The Return of the Gods (Children of the Sun Book 1)

Despite what Rayni had said, they didn’t leave immediately because there was still quite a lot to discuss. One of the major issues was their shortage of weapons. Currently, they had two handguns and a sniper rifle, which was less than ideal.

“We could buy some more from that smuggler in Korhon,” Rayni suggested.

“Yeah, but we don’t have cash, and we can’t use our credit cards to get it,” Alor replied and ran a hand over his face.

“We could sell some of the things around here,” Kaleth said, his eyes drifting over to the huge television on the wall. He had never seen his father watch TV or even movies in general, and he doubted that had changed, so why would Ramien even buy it?

“I like this plan,” Rayni said, giving Kaleth a thumbs up.

“You don’t have a problem with stealing from your father?” Kara asked, frowning.

Kaleth huffed. “I don’t think he cares. If he does, well, then he should have said so.”

Kara gave him an odd look but didn’t comment.

“Passive-aggressive again, huh?” Rayni teased, smirking. Kaleth wanted to tell her to mind her own business, but before he could get a word in Rayni was leaving the room, saying that she was going to go look for something valuable.

Kaleth sighed for like the hundredth time that day and looked at Kara. “Would you keep an eye on her, please? I don’t want her to take this house apart and sell the bricks.”

Kara let out a long, dramatic sigh. “Fine. I guess someone should watch her.”

With Kara gone, Kaleth turned to Nef and Nira, who were still sitting on the couch. He wished he could tell them they could go home, but with Nef possibly being an assassin’s target and Nira being the Iritharian heir, it just wasn’t safe for them to return. And he needed to talk to the princess, as well.

“I think, for the time being at least, you two should stay here. And someone should stay with you in case Relioth somehow finds out where we’re staying and sends someone here.”

“I’ll protect them,” Mel volunteered himself, smiling.

“No, I’ll do it,” Alor blurted out, and Mel’s face fell. Kaleth was about to tell Alor to knock it off, but then Alor continued. “It’s probably better if you go with Ray, Kara, and Kaleth,” he said, talking directly to the Eternal. “Pretty sure it’ll be way more dangerous out there than here, and they could use the backup. You can heal people, right? I mean, I know next to nothing about Eternals, but I think I heard that somewhere, or something.”

Mel’s expression brightened. “Sure!”

“You can heal injuries?” Kaleth asked, fascinated by the concept. It sure could come in handy later.

“Yes,” Mel confirmed, nodding with a smile. “And get rid of diseases, too.” He looked at Kaleth’s right hand. “You cut it when you almost fell in Carcer, right? Your hand. I could heal it if you want.”

Kaleth looked at his palm, frowning at the angry red lines and dried blood he found there. He had completely forgotten that something had happened to his hand with how much there was on his mind right now. He wondered if he would be able to do things like this himself sometime in the future.

“Um, yes, I don’t see why not,” Kaleth accepted Mel’s offer. He extended his arm to Mel, and the Eternal put his hand over the cuts. His eyes glowed for a moment, and he withdrew his hand a second later. Kaleth stared at his palm, now completely healed, and blinked a few times. He hadn’t expected it to be such a fast process. Maybe it took longer when it was a serious injury.

“That’s brilliant,” Kaleth said, having nothing else to say at the moment, and he rubbed off the remaining blood caked on there. “Thank you.”

Mel beamed again. “You’re welcome.”

“Right, um, Nef,” Kaleth said, making the younger Arithar brother focus on him. “Ramien gave me this keycard.” He pulled it out of his pocket and handed it to Nef. “I assume it’s necessary to activate or deactivate the alarm, but there might be more to it than that. Would you mind looking into it?”

“Sure, it’s not like I have anything better to do,” Nef replied with a shrug, looking at the keycard and turning it over. Kaleth smirked a little. It wasn’t difficult to put together that Nef was trying his best to pretend he was only mildly interested.

“Wonderful,” Kaleth said and finally spoke to Nira. “Your majesty, a word?”

Nira seemed suspicious, but she agreed to talk with him nonetheless and followed Kaleth out of the room. He supposed they could just talk to each other in Iritharian without leaving the room, but that seemed rather rude.

“Why did we leave the room?”

“I think it’s better to discuss this in private.”

