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

“Oh, come on!” Nef yelled in frustration, waking up Nira, who was sitting next to him. She didn’t remember falling asleep, but she wasn’t surprised by it either. Nef had been trying to figure out the alarm system for hours now.

Nira yawned and checked her watch. 3 PM. Awesome. She must have been very tired from flying here overnight to be able to sleep in such an uncomfortable position for so long. She stretched her neck and back, wincing at how much it hurt. Great, now she was tired and sore.

“What’s wrong?” she asked her boyfriend, mostly for his benefit because he clearly needed to complain to someone.

“I finally set everything up and the damned computer crashes.” Right, Nef had been trying to set the alarm in a way that it wouldn’t be set off by certain people and vehicles because apparently, that was possible. “Oh, thank the gods, that was supposed to happen.”

Nira had no idea how Nef had figured that out, but she didn’t ask. He would give her an explanation she wouldn’t understand, anyway. Nef was now double-checking the settings, looking at the exceptions he had put into the system. Before she had fallen asleep, Nef had told her that there were cameras on the fence around the mansion that were able to recognize faces and license plates when approached. The keys were still necessary to open the gate if a person went here on foot, but if the system didn’t recognize that person, the alarm would go off, regardless.

It sounded like something her mother would come up with. Maybe she and Ramien Garen weren’t so different. Nira smirked. Her mother would just love hearing how similar she was to a Garen.

“Okay, let’s see what else is in here,” Nef declared with glee and cracked his knuckles. Nira sent his intertwined fingers a scowl. He might have explained to her about five times now that cracking joints did no damage to them, but it was still annoying as hell, and she suspected that he at least partly did it just to piss her off.

The user interface of the HDS, which stood for Home Defense System—and that had to be the least creative name for anything ever—was incredibly user-unfriendly, and Nira had no idea how Nef could even use it, much less as fast as he was doing it right now. Sure, he was working relatively slowly for his standards, but that was normal speed for regular people.

“Nothing, nothing.” Nef kept repeating this as he scrolled through the settings and files, not seeing anything new or interesting. Nira saw a few things that she would deem worth looking into, but not enough to stop him until she noticed one file towards the end.

“Something,” she said, making Nef look at her in surprise. She pointed at the file titled Turrets, and Nef double-clicked it with a raised eyebrow. Nira hadn’t expected to see something like this as a part of such a defense system, but with all the security this house was protected with, why wouldn’t there be turrets with machine guns as well?

The file contained a schematic of the mansion zoomed out and surrounded by four metal machines that looked quite close to the robotic arms Nef had shown her at the university. These came with huge machine guns attached to them, however. They didn’t appear as tall as she had imagined, but maybe they had an adjustable height.

“Wow, and I thought the alarm was too much,” Nef commented, but he was grinning, which meant that he couldn’t wait to look the turrets over. Nira kind of wanted to do so as well, just because it felt so overboard.

“Where are they, though?” she asked. Nef looked at her with confusion. “I mean, they’re not there when you look out the window.” She gestured to the window on her right to emphasize it. Nef turned his head as if to see if Nira was just pranking him or not. Then he raised his index finger and looked at the settings that came with the turrets. They looked just about as complicated as the ones for the alarm.

“Oh, they’re underground,” Nef said and started typing furiously. Before Nira asked what he was doing there was a sudden groan of metal moving, coming from the outside. “And now they’re not!”

Nira went to the window and was not disappointed. The turret she could see looked exactly as described, except for the silver color, and dirt and grass falling off it.

“Wanna go check them out?” Nef asked, smiling at her with excitement.

“Sure, you go find Alor while I get something to drink,” Nira told him. Nef looked a little disappointed that she wanted to involve his brother in this as well, but he agreed with a dramatic sigh.

Nira headed towards the kitchen. She suddenly felt really thirsty after her nap, but that was to be expected since the last time she had drunk anything was in Alor’s car. That man always had a bottle of water on hand, as well as other survival things, such as gloves or tissues.

The kitchen, like most of the rooms in the house, was made to look antique, but also incredibly expensive. The room wasn’t overly large, but this and the decorative brick walls made it cozy.

