Ceceta shrugged. She had no idea. No one in her family had ever had powers.
Rhen felt defeated. “I have no idea what to do,” he confessed. He looked away from her to gain control of his emotions. With a heavy sigh, he turned back to Ceceta. Grabbing her hand, Rhen forced her to take two of his fingers. She squealed in protest. “Eat your breakfast,” he demanded.
Ceceta dropped his fingers onto the cot and put her hand up to her mouth. “I can’t, they’re your fingers,” she wailed.
Rhen laughed. He held up his left hand, with four of his fingers bent down, so they were hidden, and screamed ‘aaarrgh’, swinging his hand about to make it look like he was in pain.
“That’s not funny,” Ceceta said.
“Neither is starvation,” Rhen snapped. He grabbed her skinny shoulders. “Ceceta, they’re food. Food. We don’t get enough of that to be able to pick and choose what we eat.” At the look of horror on her face, he was hit by a wave of guilt. “I’m sorry,” he said, releasing her shoulders. He put one of his fingers into his mouth and took a bite. “Mmm,” he said, giving her an encouraging smile. “It tastes like chicken.”
Despite herself, Ceceta giggled. She knew Rhen had never eaten chicken before in his life. After a few minutes, she reached out and took one of his fingers. Closing her eyes and grimacing, she took a bite.
“Remind me, if we ever get out of here, to never eat chicken again,” she told him.
Rhen laughed and took a bite out of his second finger. “Agreed. We’ll never eat chicken again,” he promised. He didn’t add the fact that he expected them to die on Punishment Island.
After they had finished their breakfast and tossed the bones into the drain in the center of the room, the cell door opened and five men entered. They grabbed Rhen and dragged him out. Ceceta waited in the cell for the entire day. No one brought her lunch or dinner. Eventually, the door to the cell opened and the guards carried Rhen back in, dumping him on the cot. Rhen’s body was limp but his eyes were open. Other than his head having been shaved, there were no visible marks on his skin. Once the guards had released Rhen, Ceceta rushed to his side. He gazed up at her with unfocused, bloodshot eyes.
“Take her,” one of the men said, indicating Ceceta. They grabbed Ceceta and hauled her out of the room, walking down several dark passageways, up two stairways and through two rooms, until they arrived at a dirty, white, metal door, where they paused for one of the men to knock.
“Enter,” someone said from inside. The soldiers obeyed, pulling Ceceta into the room. Ceceta glanced around her and panicked. They had taken her to an operating room. There was blood everywhere, on the floor, the operating table, the instruments, everywhere. An older man stood with his back to her. He removed his bloody gloves and threw them into the sink in front of him then took off his bloody apron and threw that into the sink as well. Turning towards Ceceta, he smiled. His teeth were crooked and black, his head was too large for his body and he had scars across his cheeks and neck. His eyes looked almost purple in color.
“Hello, Ceceta. It’s nice to see you again. How’s Rhen doing? Did he speak yet?” the man asked in a gentle voice. Ceceta shook her head. “Oh, well, he’s new at healing. I’m sure it won’t be long until he’s his old self again.” The man stepped closer. “What happened last night? Why does he now possess powers?”
Ceceta shook her head. “I ddd… don’t know, sir” she stammered. This man had hurt her before. He enjoyed causing her pain.
“You wouldn’t be lying to me, would you? You know from our last meeting that I don’t like it when you lie to me.” He reached out one of his cold, damp fingers to touch the blue skin of her cheek. Chills passed through Ceceta’s body and she felt like vomiting.
“No, no, sir, I’m not lying to you,” she told him. “He woke up healed. We can’t figure it out. Does he have powers now, sir?”
The man laughed. “He’s always had powers Ceceta. We’ve been working hard to wake up his powers these last few years. It looks like we’ve finally gotten their attention.” He stepped behind Ceceta and leaned over to whisper into her ear, “What other powers does he have besides his healing powers?”
Ceceta swallowed before stammering, “N… None, sir.”
“Are you sure,” he asked, his lips touched her ear in a gentle kiss.
Ceceta nodded. “Yyyes sir.”
The man walked around Ceceta surveying her. “Has he tried to do anything with his powers yet?”
“He, he, he tried to make a portal in the wall, sir, but nothing happened.”
The man laughed and clapped his hands together with delight. “He tried to escape,” he said. “That’s rich. No one can escape from Punishment Island Ceceta. Remember that my dear, no one can escape—not man, nor beast, nor even,” he paused to touch Ceceta’s face again with his long, cold finger before whispering, “God.”
Ceceta nodded. She believed him. She’d been on Punishment Island long enough to know that no one had ever escaped.
“Very well,” the man said. “Come with me, there’s something I need to show you.” The jailers grabbed Ceceta’s forearms and pulled her along behind the man. They walked through two rooms, until they arrived in a dark room that stank of decay. The man stopped and turned back to look at her. “Someone tried to rescue you. Did you know that?”
