Chapter Twenty-three
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Smile and Sacrifice
The hydraulic door came open with a snake-like hiss. To her relief, no one waited on the other side.
Still not at ease, Celina cautiously came forward, making her way slowly through the labyrinthine metal hallways.
Ardara rubbed her temples, trying in vain to soothe her headache.
“Wynne…?” She requested, also in vain.
“Wynne awaits our return to the castle.” Dacian provided. “Your lesson made him into quite the humble servant. Loyal. He’s learned much of allegiance.”
“Ah…Yes…He’s…At the castle…” She muttered through the pain, heedless to Dacian’s praise toward the degraded henchman. “Nyx?”
“Yes, My Liege?” Answered the young violet-haired Enma.
“Do you have any herbal tea?”
“M-Master?” She questioned, exchanging a confused glance with Dacian.
“It would certainly help with this headache.” She elaborated. “My senses are so jumbled…What with maintaining the Dream Hold and so many other things….My psychic ability seems to be backing up. I need…some calming herbal tea.”
“Regrettably, this ship doesn’t happen to carry any, Master…”
“Well, stop in Plenthin for herbs then.”
Without another word, she retired to the lounge.
Dacian sighed wearily. “This means we’ll have to turn around. What a drag.”
“She scares me when she’s somewhat amiable.” Nyx admitted.
“Better get used to the mood swings.” Dacian motioned to the helmsman. “You heard the Master. Turn the ship around.”
“We’re really changing course? Why can’t we just pick up some tea on the way to the castle?”
“Judging from past experience, she’d instantly know it wasn’t from Plenthin. And putting into account her recent irritability, she’d probably throw the box at my head. She does that. So only Plenthinian herbs will do.” Dacian, normally cold and merciless in demeanor, seemed to be warming up to violet woman. It could be said, he was becoming attached. “You’ll definitely have to get used to it, Nyx. Ardara will rule this world and we will stay beside her until death comes between us. Definitely. Better. Get used to it.”
“Ah, I see…But why did she ask for Wynne?”
“That…I don’t know.”
Evidently, they never flew all the way to Plenthin.
Ardara and Dacian stood side by side, gazing through a porthole as the ship passed over a forest, and Celina hid silently beneath the main hold entrance, making not a sound.
“Master.” Dacian alerted, pointing. “Below. The White Herons.”
Celina started, mouth dropping open.
Ardara peered down. As he said, the tents of the White Herons’ camp lay far below, the Day Star at rest beside it.
“Initiate Stealth.” Ardara ordered.
The helmsman was quick to comply, and soon the ship was invisible as it flowed through open sky.
The sun rose.
Its light kissed every surface as it shone through the portholes.
Ardara spat, “Attack.”
As the sun began to rise, the water that swirled around Eynochia’s fingers began to clear. She gasped. A circle of revitalized, glittering water twirled about wherever she touched, growing larger, until she could see to the Riverbed like a single shaft of light through the darkness.
Cinder gasped, and instantly rose to her feet. Eynochia squealed, a grin slowly spreading on her face.
“Daddy!” She shouted. “Daddy!”
Cinder joined her calling. “Sven!”
When he arrived, Xeila and Jeremiah curiously accompanying him, Eynochia jumped into the water, spinning and twirling, a widening spiral of warmth, not caring how dripping wet she was. She was purifying the water, with only the touch of her skin, the gloomy gray disappearing faster with the more excited she became.
By the time the sun rose, its light glittered over the entirety of the rejuvenated River, flowing strong and gallant, as if showing gratitude.
“Dad, look!” Eynochia yelled emphatically, dancing and splashing, in the vitalized, glistening, breathtaking water. “I-I fixed it! I healed the River!”
And then those words came, the ones she’d heard in her head only moments before.
Sven said, “You’re like her.”
Eynochia smiled, looking to Cinder. “You were right, Cinder. Aleida was trying to tell us something. I know what she wants.
“Cira isn’t evil, Cinder. She’s like the River. We just have to give her light back.”
Tears fell down their faces.
Then Sven leapt, splashing into the water, followed soon by the bride-and-groom-to-be.
Cinder watched while they soaked each other, laughing, jumping, dunking, brilliant water droplets flying.
