by Cara Violet
Darayan assessed the apprehension on the Giliou’s face. “I think, as a Shiek, she can handle herself.”
Xandou pressed his lips together. “Why are you here anyway? I never had time to ask your sidekicks.”
“The trained aura users of Valendean followed myself and Archibel through a water vortex, only to be thrust to this planet, where they had no desire to be.”
“Seems a spring of bad luck.”
“Or good luck for us, that they are on our side.”
Xandou shrugged. “Perhaps.”
“What is your plan here, Xandou? What are you waiting for?”
“I am working with the Harpies to see how we can sway the Conductors to get back into their positions.”
Darayan couldn’t help but smile and with nothing else to say, he turned to leave.
“I was going to go after Kaianan,” Xandou said to his back.
“I know, but I beat you to it.”
Darayan surveyed Kaianan; she stood by the wooden railing staring out to the waterfall, clenching her fingers in and out.
“Not coping well with being second in charge?” Darayan said playfully, approaching her. The Dartanyan below them, splashing about in the water.
“I thought Xandou—”
“Would have chased you?” Darayan finished, “Nah, I asked him if I could come after you.”
“Why?”
He shrugged and leant against the timber rail alongside her, his arm brushing up against hers. “Why? Because I’m the better go-between,” he smirked at her. She scolded in return. “Did Dersji ever tell you about me?”
A shrug. “No, he didn’t.”
“I wish he did.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” Darayan said dully, “since I asked Jahzara to remove my memories I can’t pinpoint what I spoke to him about and why I left, and she won’t tell me, but a part of it was to do with you.”
“Were you sure it’s not because I’m a walking hazard and it’s safer to be on a world I’m not on?”
“No, it’s not about that at all.”
“Well, it is safer.”
“You’re crazy, Ka, I know it’s been four years, but you were always one of the best fighters I’d ever faced. You and I would always beat everyone, we struggled to beat each other, do you remember?”
“I do, all of it.”
“I remember small pieces.”
“Why did you ask Jahzara to remove your memory?”
“You know those from the Vengard galaxy can do that; I just wanted to be free of whatever Dersji accused me of.”
“I wonder what it was?”
“If you see him again, try and find out.”
“I will.”
“You know I love you, Ka.”
“I know, between you and Archibel, I forgot how much I missed you both.”
“We’ve missed you too. We will visit more I promise. Will you stay in Rivalex after this?”
“I don’t know, they’ve offered me tenancy on Felrin. I mean, they offered before I escaped, but they want me on their side right now with the election upcoming. The Principals said I can make change there.”
Darayan’s expression hadn’t altered. “I see you, and how you’ve got so much power now. I mean you’re a Shiek. That’s, that’s—”
“Crazy?” she offered.
“Extraordinary,” he mused. “Yet you can change who you are from anywhere in the universe, why would you need to be in Felrin?”
“I can change policies, update the Universal Order.”
“I thought you hated the system; how it squandered Layos, treated it as non-existent.”
“There was a time I did, but Principal Prudence, I mean, she said with my capabilities and power, I belong with them, in the elite.”
Darayan didn’t like Kaianan’s slight arrogance when she spoke. “And do you think that’s the right way to make change?”
“I actually don’t know.”
“Don’t take the first offer that comes at you, Ka. You’ve been changing and evolving since I met you, rejecting systems and finding your own way. You can do good from anywhere in any world, system or galaxy. It comes from within you.”
“But how would I go about it with no-one listening to me? I’d have the attention of not one person that mattered if I neglected the Felrin Congress.”
“See, that’s where you’re wrong. You think the people at the higher end matter more?”
“I—”
“Don’t let this power,” Darayan said empathically, “this ability you have to use the Kan’Ging in the Siliou, go to your head. You’re no different to those who you’ve lived with in the Swamp Lands. Don’t forget that, Kaianan, and don’t forget what and who it is you fight for.”
“I trust what you say, Darayan because you’re my friend, but the people in the Swamp, they don’t want more with their lives, Layos is stagnant—”
“Help them make decisions, Kaianan, help them decide.”
“Decide what?”
“That they’re equal. That they’re as powerful as you.”
“I …” she began, “you know Arlise told me the same thing, he told me what we could be as equals. I said the same things to Julius and Xandou. But Darayan, I think I’m changing my mind. Equality is one thing, but if people can’t see anybody who’s evolving—never see it modelled, never see how it’s done—how will they ever evolve on their own? With the power I could attain through the Universal Order, I could show them how to develop the notion.”
“That’s something you’re going to have to work out yourself. Just because you sit atop the hierarchy, it doesn’t mean you should gloat about it to others.”
“You sound like—”
“Dersji?”
“Yes.”
“That’s because he was one to complain about the system but sit atop it and never question it. I always thought you would find a way to change it without being amongst it …” Somewhere in his heart, Darayan felt Kaianan slipping away from him; he wanted to stop thinking about it. “Anyway, are you feeling better?”
“Now that you’ve questioned my motives and identified ways I can be better, sure.”
He frowned.
