The Return to Irithara (Children of the Sun Book 2)

Mel was confused. He’d thought Nef and Alor being reunited with their mother would be a happy occasion, especially since none of them had been sure she was even still alive. They hadn’t tried contacting her because Kara had said that it was possible a text or call could be traced…or something. Mel didn’t understand any of it, but it wasn’t his place to question it.

At first Orina Arithar had been incredibly relieved to see both of her sons, especially Nef, but once the conversation had become about what the two brothers had been up to, it had quickly turned into a fight.

Orina seemed to put the blame for Nef’s involvement solely on Alor, who didn’t seem to want to disagree with her that much. That wasn’t surprising, though, given that Alor had already blamed himself for pretty much putting a stop to Nef’s studies.

Mel hadn’t wanted to look into Alor’s mind to find out why he’d looked so sad during most of Nef’s training, but the Eternal couldn’t have helped it. It was hard for him to see someone unhappy and not try to do something about it.

When Mel had tried to comfort Alor, the man had told the Eternal to mind his own business and refused to talk to him for the rest of the day, so Mel hadn’t tried it again. But it was clear it was still bothering the former Luxarx agent, so hearing his mother voice what he’d already been thinking couldn’t be easy.

Nef didn’t seem to agree with this at all, though, clearly annoyed that both his mother and his brother were treating him as if he were a child and had no say in any of this. He was currently yelling at Orina, who looked so angry Mel wanted to run out of the room.

Unfortunately, there was no escaping an Umbra hideout without being spotted, so all he could do was hide in the corner while looking pleadingly at Rayni, hoping that she can put a stop to it. He would have directed these looks at Kara, who always had less patience for these situations than anyone else, but the woman had stayed behind in the hideout she and Alor had checked out.

Mel wondered if Kara had known how Orina would react and wanted to avoid listening to the three shout at each other. He supposed it was possible—Orina used to be a member of Luxarx, so the other members should know her, right?

He quickly stopped thinking about all of that when he saw Rayni had finally noticed the looks he’d been giving her. She nodded at Mel, rolling her eyes slightly when she looked back at the arguing family.

“Okay, enough!” Rayni said as she approached them, waving her arms. When she was ignored, she sighed, and then screamed, letting her eyes glow: “Shut up!”

That seemed to do the trick as Nef, Alor, and their mother all fell silent, looking at Rayni with shocked, almost identical expressions.

“As fun as this Arithar family drama is,” Rayni said, her voice very sarcastic, “we have bigger problems here. Like a war, for example. And you know it’s bad when I’m the voice of reason.”

Alor glanced down, looking ashamed, and Mel fought the urge to hug him. He’d tried before, and none of those times had Alor appreciated it, so it would probably just make things worse. Mel didn’t like it when he was yelled at.

“You done?” Rayni asked but didn’t wait for any of them to reply. “Good.” Rayni turned to Orina. “Now, Mrs. Arithar, mind explaining to us just how you found an Umbra hideout? Last time I checked, the entrances are invisible.”

Mel blinked. Because of all the fighting, he’d completely forgotten to question that. But it was true. Orina shouldn’t have been able to find it. Unless Orina knew the locations, there was no way she should have found this place, much less opened the door since that requires telekinetic powers, or extensive knowledge of Eternal engineering.

Mel didn’t know what the latter option entailed, but he barely understood what engineering was, so he wasn’t the best person to think about these things.

Orina cleared her throat. She didn’t look happy about how Rayni had spoken to them, but she said nothing about that. “I’m looking for any Umbra not following Ikara.”

“So it’s okay if you do stuff like this?” Nef asked, probably about to continue calling his mother out on being a hypocrite, but one warning look from Rayni stopped him.

“Why?” Alor asked.

“After the Flare was destroyed, the EFP was after me, so I was hiding. And I randomly bumped into a woman, who I thought was a Luxarx agent and on the run, too, but it turned out to be Mereria.”

Mel’s eyes widened. Could that mean that Orina could lead them to Mereria? Mel shuddered slightly in fear at the thought of facing Mereria again, but he quickly pushed the memories of his punishments away before they overwhelmed him. He would be useless to his friends if he didn’t.

