Chapter Six
~
The River
Celina slumped to the white door at the end of the hall, on the top floor of the palace. She straightened herself and took a deep breath before regally stepping inside. The face that turned to meet her drained the blood from her cheeks. “What are you doing here.” It was not a question, but an order.
“Have we met?” Dacian replied seriously.
“Answer me.”
“I was given a mission.” He said cautiously.
“What do you mean? You’re telling me you don’t remember?”
“What are you babbling about? I was given a mission,” he repeated. “And I shall carry it out quickly and efficiently.” He produced a syringe from behind his back. “That’s why I’m the favorite.”
“What are you doing?” her voice wavered when he crept closer. He caressed her face. He twisted her hair. Her heart skipped a beat. So did his.
What is this? Dacian thought. In revolt, his hand clamped her shoulder, hard as granite. She whimpered.
“This is new. A skill I like to call Diffusion.”
Her skin began to burn, fire in every pore. Like pasta in a strainer, Dacian pulled a substance out of her skin that glistened with life and color. It gathered in a bubble at his fingertip. He drew it into the syringe with a smug grin.
Celina coughed violently. She cried red tears and blood poured from her mouth, nose, and ears. She fell to the floor, her blood clashing with the white.
He bent over and took a handful of hair from the back of her head, her hair ribbon loosening and falling out. He tugged her head up and gazed into her red-streamed face. Her one brown eye faded to pale icy blue that matched her other. The hurt in them gave Dacian a strange feeling of guilt-something he could never recall feeling before. He hated it. In frustration, he buried his fist into her abdomen, forcing more blood from her mouth.
“Why are you doing this?” Celina gasped. The pain in her voice once again filled him will unexplained grief. In a rage, he was about to slam her face into the wall, but before he could do so, the door swung viscously open.
That intimidating man, that rigid Enma stood there with a look of absolute loathing.
Dacian released Celina’s hair, and her head fell to the hard floor.
This is getting too complicated he thought. He veered around and leapt out the open window into the night, starting the engine of his hidden cruiser and zipping away.
Sven had no time to track him down. But he would. One day he would.
Sven shouted, pacing like a tiger in a cage. “That’s what he had in that syringe.” He concluded. “He’s stolen your essence, and now he’ll take it to Ardara.”
“But Ardara hates Enma.” Jeremiah reasoned. “She said precisely; ‘disgusting, filthy, hybrids.’ What would she want with Celina’s essence?”
“She will do anything for power.” Celina stated. “Even mutate herself.”
“It’s been hours.” Orphenn informed. “She must have already changed by now.”
Sven slumped into a chair, his face resting in his palms. “So what do we do?”
“We wait.” Celina said determinedly, flipping her legs over the side of the bed and standing up. “We don’t yet know what will happen.” She motioned to a nurse maid to fetch her robes. “Rest assured, my friends. To this day, we are the only ones who still know where our true source is.”
“Celina, lay back down, you’re weak. You can’t even hide your wings.” Cinder warned.
“Thank you.” Celina said to the maid when she returned with her white robes, calmly ignoring Cinder’s order. She stepped behind a screen to change and said, “Orphenn? Would you care to talk a walk with me?”
“Certainly.” Orphenn agreed, as she came back to tie her hair.
As she took her coronet from the bedside table and slipped it back on her forehead, she reached out to her brother. “Come along.”
Orphenn and Celina trod through a thick forest. They walked arm in arm, as Celina needed a bit of support to stay upright.
“Are you feeling alright?” Orphenn asked, concerned. “You’re a bit shaky.”
“I’m just a little nervous.” She answered.
“About what? Where are we going?”
“You remember the River, yes?”
“The River? The sparkly colorful one that mutated us? That’s where we’re going?”
“Precisely.”
“And….You’re the only one who knows where it is?”
“Sven and Cinder and I. The only living ones that drank directly from the water, like you.”
“Instead of being injected?”
“Right.”
“Are you going to drink from it again?”
“I’m a bit frightened, but yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know if so many mutations to one body would hurt me, kill me...”
“Whoa.” Orphenn halted. “You’ve got me freaked out now.”
“On the other hand, the Enma could simply return to me, like it was never taken in the first place.”
“And what are the odds of that happening?”
“Relax.” Celina said, bringing Orphenn to a steady walk again. “Besides. We’re here.”
