Chapter Thirteen
~
Ruse
Cinder awoke to the sound of someone singing. She felt miserable. Her arms were shackled and chained behind her back, her legs to the metal floor. Her wings folded awkwardly around her arms. Her skin was slicked with sweat, and her favorite jacket and boots had been removed, as well as her and communicator. She could feel the device on her neck like it weighed a thousand pounds, and her wings felt like they were nailed to her back. She was sore and famished.
She was surprised to see a man in the cell ahead of her. But she could only see the back of him-his head and arms were restrained by an iron stockade, which was melded into the metal floor. She couldn’t see his face, but she heard his voice, carrying an upbeat tune. It started to give her a headache. It wasn’t that the singing was bad. Even the flickering electric light was searing into her retinas-each sense was oversensitive and painful.
“Ugh…Hey.” Cinder groaned. “Hey, Music Man. Can you tone it down a bit?”
“Songs to ease my weariness,” he sang, ringing around the metallic prison, and continued the melody.
“Gah!” She seethed. “Can you at least sing something more…Mellow?”
At this, Music Man ceased. Then his voice carried into a song that dripped with emotion, and secret meaning, the words holding the air around them and remaining. The sorrow in it brought tears to Cinder’s eyes.
“I never saw the light
I never saw the sun
Knowing you has changed me
When loving you begun
No tale can be told
Without a word from you
No question can be answered
Without telling what to do
But when all seems lost
I’ll hold you to the sky
No matter what the cost
There will always be you and I.”
His voice caught in his throat, and Cinder got the feeling that he’d started to cry. She was confirmed when she heard his sobs reverberating around the cell. The song must have meant something more than Cinder heard.
Suddenly, the cell door creaked open, completely on its own.
It hung there, waiting for something.
Music Man went uncharacteristically silent.
Ardara appeared in the entry.
“Cinder.” said she, in her light, feathery voice. “I knew this day would come.”
“And what day is that?” Cinder asked wistfully. The sight of her sister, deranged and so changed from old self, made Cinder’s heart heavy with regret and grief. Her green and blue eyes were mourning.
Ardara’s red and blue were hard merciless. She lifted Cinder with her mind, until she levitated at eye level, no slack in the chains. She grasped Cinder’s chin, and raised her head to stare in her eyes. “This day,” she whispered, her voice growing louder with each word, “is the day I look my sister in the face and say…” she brought her face closer, “I hate you!” she squealed, and dropped Cinder. She tumbled to the metal, grunting painfully. “What about you?” Ardara questioned, full of rage. “What will you do today?”
Cinder’s hair covered her face and clung to the sweat on her skin. “Today is when I realize,” she replied breathily, “how crazy my sister really is. How lost she’s become. How sick she is.” She looked up at Ardara with sadness in her features. “How badly she needs to come home.”
Ardara screamed in a fit of anger. With a swish of her arm, the device around Cinder’s neck surged with small bolts of electricity that grew larger the longer they crackled around her. Cinder painfully convulsed, and then abruptly, stopped moving at all. She went limp, collapsed onto her side, and the blue bolts died and receded, as did her heartbeat.
“I have no home.” said Ardara, when she halted the shock. “And neither do you, little drifter.”
But Cinder wasn’t as lifeless as she had thought. “You’re wrong.” said the Drifter.
Ardara gasped. That should have killed her. It should have stopped her heart. And yet she lay there still breathing, even speaking.
Ardara didn’t hear what Cinder said next, nor did she want to, for she had run away from the dungeon in a huff. The cell door slammed and locked on its own behind her.
Music Man released an audible sigh of uneasiness.
“I’m sorry, Music Man…” Cinder said. “Hey…” she heaved herself into a sitting position. “What’s your real name?”
“My name is unimportant to the tale,” he sang.
“Hm. Alright, then, Music Man it is. Think you can sing me a song?” she fell back to her side again. “How ‘bout a lullaby? I’m feeling sleepy.”
Cinder couldn’t see his face, but he smiled. He sang the meaningful song he had sung before. His even voice put her to sleep almost instantly.
The Day Star was hidden in the lee of a forest, its crew waiting, for lack of anything else to do. This forest was the only sign of vegetation anywhere near the Ardaran wastelands, though still it was dry and free of any wildlife.
Orphenn looked out the window, up over the trees, where he knew Ardara’s castle was just beyond those mountains, easily within flying distance.
“We can’t sit here forever.” Sven told Jeremiah. “A war’s about to begin.”
“I know…” he responded, tying back his blonde dread locks. “It’s like water coming to a boil in a stew pot….You can feel it in the air….” He shook his head. “Should we go to Plenthin for fuel?”
“That might be best. Let’s take off.”
Orphenn gave Sven a look of disbelief. “But…” He objected.
“I swear we’ll come back, Little Bird. We just need to resupply.”
The orphan nodded, and trumped to his quarters. Eynochia noticed his head hanging in disappointment as the Day Star took flight. She caught up to him and touched his shoulder. She was alarmed at her own audacity, whenever she was near Orphenn. With any other boy, she might have been too shy to offer him comfort, and too indecisive to choose to do so in the first place. Orphenn made her feel at ease, she realized. Calm. She never worried what he would think of her, or cared anyway. She felt comfortable, safe, by him.
The two walked into Orphenn’s quarters and sat across from each other at the tea table. In an attempt to peel his mind from Cinder’s well being, he started the conversation.
“So, you’re a Sergeant?” He inquired with a tired curiosity.
Eynochia chuckled. “The ranks are just for fun, really. The Enma never had a really organized army. But Celina made it work. That’s what makes her a leader. And an amazing one at that.”
