The Return of the Lifebringer (Children of the Sun Book 3)

Kaleth had expected Mel to be mad at him for making him think something had gone wrong, when in fact things had gone as well as they could have. Aside from not leaving Yorin and Hidarion behind. Nef had seemed sure that they weren’t being treated badly, though Kaleth couldn’t help but wonder if he should try to get them out once he recovered a little. Though Enor wasn’t an idiot, so there was no doubt in Kaleth’s mind that he’d already thought of him doing just that, and it would no doubt be a trap somehow.

But Mel didn’t tell him anything berating. He just hugged Kaleth and refused to let go the moment they were alone. It would be very endearing if there weren’t blood on Kaleth’s…everything. He really needed to take the armor off. And to do his best to pay no mind to the sick feeling in his stomach seeing the blood had brought with it. There had been no other way, but that didn’t mean he liked it.

“Oh, um, Kara is mad at you for not telling her you were leaving,” said Mel as he pulled away, clearly very unhappy about that. Kaleth sighed, rubbing his eyes. Well, he had sort of expected that, but that didn’t mean he wanted to deal with it. He had Relioth to interrogate right now.

“Right, of course she is,” Kaleth muttered as he started taking off his gloves.

“She’s just worried about you,” Mel said glumly, staring at the ground. Kaleth was pretty sure Mel was projecting now, but even if he wasn’t, he cared about Mel’s happiness more than Kara’s. Which sounded incredibly dick-ish even in Kaleth’s head, but it was true nonetheless.

“Well, no need. Until we figure out how to deal with this mess, I won’t be going anywhere,” Kaleth said, even though he would love to go get himself some clothes. But he couldn’t, of course. He was too easily recognizable. “Except to Relioth’s cell.”

Mel’s eyes widened at that. He must have already been suspecting that this would happen, surely. “Wait, what?”

“I need him to tell me how to beat Enor,” Kaleth reminded Mel gently as he continued taking off his armor.

“But…but…what if he hurts you?” Mel argued, looking really, really miserable. He was practically screaming that emotion at him, in fact. How did Kaleth keep managing to upset him?

“Don’t worry, love. I am far more likely to hurt him,” he replied jokingly, but Mel still seemed unconvinced. Though he did look more on board with this now. “He’s powerless right now. He can do very little other than talk.”

“He’s pretty good with words, though,” Mel mumbled. Kaleth thought back to all the social media posts he’d been tagged in over the years that spoke against that, but yes, Relioth was a manipulator, though Kaleth wasn’t sure if it was his words, or rather his telepathic powers.

“I’m better,” Kaleth replied, smiling at Mel when he huffed out a laugh.

“You are,” Mel agreed, taking a step closer to Kaleth. “At everything.” And he kissed Kaleth’s forehead. Kaleth blushed, unable to stop smiling. Though the more realistic part of him was quite sure that Relioth was better at certain things. Like murder. At least, Kaleth hoped so….

Shockingly, Mel didn’t want to go with Kaleth to see Relioth, though the more Kaleth thought about it, the more that made sense. Last time they had met, Relioth had broken Mel’s wings. Or maybe not last time, but it hadn’t been too long ago. In any case, Kaleth had a feeling it would be better without anyone else, either way, and he definitely wasn’t going to suggest to Mel that he should accompany him.

There was a single Umbra guarding the door, looking incredibly nervous. While that was understandable, Relioth hadn’t seemed to be in his usual megalomaniacal mood, and he was also powerless, so there really was nothing to worry about.

“Take a break,” Kaleth told him. The Umbra opened his mouth, probably to argue, but then seemed to decide against it and just nodded. Kaleth was a bit surprised by that. He would expect to at least have to convince him, but he wasn’t going to complain.

He was about to open the door when Elrin’s voice stopped him.

“Kaleth, a word?”

He sighed and turned around, waiting for her to get into a lecture about leaving without telling her anything.

“Look,” Elrin said, putting her hands on Kaleth’s shoulders. Kaleth just gave her a look appropriate to her odd behaviour. “Relioth is kinda not well right now.”

“He never has been well,” Kaleth countered, shaking off her hands. Elrin actually rolled her eyes at that.

“I mean he’s really upset,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “I mean really upset.”

“And I should care why?” Kaleth asked, folding his arms. Elrin groaned.

“Fine, don’t listen to me. But I’m going there with you.”

