could.

But then everything stopped.

There was an incredibly bright golden light coming out of Enor’s ship. It was so bright that Nef had to keep his eyes closed at practically any angle he looked at. The only thing he could watch were the aircrafts, which had all stopped moving, their drivers looking the same kind of dazed, confused, and horrified as they always did when their brainwashing was broken through.

One by one they landed the machines, climbing out of them as the light above dissipated. And the next thing Nef knew, Kaleth and Relioth were standing in the middle of their scattered group.

Nef stared at the sight in front of him with an open mouth, not sure what had just happened, but his attention was quickly drawn back to Nira who groaned as she held her head.

“What...happened?”

That was a great question.

“It’s over,” Kaleth said, though he didn’t sound very happy about it. “Enor is dead.”

Nef felt himself slump as all the stress and tension that came with almost dying drained out of him. But he immediately tensed up again because they’d thought it was over when Irif had been killed, too.

Nira pulled away from him, avoiding his glance as she got up and hugged herself. The fact that they were still alive was definitely cause to celebrate, but Nef wasn’t going to just ignore what had happened. He didn’t like being confrontational, but he was definitely going to be now.

Seeing as Kaleth now literally had his arms full of Mel who looked like he was quietly crying into the guy’s shoulder, Relioth took the opportunity to explain further. Though he looked dazed. A weird look for Relioth.

“Yeah, Kaleth killed Enor, and absorbed his power,” he confirmed, his eyes glazed over. “I really thought we were done for.”

So it really was over. And yet somehow Nef didn’t feel very triumphant. Especially once Nira gave him a guilty look and took a few steps away from him. He was about to take her to the side and confront her about what had just happened, and what had basically been happening for days now, but he and Alor were pulled into a tight hug by their mother before he could.

She didn’t say anything, though Nef heard her sniffle, and just kept holding onto them. Nef hugged her back, sighing. He hadn’t actually had time to notice or appreciate that she hadn’t given him another speech about him staying out of danger, but now that he thought about it, it had been more than a little odd.

“I’m so glad you’re both okay,” she said as she pulled away, wiping a hand over her eyes. This was about as emotional as Nef had ever seen her. He just smiled at her, hoping that would get his feelings across. He didn’t feel up to talking right now. Not with anyone but Nira, that was.

As he saw Nira walking off to somewhere across the still smoke covered field, Nef quickly excused himself and ran after her. Only then did he notice that it was actually still freezing, and he huddled in the Umbra uniform as much as it allowed him, catching up with her.

“Nira, stop!”

She froze but didn’t turn around to look at him. That was fine with Nef, though, as he simply walked around her. Nira kept her eyes on the snowy ground as she kept hugging herself. It was only then that Nef noticed she was shaking.

“Are you okay?”

Nef wouldn’t lie. He had been a bit angry with her. She’d literally pushed him away back there. But now he was just worried about her.

“Yeah, yeah, I just…. I need to be alone for a moment.”

Nef set his jaw, scowling at her. “Well, too bad because we need to talk about what just happened.”

She kept her head down, her eyes half-hidden beneath her hair. It was now fully back to its natural, dark blue hue. “I’m sorry.”

Well, that was one way to make Nef want to back down and let her do whatever she wanted. But he wouldn’t. He needed to stand his ground here. He should have told her something earlier, but he didn’t think it was still too late to talk this out.

“Sorry for what?”

She finally looked up. She was glaring, but her eyes were full of tears. “I couldn’t protect my people. Or even just you. If Kaleth hadn’t….”

Nef’s heart clenched. To be honest, he wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, but this wasn’t it. “What? No, you totally protected everyone. We’d be all dead by now if you didn’t keep those aircrafts from attacking all at once.”

Nira scoffed, shaking her head. “All that power. And it still wasn’t enough….” Her shoulders slumped. “I need more of it.”

Nef grabbed her shoulders, desperately ignoring the almost wild look in her eyes. “No, no, you don’t.”

She shook her head again, staring down at her hands. “You...you just said it yourself. You said I actually did something right for once just now. Before getting these powers, all I did was unintentionally screw everyone over.”

Tears were now flowing down her cheeks, but she didn’t look sad. She seemed absolutely lost instead. At a loss as to what to say, Nef wrapped his arms around her, holding onto her tightly as she sobbed. And at this point, Nef couldn’t keep back his own tears either.

“None of that was your fault. That was all Eternals. The powers didn’t fix that. That’s all you.”

Nef pulled away to look her directly in the eye. Seeing Nira so distraught was really hard to handle. Nef put his hands on her cheeks and wiped her tears off with his thumbs, trying to keep his own tears at bay.

“How can you be so sure?” she asked, her voice breaking. But she was maintaining eye contact now, at least.

Nef narrowed his eyes in determination. “Because I know you. You just wanted to help Irithara, and you did. I mean, look.”

Nef put his arm around her shoulders as he moved next to her and pointed at the huge ship that had until now been hovering above Aleara. It was now moving slowly away from it. Nef wasn’t sure if Kaleth was doing that from the ground, or if someone had teleported up there and was moving it using whatever controls it had.

“But...that didn’t happen because of what I did.”

Nef kissed her cheek. “Yeah, it did. And because of what a bunch of other people did. It’s called teamwork, I hear.”

She let out a small, amused snort, sniffing. Nef could tell she didn’t really believe him, but he appreciated that she was at least listening to him.

“You did the best you could.” Nef looked her directly in the eye. “Okay?”

Nira nodded, looking away. Now she looked ashamed. “I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

It actually took Nef a moment to figure out what she was referring to. “Oh yeah, that. Yeah, don’t worry, I didn’t take it personally.”

Nira scoffed, glaring at him. “Well, you should. I was totally out of line. I just….” She sighed in a frustrated way. “It was like I couldn’t focus on anything else. I just wanted to fight, no matter how much it didn’t make sense.”

Nef hummed, frowning in thought. He’d had his theories about that since the moment Nira had gotten those powers. “Think that might be, at least partly, ’cause of the energy?”

Nira didn’t reply, just spent a few seconds mulling it over before looking at Nef again. And she looked so damned ashamed and guilty. And so Nef said the only thing he could think of.

“I love you.”

Immediately, Nira’s eyes filled with tears as she gave Nef an incredibly weak smile. But she didn’t hesitate with her reply. “I love you too.”

And then she kissed him, holding onto him as if her life depended on it. And Nef hugged her back, responding in turn.