RHEN (Themrock Series Book 1)

by Charity Kelly

  “Great,” Ceceta said. “If you’re in our writing class, you must be in our other classes too.” Erfce nodded. “You’ll have to sit next to us in all our classes,” Ceceta said, happy to have a new Thestran friend.

  Erfce smiled at the idea. “I’d like that very much.”

  “Me too,” said Latsoh.

  “I’ll join you in Astronomy. That seems to be the only class I have with you,” Crystam told them.

  For the rest of the meal, everyone except for Rhen chatted about their classes. At one-point Latsoh leaned over towards Ceceta’s bowl of bloodworms. She snatched a bloodworm up with her fingers and stared at it as it wiggled about. “Is it any good?” she asked.

  Rhen stopped chewing. His eyes focused on the worm in her hand.

  Ceceta, who had been talking with Crystam, turned her head in Latsoh’s direction. “Is what any good? The bloodworms? No, they’re terrible. But we’re not allowed to eat anything else for breakfast.” As Ceceta’s eyes passed over Rhen, she noted the concern on his face and realized Latsoh was in danger. Jerking her head to the right, she shouted, ‘No!’ at the top of her lungs while lunging forward to grab the worm out of Latsoh’s hand. In her rush, she knocked Latsoh to the floor.

  The entire dining hall became quiet; everyone stared at Ceceta, who was turning a darker shade of blue as she glared at Rhen.

  “What was that all about?” Erfce asked while Latsoh got up off the floor.

  “Were you going to let her eat it?” Ceceta yelled at Rhen. “How could you? Why are you being so mean?”

  Ignoring his wife’s outburst, Rhen dropped his gaze to his bowl and reached down, lifting out another bloodworm.

  Ceceta took a few deep breaths before turning towards her friends. “It’s very, very, very important that you never, ever eat a bloodworm. Ever! Promise me. Okay?”

  “Okay…” Latsoh said. “We promise. But, why? What’s wrong with eating them?”

  Ceceta pushed the blond hair that had fallen out of her ponytail back behind her ears and sat down. Her voice sounded drained. “Bloodworms don’t leave your body after you eat them. They’re parasites, controlling parasites. These are babies.” She pointed down at the wiggling worms in her bowl. “After you eat them, they transform into their adult shape and adhere to your intestinal track.”

  “Disgusting,” Erfce said with a grimace.

  “Surpens feed their children bloodworms to make sure they’ll only ever eat meat. You see, over time, your intestines become thick with the bloodworms that you’ve eaten. They clog your throat, your stomach… everything. Bloodworms will only eat meat. They go crazy if any other form of food enters your system. If you eat meat, the bloodworms will digest it for you, giving you the nutrients. But if you try to eat anything else, they’ll kill you by thrashing about inside your body to get away from the food. I saw a woman eat a piece of fruit once and the bloodworms clogged her throat in protest, so she couldn’t breathe. She suffocated to death. Another time there was a boy who ate some candy. The bloodworms went mad, bursting out of his intestines in protest. You can imagine what that did to his body.” Ceceta shuddered at the memory.

  “But why,” Crystam asked. “Why do the Surpens do that to their children? Why do they only eat meat?”

  “It’s the Surpen way,” Ceceta said, as if the reason were obvious.

  “Can you remove the bloodworms,” Erfce asked, sounding worried.

  “We don’t think so.” Ceceta glanced at Rhen, who was rubbing the back of his head. Her anger faded and she found herself feeling sorry for him. He didn’t want to be there, but he had come for her. His head had been hurting him, and he missed his soldier friends. Ceceta reached across the table for Rhen’s hand. “We tried to find a way once, when we were younger, but it didn’t work,” she told Erfce, grasping Rhen’s fingers with hers. Rhen smiled at her in a way that said he was sorry about Latsoh. Ceceta nodded back to tell him she understood. She knew he would’ve stopped Latsoh before she had eaten the worm.

  “But why do you still eat them? Surely you don’t want to put more of them into your body,” Latsoh asked with horror.

  “We’re considered children until we turn 18,” Ceceta said, letting go of Rhen’s hand and sitting up straight. “All children are required to eat bloodworms.”

  “But elves can’t eat meat,” Latsoh said, glancing at Rhen’s pointy ears as Crystam asked, “How do Surpen’s live on a diet of meat? Don’t they need nutrients from plants? Wouldn’t meat alone make them sick?”