On Nira’s right, there was a huge, black kitchen unit with a sink, two ovens, and a dishwasher, and right next to it, in the center of the room, there was a wide table with four chairs, and an elegant ceiling lamp hanging over it. The western wall was completely made of glass, with a door leading outside, and on the left side was a fridge the size of two regular ones.

Nira wasn’t sure how anyone could need a fridge this big. She opened it, hoping there would be a bottle of water somewhere inside. It took her almost a whole minute to find it. There were so many things in the fridge. Before she even closed the fridge, she had already drunk about half of the small bottle, and she was about to leave and finish it on the way when a voice stopped her.

“Hi, Nira!” Startled, Nira dropped the bottle, which immediately started to spill water out on the marble floor. As soon as she saw who it was, she quickly backed away until her back hit one of the ovens.

Smiling at her pleasantly with his hands in his pockets was Relioth, only a few steps away from her. Nira didn’t know why he was keeping out of her personal space, but she was immensely grateful for at least that.

She flinched when the fridge door closed by itself and watched as the water that had spilled out of the bottle on the ground flowed back in before the half-filled bottle flew onto the table. She had known the Eternals could move objects with their minds, but it did nothing to prepare her for actually seeing it.

“Much better,” he said with a pleased tone. “Mustn’t waste electricity or water.”

“Dexrah.” She blurted out automatically without meaning to. Seeing Relioth’s smile dissipate made it suddenly hard to breathe. He didn’t have to be intimidating to intimidate her because now she knew very well who he was, and what he was capable of. Still, when he was smiling, it was easier to pretend he was just a politician and not a killer.

Had Relioth posed as the President of Enoria from the start or had he possessed the actual president only recently? But the man’s name was Relioth Morthan—that couldn’t be a coincidence.

“I never liked that nickname,” Relioth said casually, shrugging. “My personal favorite is Yr-Nehar. At least from the ones the Iritharians gave me. Your language lacks elegance.”

Nira had expected him to be angry that she had called him a murderer, but hearing him say that he liked being called Godkiller more made it at least a little easier to breathe. That didn’t mean she wasn’t still horrified, though. Relioth could kill her without even trying, and if he hated Irithara so much, he was probably going to.

She wanted to call out for help, but she knew she couldn’t. If she did, both Alor and Nef would be killed by the Eternal, who was currently checking his nails. Relioth was a really strange being, but maybe he was just beyond her understanding.

“Why are you here?” she finally asked, although her voice sounded much weaker than she had wanted it to. “How are you here?”

“I teleported, of course. Well, maybe teleportation isn’t the right term, but who cares?” Teleported? They can do that? Mel could have mentioned that. “If I hadn’t been keeping an eye on you, I don’t think I would figure out that this was where Kaleth decided to stay. I would never think to look for him here. Smart.” Relioth shook his head with a small, almost nostalgic smile on his face and muttered to himself: “So much like Enor.”

Nira had no idea why Relioth was comparing Kaleth to Enor but decided not to ask. There were other questions she’d like to have answers to more. “You’ve been watching me?”

Relioth laughed. “Of course I have. Don’t worry, it was just to make sure you stayed in Enoria. I wanted to keep an eye on you in case you got any ideas about going back home after all the time it took to get you here.”

Nira could do little more than just stare dumbly at him. It was Relioth who had ordered Luxarx to bring her here? Why would he want that? Wouldn’t it be easier to just kill her if he wanted to get rid of the heir to Irithara’s throne? And if his plan hadn’t been to get rid of her, then what was the point of all this?

“I know you have a lot of questions, and I’ll answer them once I relocate you.”

“R-relocate me?” she repeated, attempting to take a step back once again, her back hitting the cabinet.

“Oh, it’s a nice apartment. Don’t worry.” As if Nira had been worried about that part. “I don’t like doing this, trust me, but I have a feeling you’re going to go back to Irithara, or you’re at least considering it, aren’t you?”

Nira didn’t give him an answer, but her silence was enough of one. The truth was she had been thinking about it since Kaleth had suggested it. She hated the thought of leaving Nef here, but Kaleth had been right. If she had left immediately, she wouldn’t have led Relioth here. She might not understand why Relioth had brought her here, but he was a mass murderer, so it couldn’t be anything good.

