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

Kara hadn’t been sure what to expect when she’d been shoved into one of the cars, but seeing Alor sitting in one of the front seats wasn’t it.

She didn’t want to believe it at first, especially due to the poor lighting and the fact that he was turned away from her, but when he looked over at the man on his right, there was no doubt. Kara just gaped at him, her brain refusing to accept this situation.

Every single possibility Kara could think of that would explain why Alor was here just didn’t fit the situation. Had Alor betrayed them? But why would he do it? It made no sense. It made even less sense that he hadn’t even acknowledged her existence. If he theoretically had joined the enemy, or whoever these people were, Alor would have addressed it. And if he hadn’t switched sides and was undercover, how would he have done that? The Eternals were mindreaders—there was no way Alor could manage to hide his intentions from them. Not to mention that he would be effectively useless to them because he had no special powers and strengths. He was just as normal as Kara.

Then she froze, her eyes widening for a moment before she schooled her expression into a neutral mask. Of course. The answer was obvious. She was here to be transformed into an Eternal. It wasn’t a far leap of logic to assume that had happened to Alor. Had they wiped his mind as well?

Kara set her jaw. She would have to test it, she supposed.

“Alor?” she hissed, glaring at the back of his head, which seemed to be enough to make him flinch. He looked back at her, his eyebrows creased and his eyes full of shock.

“How do you know my name?” he asked, blinking. Kara cursed inside her head. It surprisingly actually hurt a bit to get a confirmation that Alor indeed didn’t recognize her anymore, but like hell was she going to let that show. She had to focus on convincing Alor to help her. Maybe, even though he didn’t seem to remember her, there was still a part of him left, if perhaps dormant. It was worth a try. After all, Rayni had ended up remembering everything, maybe this was the same thing.

“We worked together. For years,” Kara continue, leaning in as close as she could with her hand cuffed to the door handle. As if she could fight either of them, or go anywhere while flying. “Think back.”

Alor looked almost panicked now. Fortunately for him, the other man cut in. “That’s quite enough of that.”

Kara had to force herself not to react when she realized the other man had also been a Luxarx agent. She didn’t even know his name, but she knew she’d seen him at the headquarters a few times. What was going on here? Were all the former agents targeted and forced to be soldiers for Enor?

“Come on, Alor, think. You have to know something is wrong here,” Kara pushed, ignoring the other man, who glared at her. Alor opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He looked like he wanted to run away from this conversation, but given that they were high up in the air, there was nowhere to go.

“I….” Alor trailed off.

“Be quiet or I’ll make you,” said the other man, actually looking like he wanted to hit her. Kara smirked to herself. If there was still a part of Alor left, she couldn’t think of a better way to awaken it.

“Think!” Kara repeated, snapping, and bracing herself for whatever the other man would do. She watched the man raise his fist, and aim it at her, unflinching. And just before it could make impact with her face, Alor’s hand flew up and grabbed the man’s arm.

“What the hell are you doing?” yelled the man, and Alor just stared at him, bewildered by his own actions. Kara used the moment to search for any weapons the man had on him. Almost immediately she spotted a knife at his belt, and she grabbed it, lunging forward as much as she could and stabbing the blade into the man’s chest.

A flash of blue light illuminated the car’s interior, and then the man slumped in his seat, dead. Kara sighed, pulling the dagger out, and then glared at the handcuffs.

“You just….” Alor gawked at her, lost somewhere between anger and fear.

“I had no choice,” Kara replied and then tugged on the cuffs. “Do you have the keys for these?”

“I won’t give you the key,” said Alor automatically, and then biting his lip. Kara just gave him a long look, which was enough to convince him, apparently. He gave the key over without another word, avoiding her gaze.

Kara unlocked the cuff and sighed, rubbing her wrist. It wasn’t that sore, but it sure wasn’t pleasant.

“Who are you?” asked Alor, his voice shaking slightly.

“Kara Lira,” she replied. “Your…” Kara paused, searching for the right word, “friend.”

It felt odd to say it, like it was a lie. But it wasn’t, not truly. Kara really wasn’t sure how to classify her relationship with any of her team members, to be honest. She’d always referred to them as her coworkers and best friends in her mind, but neither of those felt right at the moment. Coworkers were too impersonal, and after abandoning them, best friends certainly felt wrong to say.