“Just something my preform friend taught me.”
“Oh yeah?”
“An uncomplicated lesson, sometimes it’s the people who question your motives and push you to see more, learn more, they are the ones who deserve to be around you … come on, let’s get back so I can face the music. Aachi!” she called.
“Your new friend?”
“He just keeps hanging around.”
“Can’t blame him, can you?”
Kaianan hoisted her arm up and around Darayan and spent a few moments really staring at him. Aachi joyfully calling his name all the while they walked.
“You remind me so much of someone,” she said.
“You have no idea how much you remind me of home. I’ve never missed Rivalex more. My mother …” Darayan choked on the words, his hand was in pocket, caressing his mother’s stone, begging those memories of his trauma and torment to just fade away.
Then Kaianan hugged him and he let go of the pendant. Left it cold in his pocket and embraced his friend in front of him.
“She’ll always love you, Darayan. I’m sure she’s looking down on you now, as she always has been.”
He bit back the sobs. Kaianan was a warrior enough to give him space and not to stare.
“I don’t know if I ever told you,” Darayan continued, after composing himself, “my father, he was of preform origin, a Homo sapiens.”
A weight had been lifted off his shoulders. The burden of knowing he was of a lesser species; a less evolved species, was no longer trapped inside him. Exposed to Kaianan, all the confusion and fear simply faded.
“I felt I needed to tell you for some reason, Ka.”
“I’ve seen and lived with preforms, Darayan,” she said as they returned to the village, “they are of the
most compassionate and beautiful people in this universe and you should be extremely proud of your heritage.”
“I am,” he said admiringly. “I guess now I am.”
“Get some sleep,” she said staring further in the distance, Darayan noticed Archibel was watching them, and so was someone else. “And tell Arch I’ll see her in the morning.”
Darayan headed straight for her, feeling like a little child running home. Only it wasn’t a place, it was a person. A person who, despite being messy in her night robes, seemed more like a deity than real. It was a picture Darayan wanted to keep forever: her red hair and bronze skin shining in the moonlight, standing out the front of her quarters, looking so calm.
“Hi,” she said in her angelic voice as he reached her.
“Hi,” he said back, somehow more nervous then he’d ever been.
“You guys all okay? Kaianan is—”
“Great,” he gulped, trying to get air into his lungs. “Kaianan is simply great. It’s just so good to see her and be around her again.”
Archibel’s defeated smile calmed him.
“Are you okay?” he said inquisitively.
Her eyes scanned him and all the while the grin never left her face as she softly said: “Will you ever just admit to her the way you feel?”
“What are you talking about, Arch?”
“Nothing, I’m tired. I’m sorry to question you,” she walked to her door. Darayan knew this was going to be a moment when she went back inside her shell; when something bothered her Archibel knew best how to restrain her emotions and escape. But with the way Darayan’s heart raced around her and his inability to open up in general, he wasn’t willing to tell her yet how he felt.
“I’m your friend,” he said—anything to keep her from leaving, “Kaianan is your friend, we are all friends.”
Her body slowly turned, those eyes pierced him in hope, “And I’ve never been more thankful Darayan.”
“Tell me what’s bothering you, then? Is it my relationship with Kaianan?”
Dropping her chin, Archibel sighed and shrugged.
“I may have needed her, to tell her my truth,” he said; he wanted to find a way to be honest with her so that he could start to open up about the way he felt. “My father was a preform and it was something I could share with her, since she’s also finding out information about her family.”
There was no outburst of emotion from her. But gradually her face rose, and the only sign she’d been affected by his words were her wet cheeks in the moonlight. “I understand, and I’m so glad you have each other,” she said casually opening the door and closing it behind her; completely shutting him out.
A loud exhale had Darayan’s brain in a jam.
“There won’t be any Harpies left to help if the Defeated King gets here first!” Darayan heard Kaianan’s voice in his periphery. He went in search of who she was arguing with now.
“It doesn’t take him one second to develop that kind of army …” Arlise was returning fire with fire, “and think this through, we have to win the small battles first, so we can win the war.”
“You should have discussed this with me.”
“Aachi!” The Dartanyan wailed pulling on Kaianan’s leg in upset.
“When?” Arlise said sarcastically. “Before you set your aura alight or when we were smack-bang in the middle of thousands of Harpies—Harpies who need our help—or when you decided to speak to the Rivalex Conductor without informing me?”
Darayan could see Kaianan’s fury in her every movement, and when their voices lowered in volume, Darayan couldn’t hear what was said. A part of him wished Archibel was as emotive and aggressive in her communication. Kaianan never had a problem with screaming and shouting and being heard, while Archibel just kept everything to herself. But then, he wasn’t the sharing type either.
When Kaianan abruptly departed with Aachi, leaving Arlise to also turn away and leave, Darayan sensed, that in the heat of the moment, perhaps some things are better left unsaid.