“Yeah, see, if this war goes badly for me, I can threaten your mother with your death. It’s not the best bargaining chip, but it’s better than nothing.”

Oh, so that was why he hadn’t killed her yet. Although Nira wasn’t so sure her mother would let something like this stop her from winning a war with Enoria. For her mother, the Empire was way more important than her daughter. If Nira died, the queen would appoint someone else to rule after her. Nira wisely decided not to say any of this out loud.

“Nira? You coming?” called Nef’s voice from somewhere down the corridor. She wanted to tell him she would catch up with them, but one look from Relioth stopped her. He seemed thoughtful for a second before smirking. She didn’t like that one bit. His eyes started glowing, the color much lighter than when Mel had done it, and suddenly Nira’s fear was completely forgotten as a wave of protective anger washed over her.

“What are you doing?” she hissed at the Eternal, only then realizing that angering him was pretty much the stupidest thing she could do. He just continued smiling, though.

“Bringing him here,” he replied. Before she could ask why, Nef was walking into the kitchen, his eyes glazed over. He seemed like he wasn’t even mentally there, and it was freaking Nira out. She turned to Relioth to yell at him to stop, but she didn’t need to. A second later, Nef was blinking owlishly. Alor appeared behind him, looking horrified as he reached for his gun.

“Nira?” Nef asked, frowning at her, and then he noticed Relioth and jumped in shock, crying out.

“Agent, I don’t think you were invited,” Relioth told Alor, who only glared in reply and without hesitation shot the Eternal between the eyes. Nira’s eyes widened in shock and horror, but she couldn’t say she was too surprised when the Eternal only looked irritated by it.

Relioth raised his hand and the bullet that was lodged in his brain flew out of the bleeding hole in his forehead, hovering above his hand for a split second before flying at full speed at Alor, who went down with a cry of pain.

“Al!” yelled Nef, crouching down to check on his brother.

“Just my leg,” Alor assured him, glaring up at Relioth. Nira let out a breath, relaxing as much as she could with Relioth in the room. Alor sounded like he was in a lot of pain, but at least Relioth hadn’t hit anything major.

“If you’d ruined my suit, I would have aimed somewhere else,” Relioth told him, his eyes flashing menacingly, wiping off blood from his forehead with a handkerchief he’d pulled from his breast pocket.

This was how Nira had always imagined Relioth—an unpredictable, cruel, and violent force. She hated that the myths were right about this.

“Now, I’m going to open a portal, and you two,” Relioth said, looking at Nef and Nira, “are going to go through it.” Nef looked at Nira with barely controlled panic, and she tried to silently communicate to him that it would be all right with as much reassurance and confidence as she could muster at the moment.

Relioth stretched his hand out in front of him, concentrating for a moment. Then there was a burst of white light. Nira stared in astonishment at the portal in front of her. That probably was the best way to describe it.

It kind of looked like a circular holographic photograph, but it was three-dimensional, and it was as tall as a person. In the circle, there was a room, which must have been the apartment Relioth had spoken about a moment ago. It was like looking into a room through a doorway, and she couldn’t help but feel curious enough to step through it, just to see what it would be like. The fact that she would be forced to do it made this idea much less tempting, though.

“Go on, then,” said Relioth from behind the portal. His voice was pleasant again, but this time it sounded very fake. “I’d hate to move that bullet from Mr. Arithar’s leg into his brain.”

Nef looked at his brother in alarm and then turned to Nira, begging her with his eyes to do what Relioth wanted. She didn’t want Alor to die any more than Nef did—he was her friend, and she cared about him, too—so of course she would walk through the portal, but it wasn’t like they had a choice. Relioth could just force them to cooperate, as he had demonstrated with Nef a minute ago.

Nira nodded at her boyfriend, taking his hand and walking into the portal before she could think about it too much. She had expected to feel, well, something, but it was exactly like going from one room to another. She and Nef were now standing in what looked like a luxurious living room. It wasn’t as luxurious as the living room at the mansion, but it still looked way more expensive than the living room in their apartment.

The walls were what would usually be a soothing shade of orange, but they did nothing to calm her. There was a black couch facing a large TV, a few white wardrobes and cabinets, a black table with four chairs, and a ceiling fan that doubled as a chandelier. From the wall to her left hung seven framed photos that together formed one big photo of a lake and mountains, and on her right, there was a huge mirror. All she saw in it were her wide, scared eyes, and the dark circles underneath them, so she quickly looked away, focusing on Nef instead.