“I…I don’t remember you,” Alor said, his eyes now actually wet. He blinked quickly and looked away again. “But…I believe you. I don’t know why.”

“Okay, good,” Kara said, leaning towards the car computer. It looked like they were heading towards the Red desert. That was…unexpected. “We’ll figure out how to fix your brain, but first, I need to know just what is happening here. Did they—whoever is running this…thing—tell you anything?”

“Not, erm, not really?” Alor said, very unsure.

“You didn’t question it?” Kara asked him, raising an eyebrow at him. He looked so lost she almost felt sorry for him. She couldn’t focus on his well-being first, though. First she needed to figure out what situation they were in.

“Um...I don’t know. It just didn’t even occur to me?”

“You didn’t think to question it?”

“No.”

He looked down, staring at his hands. He seemed ashamed, even though this was hardly his fault. It was so odd seeing Alor like this, though. While not exactly particularly strong or smart, Alor was usually sure of what he was doing, or at least the voice of reason. Someone who always tried to use their brain first when faced with a difficult situation instead of panicking.

But now he just seemed lost, confused, and scared.

“Look, um,” Kara started, patting Alor’s shoulder awkwardly, “we’ll figure this out, alright? We can infiltrate whatever compound we’re flying to. Just pretend you captured me, like you were supposed to.” Kara’s eyes drifted over to the dead man in the driver’s seat. “We’ll need to get rid of the body, though.”

Alor looked over at the dead man next to him with a look of badly concealed horror. Kara almost rolled her eyes. That was a reaction she would expect from Alor.

“I’ll take care of that, you just sit back and get in character,” she said, trying to decide if just pushing the body out of the car while flying would be a bad idea or not.

“Uh, right,” Alor muttered, staring out the window on his left. Kara sighed internally. They would probably be caught as soon as they showed up if Alor kept behaving like this, but unfortunately, this was a window of opportunity they would not get again, so they had to go where it was they were flying to.

Kara gritted her teeth and touched the car’s computer, stopping it. They were in the middle of nowhere, above a forest. No one would find the body here, at least not fast enough for these people to notice.

Without further ado she swung the door open, after forcing the computer to let her, of course, and pushed the man out. Since they were standing still, the wind wasn’t that much of an annoyance, but Kara’s stomach did do a flip when she saw how high up they were.

Not looking back, she slammed the door shut and inspected the seat. Since the fabric covering it was black there weren’t any very noticeable stains. Good, that would make this easier.

“If anyone asks, just say that, uh, he went to help the others, alright?” Despite Kara’s lack of confidence as she said this Alor nodded, visibly calmer now that there wasn’t a dead body in the car with them. “Where did they go, anyway?”

“They went to find more people to…bring to Enor,” Alor answered. He looked very disturbed by what he’d just said. Kara could only focus on Alor mentioning the god’s name, though.

“Enor? Did you see him?”

“Er, no? I can’t…. My memory is…fuzzy,” Alor said, rubbing his temples. Kara frowned at him. He was really out of it. Unsurprising, of course, but still. Kara was starting to wonder if they truly should just throw away this opportunity and fly to Irithara to meet up with the others. Warn them.

But Alor’s mind clearly wasn’t well enough to have any actually useful information. Whatever these people have done to him, it wasn’t nearly as strong as whatever Relioth had done to Rayni, though. This was more like brainwashing. And easily broken brainwashing as well. But Kara supposed that could make sense if these people needed soldiers fast.

Kara’s eyes widened in realization. That was why they wanted to make her an Eternal, wasn’t it? She was used to following orders, used to discipline. Who better to make your superpowered soldier than an actual soldier? But who else was being targeted then? Just how many people have they brainwashed already?

Yeah, there was no way she was she letting this opportunity go to waste. They needed answers, no matter how dangerous it was.

“Erm…” Alor began again. “Kara, was it? Won’t they be able to read your mind and figure out what you’re planning?”

