Chapter Twenty-one
~
Deception
Orphenn was in an alley. A dog barked down the street. Police sirens wailed. The sky was gray and polluted over the roofs.
The familiar smell of cat and garbage surrounded him. He sat erect in one fluid movement, eyes wide and unbelieving, mind blazing. He jerked around, suddenly on his feet, looking all around him almost frantically.
“What…” he could barely speak above a hush. “M-my alley?”
He looked down at himself. He saw worn boots, ragged clothing, a filthy trench coat and long greasy hair falling into his face.
Incredulously, he patted himself, touched his face and tugged his unruly hair, as if he was unable to believe he was truly there.
In his fit, he noticed an important looking man in a black suit at the end of the alley. He jumped in fright when Orphenn ran toward him.
“Hey! Hey wait! Have you ever wondered about other worlds?” He pleaded, for he thought perhaps, maybe he had been somehow sent back to Earth by mistake and that Cinder would return to retrieve him.
But how? Orphenn thought at the same time, How is it that I’m the same as I was before? I’m just a hobo again, my old hair, my old clothes, everything. Why?
He needed some kind of confirmation or he was sure he would go insane.
When the suited man grimaced, Orphenn said, “No, no I meant…Like different planets-solar systems-galaxies…Oh, I don’t know! Somewhere different! Do you know anything about someplace else?”
The man scowled. “Are you hung over or something? Get the Hell off me before I whack you with my briefcase.”
Orphenn hadn’t realized he’d been clutching the man’s lapel, and slowly released him.
After several similar encounters, begging for knowledge or ridiculous advice, and being pushed away, Orphenn began to panic.
What if….There was no Aleida?
He looked all around him. This Earth seemed so dull and devoid compared to his Aleida. Although…Dreams always seem a bit brighter than what’s right in front of one’s eyes, don’t they? The sky almost seemed to fall. Or was that his imagination too?
“No…Aleida?”
Orphenn stumbled dizzily back into the alley, like he really had been hung over. Who’s to say he hadn’t been?
Finally, it set in. He stared at his dirty hands, grime in the lines of his palms and under his fingernails. No longer strong enough to stay upright, he frailly fell to his knees, eyes still glued to his palms, feeling that he could erode away at and second.
He heard a constant rush in his ears, as if a waterfall crashed incessantly inside his head. Nothing but that sound seemed at all real to him, and yet he came to the realization that, maybe…The river in his head was the only thing that wasn’t real.
At length, he fell back against the wet brick of the alley wall. His hands fell weakly to his lap and he looked up at the gray sky that seemed to reflect back to him his own despair, his stare blank and desolate. He was numb, his body seeming to float away. His utter heartbreak was staggering.
“All of it…Was only…” Tears filled his eyes and fell, smearing the dust on his cheeks. His own words seemed as unreal as the world he had woken from.
“Only a dream?” It made sense. He woke up back in New York with an intense head ache as if he had fallen asleep on a chunk of asphalt. Then he dared to turn his head slightly, to see that homely bottle of vodka resting innocently on its side beside the trash can. Right where he had left it. Had he even dreamt seeing Sam again and apprehending a criminal? It seemed like so long ago.
He turned away, lip trembling.
Then his eyes no longer saw the gray sky above him, but instead the memories he thought had been so real, every face he had come to know flashed before him; his family, Celina, Cinder, even Cira. All those he met and grew to love…Sven, Eynochia, Xeila, Jeremiah, even Nero and his gang…Imaginary?
His voice was hindered by the lump of sorrow in the back of his throat, his words choppy and quivering.
“…They weren’t real?”
He saw his adventures, every single danger he had faced, all that had been made up…His mind’s own invention.
Had he been so desperate for company, for family and friends that loved him that he would conjure his own world in a drunken stupor? An entirely fictional venture that seemed to explain every question he’d ever had in his life? His family, his real name, his “oddities?” What were the odds of any of that being true?
How completely pathetic he felt.
“My name is Orphenn.”
This lament brought the images of his old parents and his sisters-the ones he had created-and dissipated them, as if in finality to say back to him,
Yes, that is your name. You were never ‘Keiran.’ How foolish.
“And I am an orphan.”
Sven, Eynochia, Xeila. He remembered the photo of Oriana. They had been a family too. And Jeremiah was to become a part of it…
Their image was swiped from him just as the last had been.
