The Aperios (Children of the Sun Book 4)

Kaleth woke up in what seemed to be the middle of the night, judging by the lack of light shining through the window. He actually didn’t know for a moment what exactly had happened that he was in his apartment, but noticing Mel softly snoring next to him was enough to remind him of everything.

He wished the few seconds of oblivion had lasted for longer because now everything that had been bothering was bothering him again, but at least he really did feel better after sleeping. And it was difficult to stay in a bad mood with how adorable Mel looked while asleep. Kaleth stroked the Eternal’s hair away from his forehead, smiling as Mel mumbled something in his sleep.

He gently raised the arm Mel was still keeping over Kaleth’s chest and got up as quietly as he could, without waking Mel up. The Eternal looked a bit unhappy with the change but continued sleeping, which was still a sight very difficult to tear his eyes away from.

Still smiling, Kaleth looked out the window, leaning onto the frame. His smile was quickly replaced with a scowl as he heard police sirens in the distance. It had been an almost constant background noise, but in the stillness of the night, it was all the more audible.

Once again he was faced with the dilemma of wanting to go there and help apprehend every damned extremist who decided it was time to try out anarchy, or whatever other clearly broken political system there was, but at the same time, he rationally knew not getting involved would be better in the long run.

It was just very difficult to not let it get to him. He sighed, still glaring as he made his way to the bathroom. He didn’t feel like sleeping anymore, and he felt a need to splash some water in his face, despite knowing that physically it wouldn’t do much for him.

He absently ran a wet hand over the sink to wipe off whatever may have gotten on it while he hadn’t been here. Most of the apartment was actually fairly clean aside from a few specific corners, but it still bugged Kaleth beyond belief. He should probably clean some of that, assuming he wouldn’t wake Mel.

He grabbed a towel and wiped the mirror with it, scowling at the few strands of hair falling in his eyes. But he quickly noticed something that completely distracted him from that. There was something...off about his reflection.

Kaleth froze when he realized that while he had been frowning, the reflection hadn’t been. And instead of his definitely shocked face now, an angry one was staring back at him.

Kaleth gasped, finding himself frozen to the spot while it kept staring at him. Was he going crazy? He flinched as the mirror suddenly cracked, the sound deafening in the silence of the night. Had he done that? He hadn’t meant to. But now his reflection was normal again. Kaleth touched his face, watching himself in the mirror do it as well.

He couldn’t move for a moment, only continuing to stare into the mirror, waiting for anything that didn’t fit. That was off….

But nothing happened. With a shaking hand he ran his finger over the cracks in the mirror. Had he really just done this? First the teleportation, and now this…. Maybe this was just a nightmare. Or maybe he still needed more sleep.

Now he really felt like he needed to splash water in his face. But an irrational fear of what had just happened repeating had kept him from doing it. He stumbled out of the bathroom instead, heading to the kitchen.

He needed coffee and to take a moment to breathe. Try to rationalize what he’d just seen. As he wiped dust off the coffee machine and the counter, he kept freezing up at any little noise he heard. But they were all coming from outside, despite the closed window.

He opened it, breathing in the slightly colder night air. Shutting his eyes, he focused on the center of his mind, searching for anything that wasn’t him. If Enor were alive, let alone inside of him, he’d surely know. And as he’d suspected, there was nothing. Nothing except for Mel’s sleeping mind, giving off a feeling of comfort and happiness.

Kaleth brushed a hand through his hair, letting out a breath. He didn’t really get an urge to smoke anymore, but now it was certainly clawing at him. But like hell was he going to listen to that.

Enor was dead. He’d killed him.

A sick feeling settled in his stomach as the image of him stabbing his sword through his father assaulted his mind again. While he was glad Mel didn’t have to witness whatever was going on with him, Kaleth hated how much of an effect his absence had. If Mel were here, he’d definitely manage to get him to calm down as if it were the easiest thing in the world.

Maybe he was overreacting, and his brain had just been playing tricks on him. Who knew what not sleeping for so long could have done to him as a side effect? But the fact that his powers clearly weren’t as under his control as they should be was concerning.

Sighing, he turned around and leaned back on the window sill. He needed to prove to himself that he could still use his powers without breaking anything. Spotting a coffee mug next to the coffee machine, he made it fly up and onto its place on the coffee machine.

He let out a small breath, despite feeling a bit ridiculous for celebrating successfully making a mug levitate. Shaking his head, he quickly chose a basic espresso on the little display on the coffee machine and stared down at his hands.

He was fine. Or at least not more messed up than usual. There was no need for concern.