They stared at each other for a moment, their eyes narrowed. Until Kaleth gave up a moment later. There was no use fighting her with this. He knew how impossible Elrin could get when she set her mind on something.

“All right.”

He didn’t wait for her to react and opened the door. The room didn’t turn out to be a cell, like he’d expected, but rather very similar to the interrogation rooms he was used to—an empty room aside from a table, and three chairs. Relioth was sitting in one of them, clearly handcuffed to the table if the odd way he was holding his arms was any indication.

Relioth’s face lit up for a moment when he saw Kaleth. But that look quickly disappeared, changing into something like embarrassment. Kaleth glared at him.

“Happy to see you again, General,” Elrin said when the silence kept on going. And Relioth looked at her with such raw horror that it brought Kaleth out of his irritation entirely. Relioth shook his head, blinking and looking down at his hands.

“Um, c-could you not call me that?” he said, his voice quivering. Then he laughed. Very, very unconvincingly. “Don’t have an army anymore.”

Kaleth sat down, studying Relioth closely. This was…definitely worse than he’d thought it would be. “What did he do to you?”

Kaleth blinked, surprising even himself with that question. Damn his empathy. Relioth didn’t deserve any.

Relioth opened his mouth, but then his eyes drifted over to Elrin. “Um, Tira, could you…not be here for a moment?”

“What?” Elrin gawked. “But—”

“Please?” Relioth wasn’t looking at either of them now. Kaleth watched Elrin, surprised to see her actually get up.

“Of course, G—uh, sir.”

She gave Kaleth a pointed look as she left, no doubt wanting him to figure out what was going on. And honestly Kaleth was sort of morbidly curious about it now. He’d never see Relioth scared, much less this much.

Kaleth waited for the door to click shut before he fully focused on Relioth again. “Start talking.”

Kaleth glared, mostly angry with himself for using a much more gentle tone than he had been intending. But at least Relioth seemed more willing to talk now because of it. Though actually, Kaleth wasn’t sure if that was a good thing.

“Enor may have…made me watch my family die over and over for, um…. How many days has it been?”

Kaleth blinked. Well, he hadn’t expected that, though now that it had been said, he wasn’t surprised either. Enor seemed to be the kind person to do that. The bigger problem was that Kaleth was once again feeling bad for Relioth. Dammit.

To counter this, Kaleth put on a cruel smirk. “That can’t have been effective since you only care about yourself.”

Relioth looked almost broken-hearted about it. And he even had the puppy eyes capabilities with this face. Godsdammit. It was really, really hard to keep up an uncaring facade, but Kaleth would have to persevere.

“No, no, that isn’t true. I loved them. My children, my mate….” Relioth buried his face in his hands, making the chains binding his shackles to the table rattle. Kaleth watched him shake with shock. No, no, this had to be a trick. That was exactly it. Relioth was just playing him like he always had, probably to get Kaleth to feel sorry enough for him to let Relioth escape.

“You,” Relioth added, wiping his eyes. And that finally made Kaleth angry enough to put on a proper scowl.

“You never cared about me as more than just a tool,” Kaleth growled at him. But Relioth started shaking his head immediately, a tear making its way down his cheek and disappearing in his beard. It was really getting hard to push his doubts away, but dammit, Kaleth would keep pushing.

“No, I really did!” Relioth said, his voice breaking. He was blinking rapidly, his eyes glassy. Relioth was a great liar, but had he always been this good at acting? No, dammit, it was just an act. Just an act. “I do care about you.”

Kaleth scoffed. “You said it yourself that you only made me to win your war with Irif.”

Relioth stared down at the table, guilt clear on his face, and Kaleth was even more shocked than before. Relioth could feel guilt? If that were true, then Kaleth’s view of the universe itself might shatter.

“No, Kaleth,” he said, looking up at him again. He was still barely keeping his tears at bay. He let out a short, choked laugh. “That isn’t why. I just said that because….”

“Because?” Kaleth prodded, too impatient and annoyed to wait at this point.

“I was lying to myself,” Relioth said, gritting his teeth and squeezing his eyes shut. “I didn’t want to keep that war going. I mean, yeah, war is fun, but it got so repetitive after millennia since it was the same exact war.” Relioth sighed, wiping his eyes again. “I realized too late that I just wanted my best friend back.”