Then a vision of Wynne, the kind guard who had sacrificed so much. Nero’s gang that had been murdered…They had been kind too.
Kindness isn’t real.
Love is a myth.
Happiness…Isn’t real.
They aren’t real either.
“And I am…I am an orphan…”
Very good. Reality said.
Now repeat after me: ‘And that’s all I will ever be.’
“I am an orphan and…” He took a deep, desperate breath, a precursor, “…And that’s all I will ever be!” He sobbed enormously, body quivering, chest heaving.
He had devised a make-believe illusion to compensate for everything that was missing in his life. Every bit of it had been fake.
Orphenn’s heart broke then. He felt it so truly that he thought his own soul had clutched it and crushed it in its hands in mourning.
He continued to grieve, rolling over on the concrete, grasping at his chest.
It must have been hours that he lay there after his sobs subsided, hearing nothing, feeling nothing, barely seeing his own hand splayed on the pavement before his face. There was only one thing that seemed to come to his thoughts when he tried to tell himself to rise. Like a stern hail it beat him down, and he remained.
Not real.
~~~~~
When Cinder emerged from the bomb shelter, where they all had been confined for days, she felt much like her brother did. Something other than her free will seemed to be moving her legs, shoving her forward. She could no longer stand the miserable sanctity of the shelter, where the guilt pressed on her like all the gazes of those surrounding her. Still, she had not told them what had happened to Orphenn.
All was ash and ruin, and deathly silent like snow freshly fallen. Cinder was helpless to the thought that the scene was subtly beautiful, despite the death that lay beneath the ashes.
She continued to trod through the ashes, entering the remains of the city plaza. Only one structure still stood tall against the sky, all others a mound of rubble.
She glared hurtfully upward at the angel monument that depicted her image and the likeness of her sister so perfectly, the marble dusted with ash. She could almost see another face there, floating between the two sculpted heads like a lost specter. A face she knew was supposed to be there, and touchable as the other two, though it wasn’t. The face of Cira. The one that belonged there just as much, but couldn’t be there.
Celina came to stand beside her, wordlessly. She wore her imperial robes of white, rather than the Heron’s jumpsuit, truly a regal vision of elegance amidst the remnants of Denoras, unlike the other, who stood out like the contrast of a single black bead on a porcelain tray.
“Why is it that this is the only infernal thing left standing?” Seethed Cinder.
“Don’t be that way.” Was Celina’s calm reply. “We can’t grovel in the ashes. We’ll stand tall like our statues. We can find the answer to this.”
“So positive.” Cinder shook her head. “Always, when you try to be uplifting, why does it seems to make everything worse?”
“Cinder.” The other insisted, forcibly turning her sister to look her in the face. “What happened to Orphenn.”
It was not a question.
Cinder’s eyes were morose and sullen, and shone with wet sadness.
“I don’t know where he is. I tried to save him. I didn’t know what else to do. The portal acted of its own. He could be anywhere now. If I hadn’t done it Celina, he would be dead for sure. He’s only missing. We only have to find him.”
Celina’s eyes glimmered with understanding. She released her hold on Cinder’s shoulders.
Only then did they simultaneously realize the presence of a silenced airship, dormant and swathed in ash, only a short distance from the palace remains. Its dark metal and clumsy welding indicated Ardaran manufacture.
“An Ardaran airship…” Murmured Cinder.
There was the gradual tick of expanding metal, heating up.
“It’s about to lift off…” Celina noted, mouth gaping. Then, an idea. Crazy, but an idea nonetheless. “Cinder!” she exclaimed, “Port me inside that ship!”
“What? Why?” After a moment, Cinder added with severity, “Cira’s on board that craft.”
They both could sense that fact, in their cores.
“I know.”
“You’re planning to stow away? What will you accomplish?”
“Maybe I could discover something to give us the advantage in this war we’re fighting. Anything, anything could help.”
“But-”
“Please, Cinder. Let me do this.”
Greatly reluctant, Cinder touched Celina’s face. Celina returned the gesture.
“Celina, if anything happens…I’ll be to blame for Orphenn, and for you.”
“We will find him.” She assured.
A deep, revealing look passed between them, and Cinder was suddenly even more unwilling to let her go, like trying to pry apart the links of a chain.
Then from Cinder’s palm, against Celina’s cheek blossomed the blackness that would port her inside a deep hidden corner in the Ardaran ship’s cargo hold.