Nira raised an eyebrow at him, folding her arms over her chest. “What is this about?”

“Given recent events, I believe it would be best if you left the country,” he said. Nira at first seemed relieved, but that expression soon turned into a frown.

“You mean I should go back to Irithara.” She sounded a bit bitter, but she didn’t seem angry with him.

“If Relioth is looking for you, then I’m sure he will try to use you against your mother. However, if you return to Irithara, you’ll be out of his reach.”

Maybe Kaleth was just being paranoid, but he had a feeling it was Relioth who’d told Luxarx to get rid of the Iritharian princess. Looking at Nira, though, he knew just a hunch wouldn’t be enough for her.

“If he’s looking for me,” she said, gesturing with her hands to emphasize it. “I appreciate your advice, but I’m not going to leave Nef for an if.”

Kaleth smiled at her sadly. Her attitude was heartwarming, if slightly frustrating. She and Nef didn’t deserve to be stuck in this situation, and Kaleth hated that he was at least partly responsible for dragging them into it, but there was little he could do to change that.

“You might endanger him by staying here,” he said and continued before Nira could argue. “Just think it over.”

He turned to leave, but Nira’s voice stopped him. “If you were me, would you leave?”

It was obvious she was expecting him to say no, and she was just asking to prove her point. Even so, he couldn’t force himself to lie to her. “No. But I’m very selfish.”

Kaleth didn’t know if he could leave the house the standard way without setting off the alarm, so instead, he went through the tunnel they had used to get here. Since the moment Edras had offered him a cigarette, he’d had the urge to smoke, but only now did he finally have time for it.

As soon as he climbed out of the tunnel, he had to take a deep breath. As much as he hated being in Imbera, he did miss the island, especially the cold air. Well, it wasn’t cold, not to him, anyway, but everyone in the house would disagree with him. He hated how hot it got in the summer in Enbrant. He had gotten used to them after living there for so long, but he would never like them.

He looked up at the white clouds above his head as he put the cigarette in his mouth and reached into his pants pocket for a lighter. Except it wasn’t there. He scowled and gradually tried every other pocket his suit had to offer. It turned out it was in the last pocket remaining.

Of course it was.

However, even though he had found the lighter, he still didn’t get to light the cigarette. Before he could, there was the sound of huge leathery wings flapping rapidly which made Kaleth look up at the sky.

Kaleth let out a relieved breath. Thankfully, it was only Mel, or at least it looked like him from so far away. Kaleth didn’t know what he’d do if it weren’t him. He doubted most Eternals were so friendly. The Umbra definitely weren’t.

He automatically took a step back when Mel landed in front of him with a thud and swung his tail around, much like a happy dog would. Kaleth mentally berated himself for that comparison.

“You really shouldn’t smoke, you know,” Mel said, tilting his head at Kaleth, his large, scaly ears drooping. “It’s really bad for your health. That’s why your dad...”

Kaleth frowned, removing the cigarette from his mouth, a feeling of dread invading his heart. “Why my father what?”

Mel sat down. Kaleth couldn’t see the Eternal’s eyes fully because they were on the sides of his head, but even like this, he could still see obvious sadness in them. “Your dad has lung cancer.”

Kaleth gave himself a moment to let that sink in. His father had…lung cancer….

Even though Kaleth was sure he couldn’t get any kind of disease, he didn’t feel like smoking anymore. And despite learning about his father’s illness, he felt no sympathy for him. He wondered if that made him a terrible person.

“How…how do you know?”

“I could feel it,” Mel said and did an odd movement with his front legs that Kaleth assumed was a shrug. “I’m sorry, I dunno how else to describe it. I just kind of know from looking at people.”

“Theoretically, you could cure my father?” Kaleth had asked more out of obligation than actual interest in giving his father a few more years to live. Mel didn’t seem to notice that.

“I…I could try if you want. But I don’t think I can. It takes a lot of energy to heal stuff like this, and your father’s been sick for a long time, which makes it much harder to fix all the damage.” He paused again and looked down. “And…I don’t think he would want me to heal him, anyway, after what happened.”

When Edras had spoken about her mother dying, Kaleth had thought their father would be upset and that he would mourn, but he would never have thought Ramien would willingly let himself die because of it. Because he couldn’t live without Feria. To be honest, Kaleth hadn’t thought that his father was even capable of such strong feelings.