Kara couldn’t help but grimace at how uncertain he seemed when saying her name. “I have one of those Umbra cloaking devices. I think just clipping it into my hair should be enough to hide my thoughts. If they ask you to remove it, we’ll just kill them and run.”

“Why would they ask me to—”

“You are going to pretend you’ve captured me and are bringing me wherever you are supposed to bring me. That will be the easiest way to do this.”

Alor just stared at her for a moment, wide-eyed. Then he lowered his gaze. “I don’t like this plan,” he mumbled, but he also didn’t seem to want to fight Kara, so clearly he agreed with her strategy.

“You are not alone in that,” Kara said, looking at the onboard computer again. An hour or so to go. Kara sighed. She wished they were farther away. Then she could have maybe gotten some sleep. She couldn’t remember the last time she slept.

Was it yesterday or the day before?

She definitely wasn’t in an ideal form. But she was up against immortal, super powerful beings, so maybe it wouldn’t have made that much of a difference. Speaking of the Eternals….

“Alor? Are you…one of them now?” Kara asked, this fact only really just now sinking in. She wasn’t sure why she hadn’t thought about this more immediately. Perhaps because she had known Alor for years, and her fatigued brain didn’t want to accept him any other way.

“Yes?” he answered, frowning at her. “Was I something else…before?”

Kara would never admit it, but she couldn’t deny to herself that her heart gave a lurch at that. “Yes. You used to be normal. Mortal.”

Alor looked away again, choosing to stare out the window instead. “…Oh.”

Kara hadn’t really expected a different reaction from him. But she did need him to focus on the task at hand, and not his missing past.

“Look, Alor, I—we will help you get your memory back. Or if we can’t do that, we’ll explain it all to you again,” Kara said, intending to continue, but Alor spoke up first.

“We?”

“Your other friends, Alor.”

“I have more?” he asked, seemingly pleased with this information. “Hm. I actually think I remember someone. This guy with glasses?”

Kara shut her eyes for a moment, sighing internally. She couldn’t possibly tell Alor who that was and still have him play his part convincingly. To be honest she didn’t even know where Nef was right now. Was he even alive at this point? Doubtful if he’d gone to Irithara with the rest of them.

“Yes, that’s right,” Kara replied, hoping that Alor wouldn’t ask who that was before Kara could continue. Maybe even saying Nef’s name might kickstart his memory, and that would not be good. “Anyway, we’ll help you, alright? But first I need you to focus on the plan. If we screw up, we won’t get a chance like this again.”

“You mean because they’ll kill us?” Alor sounded very resigned to it.

“Yes. Or worse, we won’t get any information.”

Alor shot her a funny look, but then he turned around again and nodded. “Okay, I’ll try to be as convincing as possible.”

The awkward silence that followed made it clear that Alor still had reservations, which was fair, Kara supposed. Still, it was less than ideal, to say the least.

“What is it?” she asked, and Alor heaved a sigh, his shoulders sagging.

“I just don’t even get why I’m doing this.”

Kara opened her mouth to remind him that these people brainwashed him and that was a bad enough thing to fight them, but Alor continued.

“I don’t know why I trust you. It’s making me uncomfortable.”

Well, at least this version of Alor was much more honest about his feelings.

“But you do trust me?”

“Yes, somehow.”

“Good, then focus on that,” Kara said, a little dismissively. She didn’t have time to feel guilty, though—this was much more important than her relationship with Alor. If she had to sacrifice it, she would gladly do so. Not that their relationship was very close to begin with. But right now, Kara was pretty glad for it. It made things easier.

“Do you know where you are supposed to take me?” Kara asked, trying to figure out what she had to work with.

“Uh, no, not really. Sorry,” Alor replied. Kara couldn’t say she was exactly surprised by the answer. “I don’t even know where we are going.”

“Alright, so we’ll have to improvise a lot,” Kara summed up, rubbing her eyes. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d taken part in something this insane and suicidal. But at least she had the othrin knife now. “But if they are all as out of it as you are, maybe they won’t question much.”

The way Alor’s shoulders moved at that told Kara he didn’t like hearing it, but he didn’t argue. Most likely because he knew she was right.

“Let’s hope so,” he said, and Kara gritted her teeth.

They would make it. They would.