Chapter Twenty
~
Weaver
“Is it safe to return to the capital?” Jeremiah chided his Supreme Commander at the helm, testing the wheel.
“What else is there to do?” she countered.
“Can we not invade the enemy camp? It’s so nearby. We’d have the advantage.”
“You know we can’t risk that. Especially given the state of my brother. He needs the stability of the palace.”
“How can you be so sure that it is stable? We could be heading straight for ambush.”
“I assure you, Jeremiah. Denoras is the safest place to be now. So let’s not dawdle. Lift off, full speed.”
“Aye aye, Commander.”
Before Celina could exit the main hold, Cinder appeared to block her path in a dark shroud, the portal revealing with her a strange young boy clung to her side.
“Celina.” Her voice was infinitely serious. “This is Sparrow. He needs our help.”
When Orphenn came to, Eynochia’s face greeted him, eyes glowing in the dim light. There was another pair of eyes, but they did not glow.
The distasteful gaze of Sparrow caught him off guard.
“Sparrow!” Orphenn exclaimed, sitting up in his bed. “What are you doing here?”
Sparrow sat back in the beside chair, arms folded.
“Why don’t you ask your psycho sister? The one that’s trying to rule the world? And willing to kill anyone to achieve it?”
Eynochia’s eyes fell, and she shook her head ruefully.
Orphenn frowned. “What? Ardara?”
“Bingo.” Sparrow’s head tilted, hair beads clicking.
“Oh, no…Sparrow…”Empathized Orphenn in realization. His mouth didn’t want to say the words, and they came out as a slur. “…Your gang?”
“Dead.” The younger boy stood, and pressed the hydraulic release button. Cinder stood on the other side of the door. “Your favorite’s awake.” He sneered at her as he left the room.
Cinder stepped into Orphenn’s quarters, the door hissing shut after her.
“Cinder!” Orphenn worried. “What happened to Sparrow? What’s he here for?”
She swallowed the lump in her throat. “The gang…Gryphon, Ibis…All of them…Ardarans killed them. Only Sparrow escaped.” Her voice wavered, mismatched eyes bright with tears and red with grief.
“I’m so sorry…” he said, recalling in a moment how they had all been so friendly to him. “What did they do?” he asked, suddenly malicious. “What did they do to deserve death?”
Cinder took a deep breath, brows furrowed with her own distaste. “They were in the way. I don’t know how it happened. He won’t talk to me.” Her face was downcast and sorrowful.
After an interval, Eynochia asked Orphenn, “Do you remember anything from earlier?”
“Earlier…” Orphenn looked back. “Yes…I remember the weird light from my hand…But after that it goes black.”
“Oh, damn.” Cinder cursed. She held her face in her black-nailed hands.
Eynochia tried to ignore her. “Something happened to you, Orphenn. Ardara put something inside you. Something…was taking you over.”
Orphenn thought it over, scared out of his mind, and dreading anything that may happen next.
Just then, Sven came through the hissing door.
“Ship’s about to land. We’re home.”
The Denoras Air Dock looked somehow smaller than before, compared to all the danger Orphenn had seen.
The people welcomed the White Herons home with enthusiasm and vigor.
There was no news of Ardara planning once again to attack the capital, so the city had no reason to fear; but other sites had been attacked, and the air still smelled of war. It was as if the people were releasing their strife and worry with every outward breath.
Cinder advised Sparrow to remain in the palace, and he did so, however reluctantly, and with a facetious attitude.
Orphenn found him in the main hall at sundown, gazing out to the bustling plaza.
“Sparrow?” He slowly approached the young biker.
“What do you want, Angel Boy?” Sparrow leered, never taking his eyes from the angel monument ahead.
“I want to tell you that I’m sorry.”
Something suddenly changed in Sparrow, something almost invisible.
“You don’t need to be…” He whispered, so that Orphenn had to lean closer to hear what he said next. “Looking at that statue now,” he confided mutedly, “now I know that I’ve been wrong.”
“What do you mean to say?” Orphenn intoned, as if speaking to a younger sibling and trying not to upset him.