Kaleth snorted. Not even he believed that, but maybe if he repeated it to himself enough, he would come to believe it eventually.

He picked up his coffee mug as the coffee machine finished it, only to freeze when he heard a knock on the door. Frowning, he made his way over to it. Barely anyone knew where he lived, and of those people most were either dead or had no way of knowing this is where he was right now.

He swung the door open without even bothering to check who it was, though. Realistically, there was no one who could pose a threat to him.

“Oh, good, you are here!” Rayni exclaimed as soon as she saw him. Kaleth shrugged. He should be surprised, but now that he thought about it more, it made sense that she would be the one to find him. She had been at his place several times before for reasons that he still didn’t fully understand. At one point he’d even thought she had been trying to come onto him, which was just embarrassing to think about now.

“I need to talk to you about something.”

Kaleth bit back the urge to say something along the lines of you don’t say and stepped aside to let her enter the apartment, shutting the door behind her. He didn’t want to accidentally see any of his neighbors, even if it was the middle of the night.

“All right, but be quiet. Mel is sleeping.”

Rayni raised an eyebrow at him, grinning. “Okay, normally I would wanna hear all about that, but he’s my little brother, so that makes it a little….”

“We didn’t—” Kaleth cut himself off with an irritated huff. He knew she was joking, but it still annoyed him. He led her to the kitchen, rolling his eyes as she laughed. “What’s up?”

“Look at you getting casual.” Kaleth raised his eyebrows at her impressed tone as he sat down at the kitchen table, closing the door with his mind as an afterthought. He didn’t want to wake up Mel and Rayni tended to be loud.

“Aw, you still have that mug I gave you.”

Kaleth looked down at it, a little amused when he saw the white lettering that said #1 Boss on it. He’d taken it as sarcasm back then, but he’d still kept it. And now he was almost fond of it. But he hadn’t realized that was the mug he’d taken just now.

“I take it something is wrong.”

Rayni sighed, leaning onto the table. Hopefully she would get to the point now. “Well, a lot of things are. But yeah.”

Before she could continue, though, the door swung open again, revealing a sleep-addled Mel who was still in the process of rubbing his eyes. Kaleth had a hard time not to grin at the adorable way his hair stuck up all over the place.

“Rayni!” he greeted his sister with a grin, though it quickly ebbed when he saw how serious both Rayni and Kaleth were. “What’s wrong?”

Kaleth had unfortunately only bought two chairs for the kitchen, which had always been enough until now. But Mel didn’t seem to mind that he had to stand.

“Well, not all of the Eternals are willing to have their powers taken away,” Rayni said. Kaleth narrowed his eyes. This was nothing out of the ordinary. It had been a fact from the moment they’d started forcing them to give up their powers for the sake of the world order. Rayni seemed to realize this though, because before he could say as much, she continued. “I mean they’re grouping up. And they’ve already attacked us a few times.”

“You want my help to deal with them.” That was indeed concerning. If enough of these rogue Eternals rallied together, they could very easily cause a lot of damage and kill a lot of people.

“Yeah, basically.” Rayni nodded. “I know you don’t wanna get involved in the whole...situation. Which I fully get.” She grimaced, shaking her head. “We’ve been trying to do some damage control, and just watching it is...something.”

That wasn’t at all the reason Kaleth had been staying out of the situation, but he knew Rayni knew it and didn’t want to open this particular can of worms, so he said nothing to correct her.

“But this is kinda, you know, a separate problem.”

Yes, he supposed that was true.

“Of course we’ll help,” Mel said, beaming at Rayni. Then he gave Kaleth an unsure look. “Um, we will, right?”

Kaleth supposed there wasn’t a reason not to. Assuming his powers wouldn’t fail him again. Or he wouldn’t fail at using them. But these were a couple of run-of-the-mill Eternals. He should be able to very easily deal with those.

“Yes, I don’t see why not.”

Maybe it would at least distract him from whatever he’d seen in that mirror.

Rayni gave him a look, which somehow Kaleth understood completely. He would have loved nothing more than for Mel to stay out of every dangerous situation that there ever could be. But he knew very well Mel wouldn’t listen to either of them and come along. Besides, Kaleth didn’t want to be away from him right now, so he wasn’t exactly interested in convincing him otherwise.

“Okay, awesome. Thanks guys!” Rayni said, getting up and hugging Mel. “I already have a few locations to check out, so ready when you are.”

Kaleth had no doubts that by that she meant immediately, but that was fine with him as long as Mel didn’t mind.

“Let’s go, then.”