Chapter Thirty: Another Perspective, Same Farewell
A sleepless night awoke him. Sweat ran the rim of his forehead and soaked his neck and mesh pillow. More nightmares, less understanding of them, and more pain in his heart than Darayan had ever experienced had him panting in terror and exhaustion. On top of that, Archibel wasn’t there to comfort him. Throwing his body out of bed, he patted himself down with the bucket of water supplied in the small wet area of the room and dressed (the Harpies had supplied him with slacks and tunic after he’d asked not to wear a skirt). There was so much filling his brain as he exited his quarters, but when he noticed Arlise, the elusive Felrin, pacing the gravel walkways and heading into the shrubbery, his curiosity got the better of him.
“Getting some much-needed space?” Darayan found the Felrin by the waterhole, staring at the small waterfall running over the rocks. The dawn break rising slowly in the sky.
“It seems that is impossible in this place.”
“Well,” Darayan looped himself on a large rock and dangled his legs over it. “When you live for others, you make it easier for them to find you,” he said it more to himself.
“Who says I do that?”
“I see the way you look at her.”
Arlise turned toward him. “I see the way you look at her.”
“She’s my friend,” Darayan said. “Not someone I think of that way.” But then he wasn’t sure if Arlise meant Kaianan or Archibel when he said it.
“Why are you here?” Arlise said flatly. “Something to warn me about, Gorgon?”
A thousand things ran through Darayan’s brain, and one of those things was why indeed he was here. To make friends with the Felrin? For the sake of niceties?
“I will kill you if you hurt her.”
“Ah, the ultimatum surfaces,” Arlise’s face widened in a smile. “Why don’t you just come right out and say it?”
“You might be a very powerful individual, Felrin … a Shiek and maybe more, but I am not scared of you nor death. Kaianan is a friend and she is not to be toyed with.”
“You’re upset I humiliated her? She can’t pick her own battles?”
“I’m upset because you lie to her about how you feel.”
Darayan could see the Felrin go rigid.
Arlise sniffed. “You’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Of course I do, it takes one to know one.”
“What? Just because you’re in love with that redhead does not mean—”
A pain stung Darayan’s heart. He had to defend himself from these attacks, Arlise was no different to him. “It means exactly that, and despite Kaianan being a stubborn mewl at times, she deserves to know.”
“She has too much power in her fingers than she knows what to do with. She takes in no information at all. She’s not ready for honest truths, I’m sure you’re witness to that?”
That was partially right. Darayan had seen some arrogance and superiority in Kaianan he didn’t like, but he was sure that had only developed recently. “It’s situational; right now, she is dealing with change—”
“So are we all, Gorgon,” Arlise said. “But I don’t see you having a cry or whinge about it.”
“You’ve got to give her a break; with everything she has told me, I mean her parents died, and in front of her—”
“I understand you have her back—I do too—but we can’t keep treating her like she is the only one with an opinion. If the Aquamorphs are coming, as Owen said then we must stay for a little longer, especially for the sake of the Conductors who have had our backs from day one.”
Darayan could see exactly what Arlise was saying. The damn Felrin was wise; he hated it.
“Archibel is someone of importance?” Arlise questioned.
To Darayan, yes, but to her people, someone more? “She says no.”
“Hmm, I guess we all find ways to hide parts of us away, and when we are ready, we will share with the rest of the world.”
> “Or maybe we never share them at all.”
Arlise pondered for a minute. “You wanted a statement that I care about Kaianan, and that I will look after her … consider this it.”
“She’s never had better friends.”
“No, she always has.”
Darayan smiled and lifted himself up.
“I will walk alongside you Darayan, if that’s what it comes to,” Arlise said staring after him.
“I sense that; you’ve no allegiance to your own kind?”
“My kind?” he laughed, “every living, breathing thing is my kind.”
Darayan nodded. “If I was half as lucky to have the heritage you do—”
“Don’t,” the Felrin said heatedly, “don’t say that.”
“Sorry, I—”
Arlise was up and moving with so much agility it was hard for Darayan to catch him with his eyes.
“Where you going?” Darayan called out. But all that was left behind was a smokescreen of silver aura. “Dammit.”
Returning to the village, Darayan spotted Xandou down an adjacent gravel path. Possibly looking for Kaianan. Was he ever going to quit?
But the air suddenly shifted. Darayan could smell something downstream.
“You’ve got to be joking—”
Heart pumping, Darayan ran in the direction the screams came from.
Just as quickly, they dissipated. The obvious influx of hundreds of Aquamorphs from the north had him cursing. How could he miss this? And where were Archibel and Kaianan? Eating? Washing? Safe?
By the time Darayan had summoned his aura and set his pace toward the amphitheatre he knew something was greatly wrong.
The Harpies were caught off-guard somehow. Rounded up like animals.
Darayan witnessed two blades tumble upward in the air. The huge harpy, Daramid was screeching at a blue Aquamorph.
“Tut tut, Daramid,” the Aquamorph said “you obviously didn’t heed the warning of our arrival?”
The harpy was much too strong for the Aquamorph, but with no aura use of his own, Daramid could not stop the aura beams coming at him from several dozen Aquamorphs. They must have seized the Siliou before the Harpies could collaborate into position.