“There’s only two angels in that monument. The third is missing. I should not have blamed you and your sisters for what Ardara has done. And I…” He turned, but still avoided Orphenn’s intense eyes, preferring to stare at the crest on his uniform. “I should not have been jealous of Raven’s….Cinder’s…Real brother. I’m happy for her…For all of you.” Orphenn patted his shoulder. “Heh. I’ll stop running now. Cinder’s not a drifter anymore. So why should I be? I don’t even have a gang anymore. Hell, I don’t even have a bike anymore.”
“Sparrow…Why did you survive? How did you escape?”
“Hmph. That’s a dang good question. I don’t remember much, just…Fire, and explosions…All the bikes blew up. Finch had been shot…I saw Ardaran soldiers, but Gryphon told me to run away, so I did, and somehow Cinder was there, and she ported me to your ship. I really don’t know.”
Orphenn thought for a moment. “The Flock was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. Don’t worry yourself about the how and the why. Just look at the ways you have grown, and be grateful for them.”
Sparrow nodded once, finally looking the other in the eye.
Orphenn leaned against a great column. “So you’re an orphan?”
Again, he nodded. “Just like you.”
“What were you called before you joined the Flock?”
The question surprised him. “M-my…Real name? Before I was Sparrow?”
“Yes.”
“My real name was…”
There was a pause.
Orphenn asked, “Would you like to know mine?”
“You mean you weren’t always Orphenn?”
The older boy shook his head. “My name is Keiran.”
“Keiran…Huh. My true name…” Another pause, “…Nero. My name is Nero.”
After a moment, Orphenn asked another question that took the other completely off guard.
“Would you like to be Nero again?”
Sparrow gasped. For the second time, he looked Orphenn in the eye. After a deep breath, he gave one wordless nod.
Orphenn smiled, then suddenly spotted Eynochia at the foot of the palace steps. His smile widened. “Talk to you later Nero.” He said, and began to descend the steps.
Nero chuckled. “Go get ‘em Tiger.”
“Well,” Eynochia said as Orphenn came down the steps at a trot to meet her, “I’m glad to see that you and Sparrow are getting along.”
“Nero.” He corrected. “Call him Nero now.”
“Oh.” She said, puzzled.
“That’s his real name.”
“I see.” She seemed to be thinking of somewhere else, mind and eyes wandering.
Orphenn followed her skyward gaze. Naturally, she was staring longingly at the highest clock tower.
Orphenn looked back at her with a foxy smirk.
Before she knew it, Eynochia was in the air. She shouted once in bewilderment, clinging for dear life to Orphenn, who carried her ever higher on his golden wings. Her fear vanished the moment he flew her toward the palace’s towers. She couldn’t help the wide, beaming smile at her mouth when the two landed on the tip of the highest clock tower.
She was absolutely speechless. She held her arms open wide, feeling the wind.
“Do you still believe this tower will fall?” Yelled Orphenn above the gale.
“Ha! I don’t care! I’m standing on it!” She laughed in triumph.
He steadied her, holding her waist for fear she would lose her balance. Then he feared to lose his own balance when she turned and jumped into his arms, and they twirled happily.
With a grateful squeal and a smile of delight, Eynochia said, “Thank you, Orphenn!” And then again as a whisper in his ear when they’d stopped twirling. “Thank you.”
Wind blowing their hair and clothes all about, they held each other close.
Orphenn brought his wings to surround them both and shield them from the wind.
And then-that moment they’d both imagined, that marvelous first kiss-happened and it seemed to be the happiest they’ve felt in forever, and they were oblivious to their audience.
Sven and Jeremiah stood smiling at the balcony, snickering and wondering where the popcorn was.
“Whataya know.” Sven laughed. “Lovebirds.”
Jeremiah’s smile was solemn and his hand touched his heart. “They are able to find happiness in a time of such war. Now I know what I’ve been missing.”
Without another thought, Jeremiah rushed to his Xeila in the gazebo with a flower in his hand.
Weeks went by with no news, and soon, regrettably, the city’s guard was let down. So evidently, no one expected what would come one day at sunset.