Ceceta shook her head feeling afraid. “Your family I presume?” the man said with a smile. He stepped aside while one of the jailers flipped on the room’s lights, illuminating the mass of mutilated Neptian bodies lying on the floor. Ceceta screamed in horror. Her father, her mother, her grandparents, her brothers and sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, everyone was dead. Massacred by the Surpens and left to rot on Punishment Island. Ceceta fell to the ground in defeat. Her body was numb. She wanted to cry, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t do anything but lie on the ground with her mouth open, gasping the horrid rotting air as she stared at her desecrated family. In the distance, she could hear the sound of the man laughing at her misery.
“Stop!” Ceceta screamed. “Stop!”
The Thestran Royal Family was confused. Where had that scream come from? Ceceta wasn’t screaming in her memory, yet they could hear her screaming ‘Stop’.
Again, Ceceta screamed, “Stop!”
This last scream sounded close by. There was a swirling in their minds and they found themselves back on top of the University’s hill. It was then that the Thestrans realized Ceceta had been screaming at Kate to stop.
Sobbing, Ceceta shouted, “Stop”, once more. She looked up at Kate, her face wet with tears of sadness and fury. “You said you’d only look at the woman part. How dare you continue on past her.” Feeling like she was going to be sick, Ceceta staggered to her feet and ran disjointedly towards her apartment.
Rhen returned to the University from Surpen feeling great. Neither his Dad nor Loreth had bothered him about his new powers while he had been home for the holiday. They had talked about the ongoing festival and had praised him for his decision to remain at the Thestran’s school. He wasn’t sure why they weren’t fighting with him, but he didn’t feel like thinking about it now. After he had left their company, he had joined up with his good friends Bosternd, Nk and Ngi. They had partied until Nk had passed out. Bosternd and Rhen had carried Nk back to his home, dumping him on his pregnant wife, before walking out into one of the paddocks to be with their Surpen Beasts of War. It wasn’t long after that that Bosternd had started to fall asleep. Rhen had helped Bosternd back to his bunk in the barracks and then taken his leave. Yes, he thought. It had been a perfect night.
Rhen stepped out of the University’s portal, humming a tune and holding up a small, blue vial on a silver chain. He kissed the vial and tucked it inside his tunic before pushing open the door to go outside. As soon as he opened the door, he heard Ceceta yelling ‘Stop’. He hesitated in the doorway as he watched Ceceta run away from the Thestran Royal Family towards their apartment. All of the warmth and joy that he had been feelin
g evaporated as he watched his distressed wife running away from the Thestrans. What had they done to her? Rhen bolted from the doorway, running after his sobbing wife. “Ceceta,” he cried out, trying to get her attention to let her know he was there.
The Royal Family jumped at the sound of Rhen’s voice. They hadn’t expected him back so soon. They watched in dread as Rhen chased after Ceceta. “What’s she going to tell him?” Rachel asked the others with concern.
“That’s her problem. We need to talk about what we’ve learned,” Kate said. She rose to her feet and brushed the grass off her pants. “Let’s go home.”
Rhen’s brothers and sisters followed Kate back to their castle. They walked into one of their private conference rooms and sat down around the room’s table. “We don’t wish to be disturbed,” Kate told the castle’s staff, closing the door and locking it.
Reed put his hand on his father’s shoulder. Unlike Kate, Henry looked devastated. He sat low in his chair, with his head in his hands. “I assumed he acted like a Surpen, because he’d been living there for so long,” he told them, raising his head. Tears ran down his cheeks. “I never knew they… they were hurting my child to turn him into a Surpen. I was such a blind fool to allow this to happen, if only I’d been less greedy.”
Lilly stared at her father. It was the first time they had ever seen one of their parents express true remorse for what they had done to Rhen. His words made Kate’s silence almost unbearable.
“They tortured him,” Reed said. He couldn’t imagine someone torturing his son. The idea of it made him sick to his stomach. He would kill anyone, who tried to hurt his children. Reed clenched his hands in anger.
“Years,” Rachel said in a hushed voice. She cleared her throat. “The doctor said to Ceceta that they’d been torturing Rhen for years to get him to show his powers.”
“Oh, Themrock,” Sage whispered. Ryan pulled her into his arms.
Lilly turned away from Sage to stare at her parents. They had abandoned Rhen to men who had tortured him. What kind of people were they? She had always considered them to be perfect, but this… this was anything but perfect. This was a tragedy. Lilly considered her own happy life on Thestran. While she had been enjoying herself, worrying about simple idiotic things, like what dress to wear to a party, her little brother was being tortured and starved. Had he ever experienced a carefree day in his life?
“He should kill us,” Sage said. She glanced up at everyone with red, puffy eyes. “We deserve to die for abandoning him to such butchers. I can’t believe that he’s been nice to us over this last year. Why would he be nice to us? I wouldn’t. If you had done that to me, I would’ve killed you already.”
“This is an outrage,” James shouted, startling everyone. “How dare they treat one of our family members that way.” He slammed his hand on the table for emphasis. “To torture and starve a member of the Thestran Royal Family. It’s unthinkable. How dare they do such a thing. We should declare war on Surpen today for this atrocity. I want to kill all of them for what they’ve done.” He was shaking with rage as he hit the table repeatedly with his hand.