  Ceceta shrugged. “They just can.”

  Crystam nodded as Rhen stood up and left the dining hall without saying goodbye. Ceceta gave her new friends a hopeful smile to apologize for his rude departure. “He’s a little rough around the edges, but when you get to know him you’ll find he’s incredibly funny and good natured.”

  Lilly, who had been eating at the table beside theirs, turned around and said, “My brother? Rhen? Funny and good natured? Surely you must be speaking about someone else in my family. Charlie, for example.”

  Across the room Charlie was chugging a gallon of milk; it spilled down his face while the boys around him cheered him on. “No,” Ceceta said, glancing back at Lilly and wondering why she had decided to join in on their conversation. “Funny and charming as Charlie can be, he’s no Rhen.”

  “No,” Lilly said with a shake of her head, “he is no Rhen.” There was a weightiness to her voice that ended the discussion. As one, the group rose to go to their class. Lilly decided to accompany them part of the way. She needed to use the school’s portal to go to the Royal Palace to update her family about the bloodworms. As they left through the same door Rhen had taken earlier, they bumped into him almost at once. He was staring up at the ceiling, rubbing at the back of his head. They looked up to see what had caught his attention and found a small student wearing a Black Angel Club shirt chained to the main chandelier in the room.

  “Oh, that poor kid,” Crystam said, taking in the tiny blond-haired boy.

  “You are getting him down, aren’t you Rhen?” Ceceta asked. She wasn’t sure why he hadn’t already saved the student.

  “Do I have to,” Rhen asked. When he had first entered the room, he had thought the student was dead, but his hearing had picked up the kid’s rapid heartbeat, so he assumed the boy was too terrified to move. The mechanism that raised and lowered the chandelier had been vandalized; they couldn’t lower the student down, nor did there seem to be any ladders in the area. Rhen felt sorry for the kid. It appeared to be the same boy he had seen being bullied in the bathroom before.

  “Can you get him down?” Erfce asked. “That’s the question. You’ll have to scale the side of the wall, crawl across the ceiling holding onto the molding and shimmy down the chandelier. Assuming it can hold both of your weights and doesn’t crash to the floor, you’ll then have to chop off the chains and carry the boy back down the same way you went up. Nope. It can’t be done. We need to get the teachers to help us.”

  As if they had heard him, a group of teachers walked into the room on their way to class. When they noticed the student chained to the chandelier, they rushed to the chandelier’s lowering mechanism. Discovering it was broken, a few of the teachers ran off to find someone to help while the others tried to call out to the student.

  Ceceta smacked Rhen on his back, surprising Lilly and the others. “Move it,” she commanded.

  They expected Rhen to turn on Ceceta, but instead he asked Lilly, “Can you fly?”

  She hesitated a moment before answering. “No, I never got that power. Only Mom can fly. Can you?”

  Instead of replying to her question, Rhen moved over to the wall. He tested the molding to see if it would support his weight, then climbed up the wall with incredible speed. When he reached the ceiling, he paused again to test the ceiling’s moldings with his right hand. Satisfied that it would hold him, Rhen swung from molding to molding, hand over hand, like he had been doing it all his life, until he reached the chand
elier. Rhen lifted his knees up to use them to hold onto the molding and dropped the upper half of his body down so that he could grab the chandelier chord, which he used to pull the heavy chandelier up towards him.

  When Rhen’s tunic dropped downward, Ceceta was relieved to see he was still wearing his military shorts from his morning’s work out.

  Holding the chandelier chord with his left hand, Rhen pulled a dagger from somewhere near his leg and slashed at the boy’s chains. The force he used wielding the knife was great enough that the chains broke and crashed to the floor. Rhen moved fast, catching the boy with his knife hand before the student could fall to the ground.

  When the boy was secure, Rhen lowered the chandelier. Once it was down, he grabbed the ceiling’s moldings with his hands and in one swift movement shifted the boy onto his back, dropping his legs down. Rhen swung back across the ceiling like a monkey. Just as he reached the wall, he let go of the ceiling and dropped to the ground. As he was falling, a few of the teachers screamed out, thinking he had lost his grip, but Rhen landed on his feet as if he’d only dropped a short distance.