Kaleth stared at him, feeling like his brain had finally given up and resigned. How was any of this related to the subject of discussion? Or anything at all? “What?”

Relioth breathed out, closing his eyes again. “You, Kaleth. You’re just like Enor used to be. My best friend….”

Kaleth gaped at Relioth for a moment, mutely watching him finally lose his battle with his tears.

“Enor needed to be stopped,” Relioth continued, his voice hitching. “But once Mereria helped me kill him, I missed him so much. And when I accidentally came across a little of his energy, I thought I could bring him back, but not as that monster he’d become.” Relioth looked up at Kaleth, sniffing, and smiling slightly. “And I did.”

Kaleth was still too stunned to get a word out though, so Relioth kept talking, no matter how hard it became to understand him sometimes due to his voice breaking. “That’s why I kept interfering with your life. I wanted to make sure you’d be just like him, and he grew up lonely and ignored. I didn’t want to put you through that, but I was so desperate to get this right—”

“Are you trying to justify this?!” Kaleth yelled at him, swallowing down the hurt in his heart. Finally they’d reached a point so absurd that Kaleth just had to say something. This was all so insane that he didn’t know what to do with it as a whole, but he did know what to do with this one, single part.

Relioth shook his head, though, stopping Kaleth from voicing more of his outrage. “No, it was wrong.”

“What about the assassinations, then?” Kaleth asked, deciding to get all the parts of this puzzle if Relioth was giving them out.

“Enor was a brilliant scientist. Maybe the smartest of our time. But times weren’t all that great economically, and he had to make a living doing, um, equally problematic things.”

“You son of a—” Kaleth cut himself off with an angry huff. “You made a killer out of me for the sole purpose of making me more like him?”

Relioth had the decency to look ashamed. “Yeah, I didn’t really think that through. In retrospect, it’s much worse than I thought at the time.”

Kaleth frowned at him in disbelief for a few seconds before sighing tiredly. He couldn’t even make himself be mad about this. He had killed about fifteen Eternals today, all of which had most likely been innocent people, weaponized by Enor.

Enor….

Kaleth hadn’t really had time to ponder the implications of this. And he wasn’t liking any of them.

“But I tried to make up for it later,” Relioth added, sighing sadly. “Once you joined Luxarx, I made up an excuse for us to meet, and we really hit it off. We were so close.”

What in the hell was Relioth talking about? That had never happened.

“And then, um, Irif noticed. And tried to use you to get to me by having her goons, um, kidnap you and torture you for like an entire week.” Relioth glared at the table. “I killed them all as painfully as possible, but it wasn’t enough. It never would be.”

Kaleth was incredibly disturbed. Though he wasn’t sure if he was more disturbed by the story, or the controlled fury in Relioth’s eyes. Why couldn’t he remember any of this? Had Relioth wiped his mind, just like he had done to all the Umbra at Luxarx? Or was he just lying again?

“So I ended up wiping everyone’s minds and starting over, this time keeping much more distance from you.” Relioth breathed out. “And I changed the plan. Kill Irif first, use your power to do that and hopefully get close to you again, and then we could go explore the universe.”

“Why did you think I would help you with anything?” Kaleth asked, pinching the bridge of his nose. “All you did was manipulate me.”

Relioth returned back to his misery. “I’m not good with people. Or genuine emotion. I haven’t cried while sober in so long.”

“What was even the point of any of this?” Kaleth practically screamed. “Don’t tell me that you wanting Enor back was the real reason you went through all the trouble of making me.”

“I told you, I’m not one for grand plans. You always did think I was more complicated than I actually was,” Relioth replied, smiling fondly. And finally, Kaleth couldn’t stop himself. He punched him as hard as he could, feeling a sick, satisfying pleasure at the crack of Relioth’s nose.

Relioth cried out, clutching his nose, his eyes watery. And Kaleth just stood in front of the table, breathing hard, his fist covered in blood and still raised up, ready to strike again.

“Kaleth!” he heard Elrin yell behind him. He let her drag him out of the room, feeling completely numb then. In the past, he’d feel much better after hitting Relioth, but now it hadn’t really worked at all. Kaleth forced himself to get back to reality when he noticed Elrin was staring at him intently. He’d expected her to glare at him, to berate him for hitting Relioth, but all she gave him was worry. And pity.

“Are you okay, Kaleth?”