“Huh? I don’t see anyth-” He stopped as the trees and brush they passed unveiled a sunlit clearing. The water moved so calmly, Orphenn couldn’t have heard it until he stood on the bank. He was so used to the rushing waters of the Americas-he’d never been to such a peaceful place.
The River was just like it was in his memory. “It’s so colorful….” He reminisced, “Like there’s glittering treasure at the bottom or something. Even though you can see right through, and there’s only rocks.”
“I know, it’s beautiful….” Celina released Orphenn’s arm to pad across the mossy grass to the river bank. Orphenn hurried to her side as she lowered herself into the water, folding her wings.
“I’m not so sure about this, Celina….” Orphenn kneeled anxiously at the bank, gazing after her.
“Have some faith in me, Little Brother.” She waded into the middle of the River, her white robe rippling after her.
Orphenn was awestruck. The light in the water seemed to swirl around her as she entered the water, almost like it was conscious of her, welcoming her.
Orphenn splashed in as well, but stayed close to the bank, fearful. The water was warm, and its luminosity also seemed to spiral around him.
Celina turned to face him. “It’s like a loving cradle….” She described, pooling water into her palms. “….So warm.” She tipped her hand up to her mouth and gulped it down.
She only gave a soft gasp as her eyes and pupils flickered, and changed subtly back to their mismatched blue and brown and odd pupils. Her wings began to fade to transparency, veiling themselves as her energy recuperated. She closed her eyes and smiled, tears falling.
“What, no seizure, no agonizing pain?” Orphenn laughed gratefully. “What happened?”
Celina took a deep breath. “Amazing….” She let sunlight shine onto her face. “This planet….So alike, yet so different from Earth. It remembered me….It knows who I am….” She dipped her finger into the water, stirring it around, and the light followed it. “It’s alive, Orphenn….It’s alive.”
When they returned to the palace, everyone still sat in the infirmary with Xeila.
Cinder sped to them when they came to the door. “Celina! Your eyes! Your wings!”
“How?” Xeila questioned.
Sven rose form his chair, looking back and fourth between Orphenn and Celina. “Did you go to….?”
“The River. Yes.”
“You idiot!” Sven gently bopped her on the head. Orphenn guessed he was one of the only people that could get away with that. “Do you know how much you risked? You are so lucky you didn’t die, Celina, or I woulda smacked you. Right upside the head!” He shook his head, and the whole room was smiling. “Did you get your original powers back?”
“Yes.”
“Miracle.”
Orphenn looked longingly at Sven’s long, whooshing trench coat as they walked further into the room. Sven turned, noticing his glance with a chuckle. “Here, kid.” He unbuttoned the coat, and threw it to Orphenn, revealing his bare torso. He was lean, and speckled with scars.
Orphenn bounced up and down when he put it on. It fit him surprisingly well.
“Dad, you need a shirt.” Xeila chastised.
“I think not.” He replied with vigor.
After a fit of laughing, Orphenn asked Celina, “Do you mind if I take a walk?”
“We just got back from a walk.” She said.
“Yes, I know. But I’d like to explore a bit.”
“Very well.” Celina relented.
He smiled. “Thanks. And thank you for the coat, Sven.”
“No problem. Don’t get lost.”
Thunder rolled, and dark clouds swirled around the sunless land of Ardara. The ominous castle tower stood tall, its point reaching into the eye of the storm. Lightning struck from the clouds, the shaded castle surrounded by an almost constant cage of electricity. Inside the frightening monument, Ardara herself stood waiting.
“Master.” A low voice beckoned from the window.
“Dacian.” She grinned, and turned to gaze up at the speaker. There was only a dim shadow, standing on the windowsill, silhouetted every time the lightning flashed. He was wet and dripping from the downpour outside, and held a peculiar glowing object.
“I found it. I found the source.”
“Brilliant.” She sighed, gesturing for him to step inside. As he did so, he presented his superior with a rain-dropped syringe, a luminous liquid bubbling in its tube.
Ardara gazed adoringly at Dacian, and then at the syringe. “The essence…” she whispered. Her eyes fixed on it as she took it into her shaking hands, its light illuminating her pale skin. She ran her finger up the thin needle. She clutched it tightly, and closed her eyes, as if she was absorbing it through her hands. Without warning, she stabbed it into her arm, injecting the lustrous substance into her bloodstream.
