Chapter Fourteen
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Uncovering
Cinder woke again to the creak of the cell door and the smell of food.
She opened her eyes. She saw that a black tarp had been thrown across Music Man’s stockade, covering his head. Though she could still hear his muffled humming.
Wynne was standing in the entry holding a trey.
Cinder struggled to sit up. Wynne came closer, set down the trey and helped Cinder into a sitting position. “You’re very weak.” He said. “I brought you some food.” He slid the trey in front of him. It had a bowl of stew, a hunk of bread, and a cup of water.
Cinder’s throat burned from thirst and her stomach ached from hunger, but she paid no heed. It wasn’t important to her right now.
“Where is my brother?” She coughed. “What did you do with Orphenn?”
He gave her a comforting smile. “Orphenn is safe. I watched him fly away on your motorcycle.” He pulled Orphenn’s gold pistol from his belt and held it out to her. “Sadly, he left this behind. You should return it to him.”
“How can I, when I’m chained up here?” Cinder protested, as Wynne subtly slipped the gun into her shirt.
“You won’t be for long.” He assured, holding the rim of the cup to her lips. He tipped it up to help her drink the water. He was surprised at how quickly she gulped it down. He set the empty cup on the trey and began to feed her spoonfuls of soup. “Your mission,” he said, “to free the prisoners of war. I’m going to help you.”
When the soup was gone, Cinder said, “Why? Why are you helping me?”
“Because…” he began, searching for words. “You are the one that opened my eyes. You brought me…Back to the light.”
His answer confused her. Perhaps he didn’t understand the exact meaning of it either.
After a pause he added, “And besides, I wasn’t always Ardaran. I know who you are now, Lady Cinder. You looked so different back then, when I was a Condor. I guess that’s why it took me some time to realize your name was no coincidence.”
“What is your name?” she asked.
“Wynne.” He answered. He plucked the bread from the trey and tore off a piece for Cinder to chew more easily.
“Thank you, Wynne.” She said.
The bread was halfway gone when a smug voice sounded from behind Wynne’s back.
“What’s Wynnie doing here?”
Wynne tensed in surprise, before cleverly coating his lip with excess soup from the bottom of the bowl. He stuffed his mouth with bread. He casually cleared his throat, stood, and turned to face Dacian with an emotionless stare, chewing nonchalantly.
Dacian cackled. “Eating your lunch in front of hungry prisoners? How wicked of you.” He sauntered over to Music Man’s stockade, and flicked the tarp that hid his face. “I covered this guy so he’d stop singing. Not very effective. Sure shut him up though.
“Anyway, I came to speak with the angel. Master Ardara is incredibly glad to have you with us,” he announced as though he should have been wearing a tux rather than a uniform and headgear, and carrying an informational brochure instead of a lance. “She’s been waiting so long. In fact, she commanded that you be kept in this cell. Reserved for ‘offenders of the highest threat.’” He quoted. “As in, the most powerful Enma prisoners.”
Cinder couldn’t wrap her brain around the idea of mellow Music Man being a threat to anyone. “You came down here just to tell me that?”
“Well, that, and that we’re tracking your airship and are preparing to ambush. Ta-ta!” he waved, and left the cell, leaving Wynne and Cinder in a state of shock.
After a moment f grave silence, Wynne gulped, and spun around to pick up the food trey. “I can only give you this much food a day, I apologize. I’ll be back, same time tomorrow.”
“Wynne, wait!” Cinder pleaded mutedly. “What will happen to my squadron? My family!”
Wynne set the trey aside and kneeled closely in front of her. “Who is in your squadron?”
“My sister Celina and brother Orphenn. Jeremiah, and Sven, and Sven’s two daughters, Xeila and Eynochia.” Wynne’s face brightened at the mention of Jeremiah and Sven, and his daughters-names he recognized. “And me.”
“Oh, Cinder.” Wynne smiled reassuringly. “No matter what happens, nothing can defeat that squadron. I’ve known each of them in the past. They’re amazingly strong, probably stronger now that years have passed and their mutations have matured. They’re almost unbeatable, that group. You know it. My Lady Celina is yet another assurance of success. There are countless that would give their lives for her and her squadron.”
“Thank you, Wynne.” She smiled and rested her head on his shoulder. He patted her back, then grabbed the empty food trey and walked out of the cell, locking the bars behind him.
Dacian stood in the throne room, sitting on the arm of Ardara’s plush throne. He twirled a golden feather between his thumb and forefinger.
Nyx came through the wide double doors at the end of the room and walked down the black carpet toward him.
“Where is Master Ardara?” asked Dacian as Nyx came to meet him.