“Take this!”
“Back at ‘ya!”
“Ha-ha! En guard!”
“Oops, betchya didn’t see that one comin’!”
“Have at thee, demon! Ha!”
They’re to be a family, Cinder thought. As soon as this wretched war is over. They’ll be happy forever.
At first she felt slightly jealous of them, the absolute promise of happiness they all possessed, but then she felt something else.
The dreadfully familiar sense rose in her abdomen, the one that told her that her one of her sisters were close.
Then the pain came.
Their link had acted too late.
“No.” Celina whispered. Without thinking, she ran for the nearest exit, down the hallway, and her footsteps echoed.
“Please, let’s not be hasty, Master.” Said Dacian, ever the perceptive henchman. “I beseech you, don’t start without me. One matter of business. I’ll be right back.”
“Very well.” Ardara relented, rolling her eyes. “Abort. Wait for Dacian’s word to drop the missile.”
The helmsman saluted obedience.
Dacian turned and ran, crossed the main hold, and dashed down the hallway.
Celina ran faster, knowing she’d made a mistake. But she had to warn them. She would jump out of the ship and fly down to her squadron. She had to.
When she saw a door, she slammed into it, hitting her body against it until it broke open. She had no time to be considerate.
Again, without thinking, she ran out. When she saw nothing but open air and the green earth below, her stomach lurched. She drew in a terrified breath, thinking she would fall, but she stood solidly. Then she recalled that the craft was in stealth mode. It looked as if she floated on nothing in the middle of the sky, but in actuality she was standing on the deck of an invisible airship.
A voice made her turn, robes and hair flailing in the free wind.
“Ah. A stow away.”
Dacian was there, stepping out from a door that appeared to come from nowhere, the red insides a drastic contrast with the brightening stark blue of the sky all around them.
He stepped out onto nothing. The wind tousled his hair.
She should have jumped then. She should have flown. But the sight of him froze her body, tightened her heart.
They stood together in the unobstructed sky, in silence.
She stared at him, the face she knew so well. But his eyes were different. They were not his eyes. Emotionless black and sacrificial red. They were glazed over with malice. He didn’t see, not truly. He saw through another’s eyes now.
Ardara’s eyes. She thought. And then it came to her, the meaning of Orphenn’s words. Something bigger.
Now she knew what must be done.
So she made no move to fly.
She only looked at him, and she wept.
She knew what he would do.
And he did.
Without preamble, Dacian closed the distance between them, unsheathing his lance. He thrust it into her core.
As all light left her eyes, it all came back to his.
The only woman he had ever loved fell to her death.
He watched her fall.
He fell to his knees, in the sky.
And the sky was the only one that heard his mournful cry, lost on the wind.
As the news had broadcasted, the park at Niagara Falls was closed.
Orphenn, feeling nothing, let alone any obligation to honor the law, stepped right over the webs of yellow tape and jumped the gate.
He suddenly wondered what had led him to this abandoned tourist destination. Equally suddenly, he realized, Niagara Falls? That’s on the other side of the state. I must have been walking for weeks.
The place was utterly empty, save for the constant roar of the falls that seemed to harmonize with the river in his head.
He ambled up the solitary pavement and let his sullen fingers curl around the aluminum railing, looking out unseeingly, unfeelingly over the enormity of the sullied water. He drowsily eyed the other side, far across Canada’s border, and then back down at the river below.
The River…Of course. That’s what brought him here.
Orphenn paled, and became almost numb with his shocking thought, a desperation blooming deep within him.
Could it be?
Orphenn’s true body slid down the bank precariously.
Senseless with hope, he didn’t feel the dew-dropped aluminum under his hands, didn’t feel his lank hair cling to his neck as he dizzily swiveled to look around, abruptly light-headed. And as a public restroom rolled into his view, built of hazy gray brick, he didn’t feel his legs vault him toward the unhinged door.
As he rushed inside, he clumsily grasped the steel sink plumbed into the wall to slow himself down, his boots thudding the cement floor of the humid, revolting lavatory.
His both hands steadied him, leaning fearfully on the sink for support.
When he finally gathered the courage, he looked up, into his own face, upon the mirror.