When Celina disappeared, and Cinder’s upraised hand touched nothing but open space, the rush of air came from the airship’s liftoff, and she watched it ascend and fly out of sight with a heavy heart.
Her worries ate at her. Her upraised hand clenched into a fist, trembling with her strife as she glared again at her own face carved in marble above her head.
Without warning, a tremendous crack sounded across the expanse of ash, almost like gunfire. It was as though the noise had emanated from all around her with the way it echoed, but in truth, it was the result of a fracture, plated diagonally through the body of Celina’s statue. The marble body collapsed in a cloud of dust and ash, leaving only the tall depiction of herself standing alone in the rubble, all but a mirror image, albeit a blurry one. Cinder had no room left to think of the cause of the sudden rapture, or what it might foretell. Only her own self hatred was allowed to her.
Cinder plunged to her knees. Her cry of anguish could be heard faintly in the confines of the bomb shelter. She wept for the city. For her home.
Not long after, Cinder elected to teleport back to the bomb shelter, though she didn’t port inside-only to the threshold of the large, inclined, double trap doors. She dreaded to go inside; knowing what glances and stares would meet her upon entry. Nonetheless, she ported to the other side.
As she had predicted, thousands of eyes immediately fell on her, Sven’s being one of the first heads to turn. His face was puzzled when Celina did not appear at Cinder’s side.
Cinder swiftly made her way toward him, the crowd spreading apart to allow her path, each face full of a reverence that she felt she did not deserve.
As “Lady Cinder” was many times more infamous than the true Supreme Commander due to her mysterious reputation, the vast sea of citizens-though significantly not so vast as before-screamed her name and cheered at her presence, as if she was a pop star.
“Sven,” she whispered when she was close enough, “can you shut them up for me?”
He nodded once, instantly summoning a very loud-looking revolver. The dust glittered like the tail on a comet as he aimed the barrel upward and fired three times at the ceiling, miles above their heads.
Cinder ascended a platform and spoke.
“It is now safe to leave the shelter, but, people, I warn you. What’s outside is not a sight for the weak of heart.
“All of our homes are destroyed. And I know we have all lost. There have been deaths…” She looked down at young Nero, who gazed painfully back up at her from the first row. Pliley and his young partner Hollei stood in that front line as well, the officials who once worked in the plaza. Cinder felt it had been like years since she had last seen them both. She continued.
“There are only remnants, but anything you may find among the ash I guarantee is unsalvageable. It is my strongest advice that you all take refuge at Verlassen.” She glared at Nero as if to say, That goes for you too. The look on his face indicated he got the message. “I’ve sent for a zeppelin to transport the lot of you.” Already, solitary sobs were escaping the crowd, and many were dripping with tears. “As for my valiant sister….I think it best that you all remain ignorant as to the whereabouts of our Supreme Commander.” Several protests followed this statement. “But I assure you, most emphatically, that she is acting with the courage that I feel many of us have lacked.”
The other White Herons each took on features glazed with horror, especially Sven, who glared straight at Cinder with a desperation that could have stopped a stampede in its tracks. They longed to know what Cinder knew.
“Jeremiah, if you would kindly open the doors.” She requested.
Jeremiah gave a low bow, trying to hide his anxiety, and obeyed.
Light flooded in, and Xeila and Eynochia professionally led the people up and out, like officers directing traffic. Nero gave one last glance at Cinder before he sullenly followed suit.
Sven grasped her shoulder as Cinder descended the platform.
“Spoken like a leader, Cinderella.”
She looked over her shoulder at the man who seemed to emanate understanding.
“Sven…” she found herself unable to speak above a whisper, eyes wet with emotion. “She made me do it. She’s stowed away inside an enemy airship. She made me, I swear.”
“I trust her.” Was all he said, but his eyes said, So should you.
After an interval, Cinder asked, “Are we off to Verlassen as well, Marshall?” Playfully yet wearily using his rank, the White Herons’ inside joke.
“I’ve decided against that, Little Princess. We’re making camp outside the capital.” He replied with a look of knowing. She took the hint.
To Cinder’s squadron, “outside the capital” nearly always meant “on the banks of the River.”
“I’ll meet you there.”
Without another word, Cinder was gone, the darkness sifting between Sven’s fingers. He let his hand fall to his side.
“What are we gonna do with you, Cinderella?”