He seemed to have no idea what was going on. Nira couldn’t blame him—he hadn’t been there when Relioth told Nira what his plan was. She would explain the situation to him as soon as she could.

Behind them, the portal closed with another flash of light, and Nira and Nef turned around. Relioth looked a little tired, even though he was obviously trying to hide it. Was that why he had threatened to kill Alor if they didn’t hurry up? Nira wondered if they could use this somehow.

“Get comfortable, I’ll just wash this blood off,” Relioth told them, pointing to his forehead and leaving the room. Nira looked over at Nef, who just shrugged, his expression a little disgusted. This wasn’t surprising, though. Nef had never been good with blood, let alone this much. He suggested they sit at the table in the middle of the room, and Nira agreed. They sat next to each other, still holding hands. Somehow, the physical connection made the whole situation a tiny bit easier to deal with.

“What the hell’s going on?” Nef whispered to Nira. “How’d he figure out where we were?”

“He said he’s been watching me,” Nira replied. Nef pulled a face that was both angry and disturbed but said nothing. “If I hadn’t gone with you, Relioth wouldn’t have found out where Alor and his team were staying,” she said, realizing that this was completely her fault. She hadn’t known that Relioth had been watching her, but that didn’t excuse it. She should have listened to Kaleth. He had warned her that this would happen, and now Nef was in danger too because of her.

“Oh, please,” said Nef, shaking his head. “That’s stupid. Relioth runs the government. And has superpowers. I’m sure he would find them sooner or later, even if you did stay behind.”

Nira still felt guilty, but hearing Nef say this with such certainty helped. Although it also brought up a pretty depressing thought—no matter what they did, it wouldn’t stop Relioth, so she and Nef should probably just do what he wanted, at least for now. Maybe if Relioth was worried that he’d lose the war with Irithara, then there was also a chance that he would. There was no way Irithara had enough soldiers to defeat Enoria, though, so maybe the queen knew how to kill Relioth? Nira’s mother had always been pretty cryptic, so Nira supposed it was possible. Who knew what kind of knowledge she was hiding?

“Ah, that’s better,” said Relioth, startling both Nira and Nef, as he emerged from what Nira assumed was a bathroom. There was no evidence left that he had been shot at all, except for a small red spot on the collar of his shirt. Despite seeing the effects of godly healing earlier the same day, Nira was having trouble wrapping her head around it. “Do you like it?” Relioth asked, looking around the room as he sat at the table across from them. “This place cost a lot of taxpayer money.”

Nira couldn’t hide her disgust when he said this. How could he be so casual about stealing? Then she remembered that Relioth had no problem with murder. Right.

“Oh, don’t give me that look. Who do you think pays for your credit card?”

Nira’s mouth hung open for a moment before she scowled at him. “That’s different. I didn’t know where the money came from until now.”

Relioth smiled and shrugged as if to say something along the lines of whatever helps you sleep at night, before folding his arms in front of him on the table and leaning in closer to her. Nira responded by leaning back into her chair as much as she could. “I believe I promised you answers, so fire away.”

“Okay, I have one: what the hell do you want?” Nef asked, his previous fear of Relioth gone, replaced by irritation. Hearing Nef being Nef made Nira feel much better.

“Right, you weren’t there for that part,” Relioth said and sighed. “I just want to keep a closer eye on Nira.”

Nef didn’t seem to believe this but didn’t say it out loud. “Well, then, why am I here?” Nira had to admit, that was a very good question. One she had already been asking herself since Relioth made Nef go into the kitchen.

“I don’t want her to feel lonely,” the Eternal replied, and Nef scoffed.

“Bullshit,” Nef said, voicing Nira’s thoughts. Despite the obvious lie, it was truly impressive how well Relioth could fake sounding sincere. “You just want to keep me here to use against her in case she doesn’t cooperate.”

Relioth smiled. “Well, aren’t you clever? But I really do want you to be as comfortable as possible,” he said, turning to Nira.