Like he had always done since his first days at the Kinder Rose Orphanage, the first thing he thought was, My eyes.
He began to shake, his eyes widening in realization.
Eyes that were both the same, uniform, icy, blue.
Then his trembling ceased and he was filled with such a strong certainty that his body seemed to grow in stature, his timid depression now replaced by stagnant determination.
His fingers dipped into the River, followed by a hand, a wrist, a forearm, sliding slowly down.
“This is a lie…” He said lowly at first, but then his confidence launched and he screamed, “This is all a lie!”
His wrath burned him, and he sent his fist with all his might into the mirror’s reflective glass.
It shattered, and fell all around him, crashing on the cement, and as if his epiphany initiated it, every pipe fissured, all the sinks and all the toilets began to spout water as if rebelling against him.
The water sprayed angrily, and yet, not one drop of it was murky or tainted. In fact, it glimmered.
The structure around him began to collapse, and he sped outside before he was crushed beneath it. As it was reduced to a hump of debris, he spun around to again look at the falls.
It too had been purified, its waters shining clearly and free of muck, and it too surged across the horizon as if Orphenn’s truth had sent it into a rage.
He sprinted across the path, and flung himself over the rail, his cry becoming one with the roar of the falls, the River in his head joined with it in concrete harmony.
His body slipped the final few inches, and submerged, billowing with the current beneath the surface of the River.
When he hit the water, the harmony was quieted. The anger dispersed.
Then his world went black.
What if there was never another world?
What if it’s just…A different dream?
Orphenn emerged, gasping, from the River, clutching the mossy banks. Climbing up onto them, he took reprieve to take back his breath. Anxiously, and still breathing loud and heavy, he turned to see his reflection in the pure, sun-sparkling water of the River.
One red eye, one blue. Choppy haircut. White uniform.
Yes. He was finally free of Ardara’s Dream Hold.
And yet…
He noticed the knuckles on his muddy hand were cut and bleeding.
Almost all was well, until the next moment when everything went bad.
The almost-family horrifyingly silenced. Stiff and fearful, still dripping water, when Cinder’s agony cut the air with a blood-chilling shriek.
Sven ran to her writhing body, splaying water drops about him as he rushed.
Dacian’s lance hadn’t just run Celina through; unsuspecting, Cinder and Cira felt the same pain, the same sensation of falling through the air.
Cinder wailed, face and body contorted in pain. “No! Celina!”
Her Sense remained acute, pulling through the miserable spasm. Crippled in the grass, her wings unfurled. She looked up, neck craning. “No!” She screamed, and then she was gone.
“No way…” Sven denied, as he saw Celina’s body tumult from the sky, and Cinder port to catch her. The others were speechless, torment clear on their faces.
When Cinder ported back down, she had miscalculated, reappearing waist-deep in the River.
She tried to haul Celina out of the water, but her sister held her so that when Cinder ascended the low bank, she remained in the water.
“Cinder…” her voice was hardly a whisper.
“Celina, come on!” Cinder sobbed. She could feel everything Celina felt. The heartbreak, the burn in her abdomen, weakening bones, slowing heartbeat. “Come on.”
“No…” Celina could no longer stand, and Cinder propped her up and held her tight. “No, Cinder.” She hushed. “I…I must stay with the River.”
“Celina…” Cinder shook her head, desperate.
“Listen…It may look like I’ve made a mistake, but…I’m satisfied.”
Cinder couldn’t speak.
“Trust me, Cinder.” She reached up a frail hand to slip the coronet from her forehead. She tucked it into Cinder’s layered jacket, knowing she wasn’t yet ready to wear it.
“He’s back.” She gasped suddenly.
Cinder turned her head. Tears fell from her lashes when she saw Orphenn standing there, sopping wet, eyes fixed on Celina, features twisted in grief and surprise.
He watched as Celina brought Cinder’s face back to look at her.
“Just remember to trust me.” She whispered. “Trust me.”
Cinder knew she was dead because the pain went away.
It was then that the River took her.
She slipped out of Cinder’s arms, fell away from the banks, and like a mother and child the warm, dazzling water cradled her, and then she was gone.
Oriana now shared with her that resting place.