That was a great question. Kaleth had no idea. “All this time, I thought Relioth made me to use me. Not to be a replacement for someone else.” He paused. “I’m not sure which is worse.”

Elrin looked Kaleth in the eye with even more intensity. “Okay, I know this must be really terrible, but you have to remember that you aren’t Enor, okay? No matter what he says, you aren’t. He can barely remember what Enor was like originally.”

Kaleth frowned, a bit miffed that Elrin knew exactly what his problem with this was. “What do you mean he can’t remember?”

“Relioth, Mereria…they’re old. Like really old,” Elrin said. “Even I don’t remember a lot of things anymore, and I’m only a few thousand years old. And there’s the whole nostalgia aspect too….”

Kaleth nodded.

“What I’m trying to say,” Elrin continued, “is that you’re your own person, alright? You’re not Enor, you’re Kaleth. And only you get to decide who Kaleth should be.”

Kaleth was touched by that more than he wanted to admit. He smiled slightly. She was right, of course—he would just have to keep reminding himself of this. “Thank you, Director.”

Kaleth froze when he realized he’d done it again, but Elrin just laughed. “If you want to punch him again, I won’t stop you.”

He knew she’d meant that as a joke, but she also seemed to be at least half serious.

“I think I’m fine now,” Kaleth said, not sure if he was fooling himself or not. But he felt at worst numb, and there were worse things he could be.

“Alright, I’m guessing you’re going to go back?” Elrin asked. Kaleth shrugged. “Right, well, this has gone better than I was expecting, so I guess I can sit this out after all.”

Kaleth raised an eyebrow. “What were you expecting?”

“I was a little concerned you might kill him,” Elrin admitted. Kaleth let out a humorless laugh. There was a reason he hadn’t brought any weapons with him. “I definitely wouldn’t judge you for it. But we do need him. And, um, if you could manage to not crush his spirit completely, that would be great too. But you seem to have avoided that so far.”

Kaleth’s mouth formed a thin line. He would enjoy doing that more than killing him, but Elrin was right. This probably really wasn’t an act, and if he pushed Relioth too far, he might not help them beat Enor at all. And that would definitely be a problem.

“I’ll try.”

Elrin nodded at him. “Great. Now I think I need to tell Melwynar what is going on because I think he’s upset because you’re upset.”

Wait, what? Why had Kaleth not noticed that? He quickly tried to reach Mel’s mind through their bond, coming across overwhelming worry and fear. Dammit, Kaleth had forgotten to close off his mind to avoid this exact thing.

“Yeah, I think he’s been pacing all over the connecting hallway,” Elrin said, a hint of amusement in her voice. “That boy really cares about you.”

“He’s four hundred years old,” Kaleth reminded her, very uncomfortable with anyone calling Mel that. Elrin giggled.

“He’s a baby compared to me,” she joked, starting to walk away. “I’ll go find him and talk to him.”

Kaleth wished he could do that instead, but he wanted to get this over and done with as quickly as possible, so he settled on reaching Mel with his mind.

Hey, love. Everything is alright, don’t worry.

Kally! came Mel’s excited response.

Kaleth flushed, really glad there was no one around to see his reaction to that. Or to hear that nickname. And yet it made his heart swell. Why were emotions so complicated?

Uh, sorry, Mel said, clearly embarrassed. Kaleth cursed himself. I’m just happy we’re talking. I was really getting worried. Relioth hasn’t been mean to you, has he?

Kaleth chuckled. No, he’s been…unusual. Elrin went off to find you and explain what’s going on. I think. If she doesn’t, I’ll explain later.

Mel’s disappointment was obvious, but it was very mild, at least. Even then Kaleth wished they could avoid this completely.

Okay. Um, be careful.

It probably wouldn’t have come across as that powerful in verbal communication, but the way Mel said those words, somehow both getting across his concern and a promise of revenge to whoever would dare hurt Kaleth….

With Mel’s general disposition, it always caught Kaleth off guard.

You too, Kaleth replied, even though it didn’t really make sense. He sent Mel some of the happiness just talking to him produced, which Mel seemed to accept eagerly. He even sent some of his own back, which Kaleth smiled at. He really didn’t want to leave this conversation only to talk to Relioth again, but he would have to.

With a sigh Kaleth opened the metal door again, walking inside. Relioth was gingerly trying to wipe blood off from under his nose with the sleeve of his suit. He flinched a bit when he saw Kaleth, but that was all he did.