They came in airships and they came in hovering cruisers, on foot and on jets. Though the most fearsome mode of newly acquired Ardaran transport were colossal, komodo-like lizards with scales black as the coming night, slithering tongues, and were saddled and bridled, with breath that would ignite and combust like sparks on a fuse. They bore down on the glorious capital city with intent and determination, airships looming, cruisers advancing, serpents creeping and scuttling up every building and statue. Denoras was under siege.
The White Herons had been reminiscing in the Commander’s study when the sirens began to wail.
“What is it, Orphenn?” cried Jeremiah to the boy at the window.
“Ardara!” Came Orphenn’s quick reply. “Looks like an air raid! And a cruiser…Raid…And there’s-what the-lizards?”
“Lizards?” The others repeated in unison.
“They must be desperate, they’re riding giant lizards! And they-whoa! Oh yeah, they breathe fire, just sayin’.”
Celina rushed to her panicky brother’s side to peer out across the plaza. “Creatures from Plenthin. You’re right Orphenn. They’re becoming desperate.” She wailed, “There’s no time to evacuate! We must move the city to the bomb shelter! Hurry, before-”
The earth shook, and the air outside brightened with shrapnel.
“They’re already dropping bombs!” Shouted Sven, picking himself from the floor.
“Crap!” Orphenn interjected. “Guys! Where is Nero?”
Cinder, with a start, immediately ported from the room in a whirl of black smoke.
Nero had only just escaped the explosion. He seemed to have a knack for only just escaping.
The beads had fallen out of his hair, his cornrows falling loose, face bloodied, with scrapes all over his skin.
He ran the perimeter of the palace, heading for the plaza. I have to get to the shelter. He realized.
But Nero was stopped on his way when he reached the angel monument, the one he had admired only short weeks ago, as a large reptilian head crept over the side of Cinder’s replica, its claws scratching the marble. Sparks flew from its mouth when it clicked its tongue.
From over the lizard’s shoulder, Dacian appeared at the saddle, lance unsheathed, tightening the monster’s reins.
“You.” Nero grimaced, frozen in his tracks.
“A pity,” Dacian sneered, “that our next meeting is on such…Shaky terms.” He twirled his lance as another bomb rumbled the ground, causing Nero to fall backward onto the pavement.
The lizard came upon him, mouth sizzling in his face.
“Wow,” came Cinder’s voice out of the abyss, “you’ve been around a bit, haven’t ‘ya? It seems everyone has vowed some sort of vendetta against you.”
And then came the whirlpool of darkness that engulfed Nero’s body and swept him away before Dacian could end his life.
When Nero again came into the light, he was beside Cinder inside the underground bomb shelter, where Orphenn and the other White Herons were guiding, directing and comforting civilians.
“Nero, stay here, where it’s safe.” She instructed. Then she ran to Orphenn. “Come with me.” She told him.
Nero watched as Cinder and Orphenn disappeared through a dark portal. Then he wondered, Is anywhere safe?
The Palace of Denoras was falling, covered in red flame and smoke, much like the rest of the city.
Orphenn rushed with Cinder down the corridors of the crumbling palace, shielding their heads with their arms from the falling ceilings and trying not to breathe in the smoke.
“There are still people here!” Cinder informed. “We have to find them and get them out!”
The two scampered about the palace halls, kicking the doors down and searching thoroughly. Cinder sent any distressing remainders through portals to the bomb shelter (as she was now able to port others without touching them) and away from the burning palace where they would be safe from Ardaran attacks.
Orphenn followed Cinder into a dead end corridor, where she abruptly stopped at the last door, and stayed paused there for a moment.
“Cinder, come on! The palace is crumbling all around us!” He urged her, evading dislodged ceiling bricks. “We have to hurry! What are you waiting for?”
Cinder placed her palm on the door, as if searching inside the room beyond. She yelled over the rumble of battle outside with a serious glance at Orphenn, anticipation in her blue and green eyes.
“That’s no damsel in distress beyond this door.” She said, one hand pressing her abdomen as if a sense had risen there.
“What do you mean?”
But Cinder had already ported herself to the other side of the door, neglecting to use the doorknob.
The moment she materialized inside the room, an invisible force gripped her body, and held her in the air, boots lifted above the tile. It forced her eyes to look down at the grinning countenance of Ardara.