  Turning to face everyone, Rhen found his new ‘friends’ had their mouths open, but they weren’t speaking. He gave them a questioning look before walking over towards Ceceta, pulling the shaking kid off his back. Rhen placed the boy down on the ground and Ceceta, as well as a few of the teachers, bent over him to see if he was injured. Glancing back at his ‘friends’, Rhen laughed. “Well,” he told them, sounding amused. “If I’d known you’d shut up after seeing me climb a wall, I would’ve done it hours ago.” Rhen turned towards Ceceta, who was tugging on his sleeve.

  “His name is Tgfhi. He’s the son of the King of Tgarus,” Ceceta told Rhen. “The planet Tgarus is near Surpen, isn’t it? Don’t we own Tgarus?” she asked. Being a Surpen woman, she had never been informed on what planets and solar systems Surpen controlled.

  “Yes,” Rhen said with surprise. He grinned down at the tiny student. He couldn’t believe that one of his people was attending the Elfin University. “Tgarus is a great planet. Good strong military force. I’ve fought with your people often. Nice to meet you Tgfhi,” he told the boy, slapping him on the back. The boy stumbled forward from the force of his blow. Rhen grabbed the kid’s thin arm to steady him. “Sorry,” he said with a guilty look. “I’m used to dealing with your military.”

  Without a word the boy lunged forward to hug Rhen. Rhen stepped back, his hands in the air as the tiny child clung to his waist.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” the little boy cried. His blond hair was wet with sweat and his blue eyes looked haggard.

  “It’s over,” Rhen told him. He pulled Tgfhi off him. “Come on Ceceta, we’re late.” Rhen took her arm and together they left the room.

  “I was joking when I said he’d have to scale the wall,” Erfce said, his eyes still wide after Rhen’s rescue mission. He looked up at the ceiling again before turning towards Lilly. “Did you know he could do that?”

  Lilly’s mouth was hanging open. She closed it and shook her head. “I thought he was strong, since he’s the head of Surpen’s military… but I’ve never seen him in action. That was really… something else, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah. It was amazing! He’s so big, but he can move so fast. Can you imagine the strength he must have in his arms to do that?” Latsoh said. “Themrock! We’re going to be late for class,” she added. Grabbing Crystam and Erfce, she dragged them out of the room.

  That afternoon, when Rhen and Ceceta sat down for lunch, they discovered Tgfhi had joined them at their table. “I’m so happy you’re feeling better,” Ceceta told him. “You’re welcome to join us for every meal.”

  “Yes, please,” Tgfhi said, before adding at a rapid speed, “that would be amazing! It’s been very hard for me here. There’s a group of bigger kids who enjoy torturing us smaller ones. When they learned I could turn into water, they decided to make me their number one target. I hate it. Everywhere I go I find one of them waiting for me. I’ve missed most of my classes and I can’t go anywhere without feeling afraid. You know, it’s not my fault I’m so tiny. Tgarian men don’t grow until they turn 19. Once I reach the age of 19, my body will shoot up and my muscle mass will double in size. I’m 18 now, and I’m stuck in the body of a typical Thestran 10-year-old boy. Can you imagine anything more frustrating? Probably not. But then, if you really think about it, you can come up with some—”

  “Whoa,” Erfce said. “Slow down there Tgfhi.”

  “Sorry. I don’t mean to be this way. Normally I’m much calmer. Life at this school has been really hard.”

  “Do you have classes with any of us?” Latsoh asked.

  For once, Tgfhi was quiet. He raised his big blue eyes, his cheeks flushed, and he glanced at Crystam.

  “Of course,” Crystam said before looking down at her salad and stabbing it with her fork.

  “I’m sure Crystam would be happy to escort you to your classes,” Latsoh told Tgfhi, hiding a smile.

  “Indeed,” Crystam agreed halfheartedly.

  “And we’ll protect you in Astronomy,” Latsoh said.

  “That would be great!” Tgfhi cried. “I can’t tell you how upsetting it is to be picked on all the time by those kids. I think I’m actually older than a bunch of them, if you can believe that. I’ve complained to the Headmaster, but Professor Dewey hasn’t done a thing.” After a brief pause he said, “I know. We should form a Club. Speaking of Clubs, I see that none of you have a B.A.C. shirt. Do you want to join the Black Angel Club?”