Kaleth shook his head and cleared his throat. “So, why are you outside? Did you leave the house through the main entrance?”

Mel’s ears perked up immediately at the change of topic. “Nef turned off the alarm, so I could leave without accidentally calling the police. He said he’d look into how the system worked, and Alor told me to go get rid of his and Kara’s car.”

Right, Kaleth had forgotten about the cars and that they could betray their location. Though this sounded to him like Alor was trying to get the Eternal to leave the house rather than help them. He wouldn’t say any of this out loud, of course, not with Mel close enough to hear it. Kaleth might be wrong, anyway. Alor had seemed to try to not be quite so prejudicial towards Mel earlier, after all.

“You can drive?” Kaleth asked, imagining Mel behind the wheel in this form and almost chuckling.

“Well, no,” Mel admitted, looking away from Kaleth as if he was embarrassed by it. That was, of course, ridiculous since the vast majority of cars could drive themselves, and barely anyone knew how to drive anymore. It was just that the cars Luxarx used were usually manually driven to avoid hackers controlling them remotely, and for it to be possible to take dangerous shortcuts. They had autopilot, but it was generally disabled, and of course, Mel wouldn’t know how to turn it on.

“I just thought I’d pick the cars up and hide them somewhere,” Mel continued.

Kaleth really should stop being amazed by these things and just accept them at this point, but he couldn’t help it. “You can pick up a car? That isn’t what I imagined when you told me you could carry a lot.” The Eternal just smiled at him. “I could help you move the second car if you’d like.”

“Are you sure? I can manage this on my own if you’re too busy,” the Eternal said. Kaleth wondered where this kind of reaction was coming from. It was like Mel thought Kaleth was too good to help him with something like this.

“Of course I’m not busy. I already divided all the tasks between the others, so I don’t have to do anything,” Kaleth joked, smirking, and threw away the cigarette he had been holding in his hand the entire time. Mel grinned and trotted to Kaleth with happiness in his eyes.

When Mel lowered his wings and put the right one out of the way, Kaleth got the message and carefully climbed onto his back, making sure he didn’t step on Mel’s wing or claws. The Eternal didn’t give him much of a warning before jumping up and rising above the forest. Kaleth did his best to hold onto one of the horns on Mel’s neck, trying not to fall off, although he doubted Mel would let him hit the ground if that happened.

The sharp wind reminded him that he had left his goggles in the house, and so he spent most of the short flight shielding his eyes with one hand. It was a shame because like this he missed some of the imagery and, as he’d found out, flying on the back of a dragon was incredibly thrilling—mostly because there were no barriers between him and the world.

Once reaching the cars, Mel landed more gently now—in fact, it was barely audible. It was most likely for Kaleth’s benefit, and so he gave the Eternal a grateful smile as he climbed off. Mel smiled back, walked towards one of the cars—Alor’s, if Kaleth wasn’t mistaken—and jumped onto it.

Kaleth stared in awe as Mel gripped the car by the roof, shattering its windows in the process, and with several powerful beats of his wings, he lifted it off the ground and started to fly away. It was clear Mel was struggling with the weight of the car, so his limit had to be around two tonnes, which was incredibly impressive.

Technically, Kaleth was also much stronger than he should be, but how could any being of flesh and blood carry this much weight? He supposed the Eternals weren’t physical beings, but how did that affect the physical strength of their hosts? But Kaleth didn’t even know why he was asking these questions. He doubted he could use logic to explain this.

Before he lost sight of the Eternal, Kaleth walked over to the other car. Since it was a Luxarx Velox, his keys worked with it, as they did with any other Luxarx vehicle. There was just one small problem with starting it—to make the cars accessible to all employees but secure as well, a password was necessary.

Unfortunately, this system was connected to the entire Luxarx network and therefore could be traced. But thankfully, there was a failsafe in case something went wrong with the network or the car’s computer—hot-wiring.

When he had heard that this could be done for the first time, he had found it absurd that a secret agency would ignore such a relatively easy way to steal their cars, but he learned that it had been impossible to hot-wire a modern car for long enough that nobody assumed it could be done anymore. It wasn’t really his fault his car knowledge was so outdated—everything he knew about them he had heard from his father, who loved antique cars.