“Taking her nap.” Nyx replied, giving Dacian an expectant look. He took the hint, noticing that one of her eyes was bright and golden, and her pupils had changed.
“She made you Enma.” He concluded.
“She told me how to use my gift.”
“She foresaw the gift you would have.” He deduced, nodding.
“I was against becoming a filthy mutant…But she told me that I would be better than the rest of them, our enemies. She told me to forget what my parents taught me, that prejudice against mutants would get us nowhere. So now I’m just like her, and you, and Wynne.”
“And you can track someone quite easily, I hear?”
“If I touch an object that belonged to someone, I will know exactly where they are and who is with them.”
“Perfect.” He grinned, and gave Nyx the golden feather.
“Should be an hour or so before we get to Plenthin.” Jeremiah informed, setting the Day Star on auto pilot.
“Good.” Said Xeila, giving her fiancé a kiss. “We need more food, I’m starving.”
“You said it.” Sven concurred. “My big ones are eatin’ my little ones.”
Orphenn sulked at the table across from Sven, tired from a sleepless night.
“Little Bird,” Sven advised, “you’re exhausted. Go to bed.”
“Eh…?” He droned, eyelids fluttering. “Oh. Yeah.” He rose drowsily and slumped to his room.
But once he was in his quarters, he found himself unable to sleep. He mumbled, sleepily, “I have to find a way to get to Cinder…” he thought harder and harder about her, and Dacian, and Wynne’s promise, chanting. “I have to…”
His eyelids drooped when tears came to his eyes. His throat tightened, but he took a deep breath and swallowed. His eyes closed. But instead of sleep, a pulling feeling came over him. His head rolled to the side, and his body went limp as his spirit was torn from his body.
When he opened his eyes, he was staring down at his dormant form. His mouth gaped in disbelief. He looked at his hands, and down at himself, floating above the floor. He appeared to be made of golden stars that matched the golden feathers of his wings, which fanned out around him, also threaded with stars, like he was sculpted from glitter. With every movement, sparkling particles trailed after, as if he’d been bathed in pixie dust. On top of that, he levitated in mid air without the effort of his wings.
When he looked at himself, he was transparent and twinkling, but when he turned to look in the mirror, nothing reflected back to him. He was outside his body, in spirit form.
With a gasp, he looked back to his body. It lay there on the bed, motionless except for the rise and fall of its chest as it breathed.
Breathing…Not dead. Could he be dreaming?
He flowed gracefully to the door, and went to touch it, when his hand went all the way through it, as though it wasn’t there. Astounded, he stepped through to the other side of the door, out into the hallway.
“Weird…” he tried to say, but his mouth and face seemed to move in slow motion, and his voice came out as if he heard from miles away, coming to him rather than from him.
He drifted to the main hold.
No one noticed him. He gravitated curiously toward Sven, who was gazing out the window again, with his back to the rest of the room. Warily, Sven turned his head to slowly look over his shoulder, as if he felt a presence behind him. Finding nothing, he turned back to the window.
They can’t see me. Orphenn reveled. This must be a new gift! To walk in soul instead of in body. He fluidly paced around the room, right in front of their faces, and no one reacted to him. He was invisible.
There was a sudden startled squeal from behind him, and everyone gazed toward it in concern. Orphenn attempted to swiftly spin around to face the noise, but ended up performing a graceful twirl. This form brought to him an almost timeless elegance.
The scream was Eynochia’s. A hairbrush had fallen from her hand, onto the floor. She was staring right at him.
“You can see me.” Orphenn enthused, in his far away voice, with many echoes. He kindly picked up the brush and handed it back to her. “You dropped this.” She took it, wide eyed, clueless as to why Orphenn was floating there like a magical fairy ghost. A magical fairy ghost with manners.
Abruptly realizing that what the other members saw was a hairbrush floating from the floor to Eynochia’s hand of its own accord, Orphenn dashed back to his room, straight through the closed door, stopping at his bed. Quickly, he lowered, and lay down into the fitted mold of his own body.
He snapped awake with a gasp, hopping up so quickly that he fell off the bed, disoriented. He rushed to the door, ramming into it and falling to the floor again, forgetting he could not go through a closed door with his body. He laughed at his own foolishness and pressed the release button.
“It was Orphenn!” Eynochia wailed. “It was, I swear! He was right there!” she waved the hair brush where Orphenn’s spirit had been.
The others looked at her like she was talking to them with a finger in her nose. Until Orphenn came shouting into the main hold.
“Guys!” was the first comprehendible word they heard as he stomped to a halt. “I know how to save Cinder.”