“Why?” Nira asked. She could understand being kept alive for her usefulness, but it would be much easier to keep her in a cell somewhere. Not that she was complaining.

“You just want to live out your life here in peace, right?” he started, his face even closer now.

“I’m not into killing random people like your mythology suggests, Nira.” He looked pensive for a second. “Not anymore, anyway. I told the Director of Luxarx to send Kaleth because I had a feeling he wouldn’t kill you. He might be all for ending the monarchy, but he wouldn’t kill an innocent person because of it.”

Kaleth wanted to end the monarchy? Sure, he hadn’t seemed like he liked it very much, but what Relioth was saying made it sound like he had been actively trying to destroy it. Was it possible that he could speak Iritharian because he had been one of the spies he had talked about before?

“Wait, it was you who got Nira here?” Right, Nef hadn’t heard that either.

Relioth ignored him. “The point I’m trying to make is that as long as you stay here and not get in my way, I won’t interfere with your life,” he continued explaining. Nira wanted to remind him that the reason she was here was because he had already interfered, but she had no idea if that would make him angry or not, so she stayed silent. He finally backed away a bit, but somehow Nira didn’t feel all that relieved. “If you didn’t get dragged into this whole thing by your boyfriend, we wouldn’t be here.”

Blaming Nef was a little harsh, but if they hadn’t been dating, she would never have met Alor’s colleagues, so it was kind of true. Nef didn’t seem to agree, judging by his glare, but he didn’t protest.

“So, if we agree not to cause trouble, you’ll leave us alone?” Even before Nira saw the amused smirk on Relioth’s face, she knew what the answer would be.

“I’m afraid it’s not as simple anymore. If I let you leave, you’ll leave the country.” Nira wanted to deny it, but Relioth continued before she even opened her mouth. “Don’t lie. It’s obvious even without reading your mind.”

Nira swallowed heavily. She really didn’t like that Relioth could listen in on what she was thinking about. Nef was looking at her now, and she did her best to pretend she couldn’t see it. “So we’re prisoners, then?”

“For now, yes. If you don’t cause too much trouble over the next couple of days, I’ll consider letting you leave the apartment,” Relioth told them. “With a tracking device, of course.”

“So generous,” Nef commented sarcastically and visibly cringed. It was weird how scary it was when Relioth stopped smiling. Nira never wanted to see him outright angry.

“Oh, I’m sorry, would you prefer a prison cell?”

“No, this is good,” Nef replied, looking down at his and Nira’s linked hands rather than maintaining eye contact. Nira was having trouble with this too. It was hard looking into Relioth’s eyes for longer than a few seconds—his gaze was too intense. She felt like he was looking into her soul. The fact that Relioth’s eyes weren’t actually his, but rather some poor guy’s who he’d possessed, made this even more unsettling.

“Why did you bring me here in the first place? To Enoria, I mean,” Nira asked. Relioth hadn’t cleared that up yet. And if he had wanted her to be in Enoria, couldn’t he have just told Luxarx to do that? Kaleth had said his orders were to get rid of her, which was open to interpretation.

“I didn’t know you’d end up here,” Relioth replied with a frown as if he didn’t understand why she assumed that had been his plan. “I didn’t even think Kaleth would pull it off. I just wanted to piss off your mother. And that time I managed that twice.”

“That’s it?” Nira stared at the Eternal in disbelief as he nodded with a hum.

Kaleth had said that getting rid of Nira was to fracture the Empire, which was something she didn’t agree with, but at least it was a sensible reason to attempt something like this. What Relioth was saying wasn’t sensible at all, but Nira had to admit that if the goal was to make the queen angry, then Relioth had been very successful.

“I’m not one for grand, convoluted plans. It’s boring when everything’s planned out,” Relioth explained and lay back in his chair. Nira kind of expected him to put his feet on the table as well, but he didn’t.

“You just cause problems, step back, and watch the fireworks?” Nef paraphrased, his tone heavy with sarcasm again, but thankfully Relioth laughed.

“I usually tell someone else to cause those problems, but yeah, pretty much. Have to keep myself entertained somehow.”

“Can’t you just watch TV, or play video games, or something?” Nef suggested. To a godlike being who’d lived for millennia and thought murder was fun. And then Relioth treated the question seriously.