  “That’s such a load of crap,” Rhen said.

  Tgfhi looked crestfallen. “What do you mean?” he asked in a small voice. His blue eyes seemed almost as large as Erfce’s as he waited for Rhen’s explanation.

  “The Black Angel Club?” Rhen asked with sarcasm. “What do you do? Sit around dressed like him thinking happy thoughts?” He laughed until Ceceta shoved her plate into his with a loud bang.

  “Here honey, I don’t think you’ve put enough into your mouth yet.”

  It was clear that Tgfhi was wounded by Rhen’s words. He hunched up his little shoulders and dropped his head down. Rhen had saved his life. Rhen was his Prince. Rhen was his hero. “Well,” he whispered. “We… we don’t dress like him or her. But we do sit around discussing the Angel. We try to figure out who it is and where the Angel comes from. We want to discover the truth about the Angel before anyone else does.” Tgfhi turned to Latsoh. “You were at our last meeting, weren’t you?” he asked in a tiny voice.

  Latsoh almost choked on her apple. “Um, uh, yeah, I was.”

  “Did you enjoy it?”

  Latsoh squirmed. She had enjoyed it. She’d thought it was a blast, but she was embarrassed to say so in front of Rhen. “It was okay,” she murmured, glancing away from the table.

  Tgfhi stared down at his plate, his eyes filling with tears. He was still so young looking that it was hard for them to believe he was 18. “We’d love to join your Club,” Ceceta said. She smiled as the joy returned to his baby face.

  “No, we wouldn’t,” Rhen said.

  “I’d love to join your Club,” she clarified, staring at Rhen to see if he would forbid her. “When is your next meeting?”

  “Tonight, after dinner, in the library. Can you come?”

  “I’d be delighted to come,” Ceceta told him. “And I’ll bring along a few of our friends,” she added, glancing at Latsoh.

  “Do you want to join the Movie Club?” Crystam asked her.

  “Yes,” Ceceta said. “Why not?” Rhen rolled his eyes and rose to go to class.

  “Do you want me to carry your books,” Tgfhi asked Crystam.

  “Sure Tgfhi, that’d be nice,” Crystam said tonelessly.

  Tgfhi beamed with pleasure as he struggled along behind Crystam, carrying her books as if they were a treasure.

  When they met later for dinner, it was clear to everyone that Tgfhi had a crush on Crystam. He followed her everywhere and
did whatever she did. He even went so far as to pick the same foods she was choosing on the cafeteria line. “You shouldn’t lead him along Crystam,” Latsoh whispered to her, when Tgfhi started to talk to Erfce about their astronomy class.

  “I’m not,” Crystam said. “He’s grown on me. He’s really very cute.”

  “He’s 18 Crystam,” Latsoh warned her. “He may look like a little boy, but he’s a man, and he has a man’s urges.”

  “He’s still innocent. I always wanted a little brother and he’s perfect,” Crystam said. Latsoh snorted. “Don’t worry. I’ll handle it when he grows.”

  Latsoh shook her head. No doubt about it, Tgfhi was going to have his heart broken.

  “So, what did you think of astronomy class today?” Erfce asked Rhen, trying to draw him into his and Tgfhi’s conversation. Rhen shrugged.

  “I thought it was great,” Latsoh said.

  Erfce blushed at Latsoh’s answer, causing Rhen to roll his eyes. It appeared the Prince of Ponto had a crush.

  “Our astronomy teacher is one of the best in the Universe,” Erfce told Latsoh.

  “Really?” she asked. “How do you know that?”

  “I read his biography. Did you know he’s studied and lived in over eight solar systems?”

  “Is that all?” Rhen asked.

  “What do you mean, ‘is that all’? That’s a huge number of solar systems to live in.”

  Rhen shrugged in response and turned away. He was finished with dinner and had had enough of his ‘friends’ for today. He wanted to get his wife alone for the night. Standing up, he nodded towards Ceceta. She grinned and rose to her feet. “Good night. We’ll see you tomorrow,” she told them.

  After they had left, Tgfhi said, “I think Ceceta forgot about the B.A.C. meeting tonight.” He stood up to take his tray over to the carousel. “I’m going to go tell her. I think she really wanted to attend the meeting. It’d be a shame if she missed it simply because she forgot about it.”