It only took him less than a minute to get the engines running and get the car off the ground, and then he was flying at full speed to catch up with Mel. He was farther than Kaleth would have expected after such a short time. He had to wonder just how fast Mel was flying when after a minute or two he had barely gotten closer to him.

Kaleth was sure that the Eternal hadn’t flown this fast when he had flown on him. Then again, he was also sure that if Mel had flown this swiftly, he wouldn’t be able to hold onto him, so maybe he had flown more slowly for Kaleth’s benefit.

It took him a good fifteen minutes to catch up to him, and by that time they had already left the island. Mel was now hovering above the ocean, looking in Kaleth’s direction with his head tilted in a wordless question. Kaleth wanted to get closer to him, so they could talk to each other, but before he could, Mel’s voice spoke in his head.

There’s a cave on that island over there. We could hide the cars there, Mel told him, nodding his head towards the small piece of land up ahead. Kaleth had no idea how Mel could see a cave from this distance, even if it was unusually sunny today.

We have much better eyesight.

Kaleth flinched a bit. Well, at least he knew that he could talk to Mel by just thinking. We could just drop the cars into the ocean.

But that could hurt the sea creatures, Mel protested, sounding horrified that Kaleth was even considering doing something like this, looking at him like a kicked puppy, and Kaleth had to laugh at how endearing Mel was. Why was the fact that Mel wanted to protect wildlife not surprising at all?

You think I’m endearing?

Kaleth felt himself blush. Please don’t read my mind.

Sorry. I usually don’t do it, but when we’re talking like this, I can’t tell what I’m supposed to hear, and what’s private.

Mel sounded so guilty that it made Kaleth feel guilty in turn for saying anything. It wasn’t Mel’s fault, not really. How was he supposed to figure out which thoughts Kaleth directed at him and which he didn’t? Kaleth would just have to try not to think too much until they ditched the cars.

It’s all right. Let’s hide the cars in the cave.

Mel seemed happy that Kaleth had gone with his idea, and grinned before gripping Alor’s car tighter, beating his wings faster, and then gliding towards the isle. It was quite mesmerizing to watch, so much so that for a moment Kaleth forgot he was supposed to get to the isle as well.

The entrance to the cave was barely big enough to fit both Mel and his car through it, but somehow he managed to get inside seemingly unscathed. The car did not, though, due to the Eternal being forced to wrap his wings around it to get inside and as a result fell down on it, damaging it further.

Mel didn’t seem at all bothered that he had just probably destroyed the car’s engines, as he jumped off the roof and beamed at Kaleth who offered a smile in return. He went to check if there was anything of use in both the cars, coming up empty except for almost fifteen aurens, and a pair of sunglasses he could use on the way back to protect his eyes from the wind at least somewhat.

He walked over to Alor’s car and crouched down in front of it, pulling at the registration plate to remove it, but it didn’t even budge. With a glare, Kaleth pulled on it harder, making the metal bend a bit, but the plate stayed stubbornly attached to the car. “Gods dammit.”

All the times he’d had the multi-tool knife Rayni had given him in his pocket, and when he needed it, he, of course, didn’t have it.

“I can do it,” Mel offered, grinning. Kaleth got up with a sigh, nodding and backing away to give Mel space. He immediately went to work, ripping the plates off easily with his claws. He peered curiously at them as he handed all four to Kaleth.

“What are they for, anyway?”

“You don’t know?” Kaleth asked with surprise before groaning internally. Mel clearly had some gaps in common knowledge, either because of Relioth, because he didn’t get out much, or both, and Kaleth really should get a handle on being surprised by this.

“I just, I dunno, I always thought they were like car names or something,” Mel explained, shrugging helplessly, and Kaleth smiled again. He felt like he had smiled more in the last twenty-four hours than he had over the last few years.

That was actually kind of depressing.

“Well, that is quite close to what they are,” Kaleth said. “They are used to identify vehicles. If someone accidentally found our cars, it would be extremely easy to figure out who owned them. It’s highly unlikely that someone will find them, but I’d rather not leave it to chance.”

He put the registration plates under his arm and almost left the cave before he noticed Mel wasn’t following him. The Eternal was looking at him with his head tilted a bit, like he was trying really hard to figure something out.