“And I’ve been helping her since,” Orina finished.

“You know where she is?” Rayni asked, both hopeful and disbelieving.

“Yes. But why do you want to know?”

Orina’s voice was full of suspicion. She seemed to be oddly loyal to Mereria after knowing her for a month.

“We wanna convince her to help us take out Relioth,” Nef replied, still scowling at his mother, as if daring her to start the argument again.

“First of all, you’re not a part of this, Nefie,” said Orina firmly, but Nef didn’t let her continue.

“Yeah, I am. I have been since I hacked into that database!” he snapped at her, and Rayni rolled her eyes again.

“Okay, do we need to separate you two, or…?” Rayni said, folding her arms. Nef looked at her with annoyance, while Orina breathed in deeply and turned to the Eternal once more.

“Mereria hasn’t told me what exactly she plans to do once she gains control of the Umbra again, but I’m pretty sure that she agrees that killing Relioth is the right thing to do.”

“Right. So first we need to kill Ikara. How hard can that be with two othrin knives…” Rayni muttered the last part, but it was still easily heard.

“I take it you’re a former Umbra?” Orina asked, and Rayni shrugged.

“I guess. I don’t remember it at all, though. And I can’t shapeshift, or anything like that.” Orina hummed thoughtfully. “But Mel’s an ex-Umbra, too. And he remembers his past…mostly.”

Mel raised his head when he heard his name being said, but the way Orina was assessing him with her gaze made him look away a second later. He missed his uniform. At least with that he could hide most of his face, but he agreed it would draw too much attention. Still….

“Now, that I can believe,” Orina commented. Mel had no idea what she’d meant by that, but he knew he didn’t like her tone very much. She sounded almost condescending.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Rayni asked, clearly annoyed, which made Mel’s heart swell. It was nice knowing someone was willing to defend him.

“Ah, well, it just seems to me like Mereria’s soldiers are usually…er, very obedient.”

Mel suppressed the urge to hug himself. Even to him it was clear what Orina was trying to say. Mereria didn’t have enough soldiers, so if a low-ranking Umbra messed something up or was unsuccessful, instead of killing them or removing them from the organization, they would be punished for their failure. And afterwards, the fear of undergoing more of that made the Umbra unquestioning and submissive.

“Okay…?” Rayni said, sounding dubious. “Well, anyway, if you can take us to Mereria, please do, and then you three can shout at each other as much as you want.”

Nef rolled his eyes, while Alor just looked tired. Mel expected Orina to get angry, but instead she nodded, and that was it.

Thankfully, no one was looking at Mel anymore, so he could relax a bit. He followed everyone outside, staying a few steps behind them at all times. He just wanted to be alone for a bit right now.

It was a few minutes to the car, and he didn’t know how far Orina’s was, although at least they knew she had one since she’d said so.

After a moment of walking Rayni seemed to have noticed something was going on with Mel because she slowed down and didn’t pick up her pace until she was next to him.

“You okay, Mel?”

“Sure,” he said, trying to smile as convincingly as possible. Rayni didn’t seem to believe him, but he couldn’t tell her, could he? If he showed how weak he was, they might not want him around anymore, and even though Rayni seemed to genuinely care about him, he didn’t want to risk it. He didn’t want to be alone anymore.

“It’s what Mother Arithar said, isn’t it?” Mel didn’t confirm it, but Rayni didn’t wait for him to do so anyway. “Don’t worry about it.” Then she started whispering. “I read some files on her. She’s like this with everyone.”

Rayni grinned at him, and Mel couldn’t help but do the same, although his own smile was nowhere near as wide. Still, it was really nice of her to take the time to see how he was doing.

“Thanks.”

Rayni put an arm around Mel’s shoulders. “’Course. Anytime, Mel. What are friends for?” Mel’s eyes widened. She hadn’t actually called him her friend before. Mel grinned to himself. Maybe he could tell her about what was bothering him, but not right now. He didn’t want the others to overhear him.

“Now let’s go see our boss. I have some questions for her.”

Mel’s grin faltered. Right, seeing Mereria after he’d stopped her from possessing Kaleth wasn’t going to be fun.