“I saw you coming.” said the psychic, whose telekinesis pressed painfully on Cinder’s torso.
She had also foreseen that Orphenn would come through the door, and when he did, Ardara said, “Ah, just as I suspected. The poisoned Enma essence has weakened you. Sven’s shield can no longer protect you.”
As though an invisible tranquilizing dart had hit his neck, Ardara forced him into unconsciousness by only a look in his eyes and he collapsed, head hitting hard on the tile.
“What did you do?!” Cinder writhed in midair. “Don’t touch him!”
Ardara arrogantly traipsed to Orphenn’s side, and lifted him from the floor to float before her, his body limply hanging on her telekinesis.
“He’s my brother too, Cinder.”
Cinder growled. “You lost the right to call him brother long ago! Get your psycho hands off him!”
Ardara ignored her command, stroking Orphenn’s face.
“How like Father he looks. Though he has my eyes.”
Ardara’s last two words seemed to send a shudder of pain through Cinder, although it was her eyes that signaled the electricity to shoot through the Drifter’s frame.
Orphenn’s body hung motionlessly in the air like a dormant string puppet.
“What did you do?! You took something from him!” Cinder shouted, but her voice seemed to become muffled by a phantom hand.
“Only his consciousness.” Said Ardara. “Sadly,” she sighed, “I will need my full focus to continue, therefore I haven’t the energy to restrain you, Cinder.
“Good night.”
As Cinder’s mind had not been weakened as Orphenn’s had, and was still fully protected my Sven’s shield, Ardara resorted to a simpler method of debilitating her. Without the use of her hands, she hurled a white wall stone at Cinder’s head.
The Drifter fell to the floor, silent.
Cinder would not succumb easily.
A splitting headache pulled her eyelids open, awoken to the sight of Ardara knelt lethargically over Orphenn, hands circling over his forehead, as if she weaved a dream into his skull.
Cinder heaved herself onto her elbows, and picked up the brick that had left a lump on the side of her head.
Just as Ardara brushed stray hair from Orphenn’s brow, saying, “Ah, it is complete. Sleep, Little Brother. Sleep into eternity.” Stone scraped her face, thrown by Cinder’s accurate arm. A pen-stroke of blood underlined her eye, and a nick at the bridge of her nose when the brick swiped her face. It landed with a rocky clatter on the white tile, and Ardara snarled with rage. She stood, an ominous aura surrounding her.
Out of the blue, the wall behind her was ripped from its foundation, fallen due to another shudder that shook the earth by a bomb’s chaotic explosion. Like a new picture window it revealed the state of Denoras outside as the brick and mortar fell away. Every building was on fire, among the rubble of other structures that had already fallen, vagrant smoke and flames still coloring the debris.
The sight filled Cinder’s heart with sorrow. Though she could not help thinking, that even the dying capital city was beautiful, if not more so that the living one.
The high buttressed ceiling above began to crumble and fall, wreckage from the higher stories toppling through, and crashing down, nearly crushing Cinder. Looking back up from her crouched position after covering her head with her arms, she saw that another portion of the ceiling was teetering and ready to collapse, directly over the spot where Orphenn lay inert.
In desperation, Cinder let fly a portal in his direction.
He evanesced with the darkness before his body was pounded, the ceiling crunching down onto vacant tile.
Ardara screamed, frenzied and anxious, “Where did you send him?!”
Cinder shook her head, for she did not now. In the next second, she hurled another portal at Ardara, this time knowing exactly where she wanted to send it.
Ardara shrieked as the dark maelstrom enveloped her and she vanished from the burning palace.
Cinder herself ported away moments before the entire palace fell in on itself.
The sun had set hours before, so now the only light came from the flames that riddled Denoras’s ruins, the stars wiped out by the constant smoke.
She materialized inside the bomb shelter, guilt-ridden and defeated.
Sven and Celina gazed her down when she appeared, shortly before Xeila, Eynochia and Jeremiah did the same, terror plain on all their faces. They knew by the look in Cinder’s eyes that something horrible had happened.
As for Orphenn, the next time he opened his eyes, he could not grasp what he saw.