“Something is bothering you, isn’t it?” he finally said. Kaleth huffed out a laugh. There was quite a lot bothering him right now. “It’s your sister, right?”

Was Mel reading his mind again? Or maybe Kaleth was just that obvious. He sighed heavily before giving up on the idea of lying or not telling him because the Eternal could get the information out of his head, anyway. Kaleth doubted he would, but still. “It’s just…it’s something she said. It’s nothing, really.”

Mel stayed silent, only giving him an encouraging look.

“She doesn’t agree that Relioth is responsible for destroying the Flare, and said that I’m letting you—I mean, the people close to me—manipulate me.”

Mel looked quite hurt by that accusation. “But…I wouldn’t….”

“Don’t worry, I don’t think you’re manipulating me.” Mel most likely didn’t even know how. “It just made me think about the whole thing, and then I started to question everything.” He paused for a moment. “As I said, it’s nothing. It just made me wonder if I am wrong about this, and if Relioth is not responsible for what happened. Or if he did it for some greater good.”

Mel shook his head immediately. “His greater good is getting rid of the Iritharians. That’s all he’s ever wanted.” Kaleth stayed silent for a moment as he sorted out his thoughts. “Y-you believe me, right?”

Kaleth blinked a few times before he processed the question and focused on Mel again, who seemed very unsure of himself right now. “Well, of course, I do.”

Mel’s face brightened once more. “You know, your dad regrets how things went between you two.”

“That’s nice of you to say,” Kaleth replied, looking down at his watch instead of at Mel. He appreciated that the Eternal wanted to make him feel better, but Kaleth wasn’t one for denial. This didn’t seem to discourage Mel at all, though.

“No, really. I know he didn’t look that way, but he really does regret it.”

“He should have said so, then,” Kaleth said with irritation before he could stop himself, but fortunately, Mel didn’t seem to be upset by it.

“But don’t people from Imbera usually dislike talking about things like this?”

Kaleth chuckled, his irritation fading away. “That is a stereotype, but in this case, you might be right. How do you know about this?” Even as he was asking this, he had a feeling he knew the answer.

“Oh, I heard it on the TV,” Mel replied, stretching his wings absently. Of course that was where he’d heard it. “I used to talk to people a lot, but once I left the Umbra, I was too afraid to do it anymore, so I watched television instead. It’s not the same, but at least it kept me informed. And the one you gave me is really pretty. It must have cost a fortune.”

Kaleth waved his hand dismissively. “Televisions are pretty cheap these days.”

“Well, it was still really nice of you. I’ve been trying to fix my old TV for eleven years.”

Wow.

“I, uh, admire your determination,” Kaleth said, genuinely impressed. “But did you consider getting someone else to fix it for you?”

“I tried, but I was told that I should just buy a new one because it would cost less, but I didn’t have that much money and I didn’t want to steal, so….” Mel paused, looking down again. “I…I think the TV you gave me is broken now. I tried fighting Relioth’s people when they came to arrest me, and I threw one of them into it.” He focused his incredibly sad eyes on Kaleth. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, Mel. Not your fault. I’ll get you a new one, hm?”

Mel looked amazed at that.

“How did they find you?” asked Kaleth.

Mel’s eyes widened hugely. “Um, uh, t-t-that’s not important. The important thing is you rescued me, r-right?”

Kaleth folded his arms and gave him an unimpressed look. “Mel.”

“O-okay,” Mel said, hugging himself with his wings. “It maybe, sort of, has something to do with…you sending me the TV.”

Kaleth groaned, putting his face into his hands. Of course. Relioth had definitely been watching him, so it wasn’t that surprising, but, damn it, he hadn’t known that at the time. “I am so sorry.”

“No, no, no, it’s not your fault!” Mel said, shaking his head rapidly.

Except that yes, it was. He was solely responsible. Kaleth decided not to say that.

“Besides, I got to meet you, so it’s not all bad.”

“Why is that so great?” Kaleth asked without thinking. How was meeting him in person the upside in this situation? Wasn’t being rescued by him better? Or maybe Mel was just trying to be nice.

“Before you, I’ve never had a friend,” Mel replied, his smile widening. Kaleth smiled back, although he was confused by the fact that Mel didn’t consider Rayni, or at least a past version of her, his friend. Hadn’t he said she had been nice to him?