“I tried that, but I ran out of shows to watch and games to play pretty soon,” Relioth said. Nef opened his mouth to say something, but Relioth cut him off. “I don’t sleep.”

“Are you saying you’ve watched every crime show ever?”

“I ran out of good TV shows. It sucks that with the good ones, the seasons are usually only like ten episodes long.”

“I think that’s part of the reason why they’re good.”

Nira sat there looking between them with one eyebrow raised. This had to be the weirdest conversation she had ever witnessed, especially once Nef and Relioth started discussing how good Starlight was. Apparently, Relioth was a big fan of science fiction. Nira had never understood the appeal, she preferred fantasy much more, but even if she’d loved sci-fi, she wouldn’t join the conversation. Just because Relioth didn’t seem dangerous now, it didn’t mean that he wasn’t.

The conversation continued for ten whole minutes. Nira hadn’t even noticed she had started to tune it out until Relioth excused himself to look at his phone.

“Ah, dammit,” he said as he picked up the phone. Nira found the fact that Relioth didn’t want to talk to this person odd. She would have thought that if there was a person who Relioth didn’t like, he would just kill them, but she supposed that if it was a powerful politician, Relioth couldn’t simply make them disappear.

“Yeah, yeah, I was busy, I’m almost there,” Relioth continued, rolling his eyes and getting up. “All right, stop nagging me!”

Then he took the phone a little away from his ear and turned back to Nira and Nef. “Right, I’ll see you in three days then. If you need anything, call room service.” And with that he turned around, talking to the person on the phone again. “No, I wasn’t talking to you. I’ll see you in five minutes, relax!”

Nira and Nef watched as Relioth left the room, continuing his argument with whoever he was talking to. There was another flash of light, and then there was only silence.

Nira exchanged a look with her boyfriend.

“Fun guy,” he said, but his voice wasn’t as sarcastic as it should have been. Nira scowled at him in disapproval.

“You can’t like a mass murderer.”

Nef scoffed, looking offended that she could suggest something like this, and folded his arms over his chest to complete the image. “I do not like him. The guy shot my brother, in case you forgot. What was that about you wanting to leave Enoria again?”

Nef sure knew how to change the topic when he wanted to. Nira sighed. “I don’t want to. It’s just something Kaleth told me.”

“But you are going to, aren’t you?”

There was a moment of silence, which Nef of course took as a yes. There was pain in his eyes as he lowered his gaze. Nira’s heart clenched. When Nef didn’t get angry during situations like this, she knew it was bad, and she hated seeing him like this.

“Nef…” she started and immediately paused, having no idea what to say. He didn’t look up at her. “Look, I don’t want to leave you, but maybe he’s right. I mean, if I’d left when he told me to, you wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“Who gives a damn?” Nef asked, turning his head to look at her. He didn’t sound upset, though, just a bit too passive. “I’d rather be stuck here with you than be free to go wherever I want without you.”

There was a sudden warmth blossoming in her chest, and she laughed. “That’s probably the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“Don’t get used to it,” he joked, his smile immediately lifting Nira’s spirits. “Hey, stop blaming yourself, all right? This isn’t that bad. I mean, look at this place,” he said, gesturing to the entirety of the room. “We couldn’t afford a place like this even if we both worked two jobs. And Relioth even said he’d let us go out if we didn’t try to escape.”

Nira tilted her head and frowned. That seemed a little uncharacteristic of Nef. “So we aren’t going to try to find a way out of here?”

“Of course not,” Nef said with a yawn and winked at her quickly. Oh, Nef was pretending. Nira had to suppress the urge to look for hidden cameras. She hadn’t even thought of the fact that Relioth could be watching them or not, but it was safer to assume that he was. “It’s probably impossible to get out of here, anyway. I think Morthan has this pretty well thought out, so let’s just kick back and enjoy this place.” He yawned again. “Now, I haven’t slept properly in like thirty hours, so I’m gonna go find a bed.”

Nira pretended to scowl at Nef as he disappeared through the door on the left. She yawned as well, then. Right, she hadn’t slept much either. Maybe Nef had a point. If they wanted to get out of here, it would be best if they were at least a little rested. She nodded to herself. They both needed rest. Then they would figure out what to do.