“I’m not going to hit you again,” Kaleth said as he sat down. Relioth actually seemed to relax a tiny bit. “Unless you have more to say on that topic.” Kaleth had practically spat those words at him.

Relioth shook his head. “No, nothing that important. Though you have no idea how good it feels to tell you this stuff. I’ve wanted to tell you for so long.”

Kaleth gave him as unimpressed a look as possible. “You were never going to tell me.”

“True,” Relioth admitted immediately. “But I wished I could have. So the point stands.”

“The point,” Kaleth said, raising his index finger, “is you explaining to me how I can beat Enor.”

“Right, right,” Relioth muttered, carefully touching his nose and grimacing. Kaleth resisted the urge to tell him to knock it off. “I didn’t tell you a bit about these powers of ours.”

“I had a feeling,” Kaleth commented drily. “Like the teleportation.”

Relioth stopped what he was doing and nodded slowly. “Yeah, that still terrifies me.”

Kaleth frowned, wondering if he should be offended. “What do you mean it terrifies you?”

“How should I put it?” Relioth said, shifting in his seat. “It took me years to figure out how to do it just for teleporting myself. You opened an unstable but functioning portal just a few days after teleporting for the first time.”

No need to remind Kaleth of that. He still felt tired from that stunt. He really needed to recharge somehow.

“So you’re scared of me?” Kaleth summed up the situation flatly. That should have been more fun to say than this. Though the look on Relioth’s face did make up for it a little.

“W-what? No, no, of course not,” he denied, and it would have actually been a good lie if Kaleth hadn’t known him.

“Yes, you are,” Kaleth said again, and this time Relioth didn’t even bother arguing. “That’s why you kept most of this to yourself.”

Relioth pouted. Now that was a familiar look. But somehow it was more effective with this face, which just made Kaleth more resentful towards it. “Fine. But I’m not scared of you. It’s your power that I find…concerning. Enor may have explained to me why he never finished this project when he captured me.”

“Yes?” Kaleth asked when he didn’t say anything for a moment. He couldn’t believe he actually missed the always-talking Relioth. And that man never shut up.

“He said that…you could theoretically do just about anything,” Relioth finished, sighing heavily. “Like, the ‘destroy the universe’ brand of anything.”

Kaleth just stared at him doubtfully. That seemed far-fetched, to say the least. He could barely move from one part of the world to another without exhausting himself completely. But then again, just a few months ago, he could have barely lifted a pencil with his mind, so maybe he shouldn’t assume this was all ridiculous.

“Theoretically,” Kaleth repeated, making sure to put as much skepticism in that one word as he could. Relioth shrugged.

“That’s Enor’s jam.” Despite the words, there was no humor in Relioth’s voice. He mostly just looked uncomfortable. “You know, I trusted him when he made me into this.” Relioth looked at his chained hands. “He told me Irif killed my family, and that I could have revenge like this—powerful, immortal. And all this time, it was he who killed them.”

Kaleth had been about to tell Relioth to shut up, but that really took him off guard. So apparently manipulation was in the family. A family Kaleth was apparently technically a part of. He couldn’t believe he was thinking this, but his biological family was starting to look really good in comparison.

Relioth was staying silent again, looking like he was going to cry. Kaleth sighed tiredly. He didn’t have the constitution to keep silencing his empathy. He wished Elrin was here. She didn’t seem to have problems feeling sympathetic towards Relioth, and Kaleth really wanted to leave the room and get a drink.

Though looking at Relioth, he looked like he needed one as well.

Kaleth let out a long, exhausted sigh. “Come on.”

Flicking his hand, Kaleth undid the mechanism holding Relioth’s handcuffs attached to the table. Relioth stared at the cuffs in bewilderment.

“Don’t make me regret this,” Kaleth growled at him, though it was already far too late for that. He was regretting this very much, particularly when he saw Relioth’s face light up. He proceeded to get up and reach out to Kaleth, as if to hug him.

“Aw, Kaleth….”

Kaleth shut him up with a glare as he got up as well. “Don’t think I’m doing you a favor. I just need something to help me tolerate you.”

“Just like old times.” Relioth grinned, showing off the blood staining his teeth. Apparently Kaleth had done more than just injure his nose.

He sighed again, heading out of the holding cell. Wherever Elrin kept alcohol, it was going to be much too far.