“We usually got solo missions and barely saw each other.” Mel continued in the meantime, his smile fading a bit. “It was a great way to protect each other in case one of us got caught, but it got lonely.”

That sounded incredibly lonesome. If Kaleth had to work like that—well, actually, that was rather similar to how his own job. Granted, he hadn’t been on a solo mission in a few years, but there had been no unity in Luxarx, just teams of three to five, the people who planned missions, and the director. He had never even spoken to most of the other agents, and Kaleth had been much more involved in how the agency was run than his co-workers.

Still, even with three other people he worked with regularly, doing this for four hundred years sounded horrible.

“I can imagine,” Kaleth said, although, in reality, he didn’t think he could. “What sort of missions did you get?”

“Usually, I got a target I was supposed to get rid of,” Mel replied casually. “There’s never been enough of us to attack Relioth’s forces directly, so we killed one at a time and ran away before anyone noticed.”

Kaleth swallowed uncomfortably. What Mel had just described was basically what he had done in his college years, except he had gotten paid and hadn’t done it for a good cause. The memory left a bitter taste in his mouth.

“Did it work?” he asked to distract himself from his thoughts.

“I think so. I don’t think Relioth would try so hard to get rid of us if it didn’t.” Wow, another joke in less than ten minutes. It seemed Kaleth had misjudged him. “If I’ll be helping you, I really should get my uniform, though.” Mel’s eyes widened. “B-but only if there’s time, of course.”

They wore uniforms? Well, they certainly didn’t anymore. “There will be time,” Kaleth promised, mostly to reassure Mel that he wasn’t being a burden. Because that was obviously the reason Mel had even said it. “But, um, don’t take this the wrong way, but won’t wearing a uniform that I assume shows your allegiance to Mereria make you more of a target?”

The Eternal looked a bit unsure. “I…I guess so. But our uniforms are hard to pierce, so I’ll survive longer if we run into Relioth’s people.”

Kaleth supposed it was worth it then. Although he didn’t understand why the Umbra didn’t use their uniforms anymore. Perhaps to be less obvious? Though Kaleth supposed that if someone asked why Mel was wearing armor, they could just say that he was cosplaying a character from some obscure movie or TV show.

“Okay, where did you leave it? At your apartment?”

“Yeah, I guess…. But that doesn’t matter. I just need to get to one of our safe houses, and the machine there will make a new one for me.”

Kaleth blinked. Right, of course. It would make sense for beings who had lived for eons to have much more advanced technology. Which reminded Kaleth that he still had no idea where the Eternals had come from.

“And how long will that take?”

“A few seconds, don’t worry,” Mel replied, and when Kaleth agreed to it, he trotted over to him and hugged him with his wings, putting his head on his shoulder carefully so he wouldn’t hit Kaleth with one of his horns.

“Thank you so much!”

“You’re welcome,” Kaleth told him, awkwardly patting one of the long horns that were in his line of sight. Thankfully Mel didn’t pick up on Kaleth’s discomfort and backed away as he ended the hug, grinning.

“So, you know where these safe houses are?” Kaleth asked.

“Uh-huh. If you have a map, I can mark where they are.”

“All right. If you prefer them, I’m sure there are some physical maps back at the mansion.” Mel looked confused by that but nodded, anyway. Did he not know there were digital maps now? He would have to explain it to the Eternal later if needed, Kaleth supposed.

“Let’s fly back. I need to find a place to hide the registration plates,” he continued, gesturing to said items under his arm. “With any luck, Kara and Rayni have already finished, so we’ll be able to leave immediately.”

“I could dig you a hole somewhere in the forest if you want,” Mel suggested, probably concerned that Kaleth would throw the registration plates into the ocean and hit some fish with them. And yes, that was basically what he had been planning on doing.

“Good idea,” he said, agreeing that Mel’s plan was better because if thrown into the water, the registration plates could wash up on a beach somewhere.

Mel smiled and put his wing out of the way, so Kaleth could climb on his back again. Putting on the sunglasses and pushing them up the bridge of his nose as far as they would go, Kaleth wrapped one arm around the Eternal’s neck, and Mel jumped out of the cave and began flying back to the mansion.