Dacian’s face cracked in a wicked smile. His master’s laugh burst out of her quivering body, her own mad grin spreading across her face. The pupil in her left eye split into three smaller ones while her right thinned into a cat like slit. As this occurred, her left eye faded from icy blue, to crimson red.
Eynochia watched helplessly. She hung in her chains, nearly hyperventilating from despair. Ardara was becoming Enma, right in front of her, and there was nothing she could do. What new abilities would she gain, that she would undoubtedly use to hurt others? She was already powerfully talented, and as insane as she could get. But even more terrible than that, Eynochia had no clue where Dacian had found that essence. And what did that even mean? The essence?
When Ardara stopped convulsing, she clumsily staggered to her feet, her long cloak falling off her shoulders onto the floor, uncovering her revealing mauve leather jumpsuit. Dacian supported her as she recovered, taking a momentary reprieve. Eynochia watched in suspense as she stood up straight with more strength in her stance than before.
“Tell me, Dacian,” she said with a nefarious grin, examining the now empty syringe, “from whom did you diffuse this mutant gene?”
“Avari, Celina.” He said her full name as if reading from a document.
Ardara laughed like a psycho in a loony bin. “How perfect!” she enthused, but her joy was cut short when Eynochia screamed at Dacian.
“You cretin! How could you!? She loved you!” she pulled on her chains, growling.
Ardara glared at her. “Be quiet.” With a slight reach of her hand, Eynochia’s chains shone red hot. She screamed and struggled as they scorched her skin where they bound her. But this left the chains softened by the heat, and she broke the weakened links when she tugged with the strength of three men twice her size. They still hung from her body by the shackles as she gave a roaring howl, her face elongating, teeth sharpening, hands changing to claws.
Dacian charged at her, taking a steel spear from his back and twirling it in his hand. “Not this time.”
Her body produced guttural cracking noises as it contorted, her silver hair spreading down her back and limbs, as she became a white wolf.
Dacian hadn’t enough time to raise his spear before Eynochia slashed him. He fell back, bleeding. Ardara did nothing as the wolf barreled out the window.
“She is of no use to me anymore.” Ardara explained. “Though I am expecting a little visit from Sven later on.”
Eynochia crawled, wheezing out of the moat surrounding the dark castle. She spotted the cold corpse of Rammes Cain still floating there.
She climbed onto the banks and ran out into the rain.
Orphenn walked in the opposite direction he and Celina had taken him in the forest, sticking to the sodden trail. He was immediately glad for his new trench coat; it was beginning to get chilly, and the dark clouds to look ominous. Despite the worsening weather, he decided to take a seat on a nearby log, and allow his mind to drift. Rain began to dribble on his head, but he didn’t mind. He closed his eyes and listened to it.
He heard something jingle, and then the crunching of leaves. His eyes shot open. With a start, he noticed a blur of white among the lay of forest colors.
It was a huge wolf, at least the size of a small pony. Blood spattered its white fur along the shackles of the chains hanging from her. It also dripped from her razor-like teeth. Its eyes of green and black were rolling, eyelids drooping with exhaustion.
Where did you come from? Orphenn asked it. He remembered asking the same question to a wolf back at the zoo. But this white wolf answered.
Here. She came closer, obviously willing to trust this boy who could speak to her. She sniffed at his trench coat, as if she recognized the smell. Then she warily lay her big head on his lap. When her eyes closed, she seemed to shrink, and her fur fell away. There was now an unconscious girl on his lap, with no clothes. Only her bloody chains covered her dark, russet skin. This might have sent him into shock, but What they hey, he thought. Stranger things have happened.
Orphenn hastily threw off his trench coat and wrapped her in it. To save time, he unfolded his golden wings and flew back to the palace.
“Where is Orphenn?” Cinder said. “It’s pouring out there!” She stood at the large window, staring out.
“Should we go find him?” Xeila wondered.
Then something caught Cinder’s eye. She flung the curtains aside.
“Oh my God.”
“What is it?”
Cinder swung the window open wide.
“What are you doing? It’s freezing!”
Something flew in from outside, and Cinder shut the window again as it fluttered its glistening wings and landed on its feet. It was Orphenn.
The whole room, even others in the infirmary rose in excitement at the sight of the girl in Orphenn’s arms, but all was silent as he folded his wings away.
“She’s hurt.” He said.