“I think I want to speak with her later…Ask some questions…” Orphenn pondered.
“What for?”
“I want to know more about Dacian. Why he is how he is now.”
Eynochia’s face darkened. “From what she tells me, he used to be a really sweet guy. He just….Decided to kill everybody one day…”
“That’s just not possible.” Orphenn’s voice was skeptical. “How? How do you just get up one morning and say to yourself, ‘Well, I feel like a murderer today.’ Sven was in his squadron too, wasn’t he? How did you and Xeila survive?”
“Dad made us stay with Mom, and her squadron. It was too bad they had to be separated most of the time. Children didn’t really count as members of the squad, but if you had them, they fought with you.”
“Who was in your squadron?”
“We were called the Condors and our ship was the Phoenix. There was my mother-she was the only one we really knew at the time. We kept to ourselves most of the time. Jeremiah was there. And he was always with me and Xeila, since we were more his age. And his mother and sister. I can’t remember their names. Oh…And my uncle, Ira. My dad’s brother.” Sven has a brother? Orphenn marveled. “He was with us. I can barely remember him. There was a boy that he had taken under his wing, and cared for him like a son after Ardarans killed his family. A blondie. He was older than us, probably seventeen or eighteen. Dad was really fond of him. The one thing I remember about him was his eyes. They were both the same color and they were pink. Can you believe that? Pink! But he was quite handsome and he totally pulled it off-”
“Wait, wait, wait…Pink eyes, like…Like an albino rabbit?” Orphenn recalled Wynne, staring at him kindly with his pink eyes.
“Yeah, exactly. But he and Ira both went missing in the middle of battle. Dad said they both died. ‘Ardara killed them herself’ is what he believes. And I think it was that next year that Dacian turned against us.”
“It must be terrible to lose a brother.” Orphenn tapped his lip in thought.
“Yeah. I don’t think Dad ever recovered. To lose your brother and your wife in one war…And so many friends besides.”
“I think I’ll go talk to Celina. I’m feeling curious now.”
“Can I tell you something first?” Eynochia touched his hand.
“Of course.” He twined his fingers with hers. She blushed at the gesture, though her skin tone didn’t show it.
“I never thanked you. For bringing me home, a while ago. I was so lucky that you were there in the forest. I don’t think I would’ve made it any further.”
“I know you wouldn’t have made it. You were so bloody…” he remembered. “You’re welcome.”
“You know what Xeila said? ‘I really like that Orphenn,’ she says. ‘You were carried to safety in the arms of a golden angel!’”
It was Orphenn’s turn to blush. “Angel?” he repeated. He’d never seen himself as an angel. His sisters had always been the angels.
“I think she was right.” Eynochia stated. She stood up to touch Orphenn’s shoulder and kiss his cheek. “You are my angel.” She walked to the door and pressed the release button. “I’ll fetch Celina for you.” Then she left and the door hissed shut behind her.
Orphenn could feel the heat in his face, incredulously touching his cheek where Eynochia had kissed him.
At length, there was a knock at the door.
“Come in.”
The doors spread open for Celina to step inside. “You wanted to speak with me?” she asked. Orphenn noticed the dark circles under her eyes, bloodshot and pearly from lack of sleep. He guessed he wasn’t the only one worried about Cinder. Celina must be scared to the point of puking, Orphenn realized. She did look a bit peeked. She does a great job of hiding it.
“Yes…” Orphenn met her with a warm hug. “Just out of curiosity, I…Wanted to know more about Dacian? I was wondering if you would tell me about him? If it’s not too sensitive a subject…”
“Dacian?” she reiterated, taking a seat. “Of course, Little Brother. What do you want to know?”
“What was he like before?” he sat beside her. “Why did he change?”
“He used to be very kind, though he had quite a temper.”
“He seems to have kept the temper part.” Orphenn noted.
“Yes.” Celina agreed. “As for his sudden change of heart…I don’t know. But it broke mine.
“He was the White Herons’ sharpshooter. He never missed. But after his family was taken from him…Executed by rapid-fire…he never touched a gun again. Sven loved him like a son.”
“Did you love him?” Orphenn inquired.
She looked at him with solemn blue and brown eyes. “Yes.” She breathed, almost like she too was still coming to terms with the matter. “I’m still…In love with him. I thought he loved me…” she reached out and took Orphenn’s hand.
The room around them disappeared, like the parlor had, back at the palace. Celina showed him a memory. He looked around, and instead of seeing his quarters aboard the Day Star, he saw a balcony outside another airship. The Avian, he realized. The two floated in the air ahead of it, the wind twisting their hair as they watched.
A much younger Celina leaned on the balcony’s railing, looking out into the twilight sky, clouds lined with orange and vermillion.
Dacian had crept up and hugged her from behind, presenting her with a bouquet of violet lilies, and slipping one colorful bloom into her hair.
He looked different in Aleidian white, as opposed to Ardaran black and burgundy. His face was bright and free of malice, and he had no smug grin, or sharply groomed sideburns. Only a genuine, joyful smile. An entirely different man.
Celina kissed him and held his hand.
“Lilies were my favorite. Especially the purple ones.” She informed.
Sven had come between them, holding their heads back playfully. His smiling face had no scars or worry lines. “Alright you two love birds. Time to get while the gettin’s good! We have a lot a work to do!”
And then the memory faded, and they were in Orphenn’s carpeted room again.
Celina released his hand and sat back. “I guess it was all just a ruse.”
Orphenn shook his head vigorously. “What if it wasn’t?” he reasoned. “What if it was something bigger than that?”
Orphenn’s words stayed in Celina’s head the entire day, and long after, becoming engraved in her mind.
Something bigger?