“Start with Aul and Narseth please,” Rachel said. “I’ll kill that doctor myself.”
James started to march about the room, screaming obscenities at Andres and kicking the furniture. His actions unnerved the rest of his family. They had never seen him lose control like this before. James’ fury came from his realization that he was, in a way, responsible for what had happened to Rhen. When Rhen had been left on Surpen, he had been the acting King of Thestran, which had made him responsible for Rhen’s safety. He should’ve checked in on his youngest brother. He should’ve made sure that Rhen was safe. He shouldn’t have left it to his parents. Guilt overwhelmed James, turning him red with frustration and anger.
When James started breaking apart a chair, Reed went to him. The two men talked for a while in the corner of the room, until Reed calmed James down enough that he could sit at the table. Once he was seated, Reed asked the room, “So, who was the elfin goddess that jumped into Rhen’s body? Do you think she’s still there?”
“Lilly, who was that woman?” James asked.
“How should I know?”
“Because you majored in Neptian History,” James retorted.
“Listen, I don’t remember ever hearing about a goddess, who visits people granting them powers. I don’t know where Ceceta got that. It sounds like a very old, local belief, definitely not one that was planet wide.”
“Have you ever seen her before Mom?” James asked Kate.
“No,” she said.
“What was that ball of light she was trying to put into Rhen?” William asked.
“His powers,” Lilly and Kate answered at the same time. That part of the memory seemed clear.
“So, she was a Power Goddess, just like Ceceta said? Does that mean she gave all of us balls of light when we were babies?” William asked.
“Maybe… who knows,” Reed said. He hesitated and looked down the table at Sage. “Actually, we’ve got pictures of a woman, who looks somewhat like that goddess, in the Ancestor Room of our castle. The pictures are of Themrock’s wife, Layla. Sage, is it possible that that could have been the same Layla?”
Sage nodded looking thoughtful. “Yes. Now that you mention it, she did look a lot like Layla, didn’t she? We have pictures of Layla in the Water Elf Castle too. Do you really think it’s the same woman? Do you think Layla is performing Themrock’s duties while he’s gone?”
“Perhaps,” Reed said. “I’d like to talk to the Supreme Elfin Priest, to see what he has to say on the subject.
“Does this mean that Rhen has a Genister living inside him? Does that make him a Genister too?” William asked.
“No, William,” Sage said. “Rhen isn’t a Genister nor does he have a Genister living inside him. It’s blasphemous to speak that way.”
“But the woman inside him can give people powers,” William said. “Doesn’t that make her a Genister?”
“He has a point, Sage,” Reed said. “We really don’t know enough about our own history to rule out that possibility. Layla could have been a Genister.”
“Does Rhen have any powers,” Rachel asked. “It seemed as if his body wasn’t accepting the powers she was giving him. Maybe he has no powers, but he uses hers?”
“That kind of makes sense,” Lilly said.
The room was silent as they thought about the ghostly, elfin woman. They had so many questions and so few answers. It was late, when they broke for the night. They needed to get some sleep before they confronted Rhen in the morning. It was time to ask him to leave Surpen once and for all. They were planning on using the information they had gathered from Ceceta’s memory to prove to Rhen that he was Thestran. The Surpen’s had brainwashed him into becoming Surpen. It was time for Rhen to face the facts. He needed to denounce Surpen.
Chapter 26
Elfin University – Student Dining Hall
“Have you seen them yet?” Lilly asked Reed. She stood up on her toes in the doorway of the student dining hall to search for Rhen and Ceceta.
“No. They cancelled both of their classes and they haven’t attended any of their lessons,” Reed told her. He pulled off his leather riding gloves. “I assume they’re still in their apartment.”
“Because of us,” Lilly mumbled, dropping her gaze to the floor. “I feel awful about last night.”
“So, do I,” Reed said, reaching out to give his sister’s shoulder a squeeze. “Let’s go meet up with the others.” Lilly nodded and the two of them headed towards the school’s portal.
As they walked down one of the school’s corridors, a classroom door opened in front of them and Latsoh stepped out into the hallway. Her red hair was tied up in a ponytail and she was carrying two notebooks in her arm. “Hey,” Reed called out. “Have you seen Rhen or Ceceta today?”
“No. Are they okay?” Latsoh asked.
“We hope so,” Lilly told her.
/> “Did you see the bandstand that Professor Orisco set up down by the lake front?” Reed asked. “Do you know what’s going on?”
“No,” Latsoh said again, while Lilly answered, “I think Mr. Orisco has organized a concert for tonight.”
“Tonight? Huh. Well, it looks nice down there,” Reed said. “He did a good job setting it up.”
“I’ll have to check it out,” Latsoh told them. She said goodbye and walked off towards the dining hall.
Tucking her notebooks under her arm, Latsoh stopped at a stairwell window to take a quick look at the bandstand that Lilly and Reed were talking about. “That thing is huge,” she murmured to herself, taking in the tennis court-sized raised wooden stage. A sound system had been installed on the left side of the stage and instruments and stools had been set up in sections for the musicians. Latsoh turned to go down the stairs to the dining hall, but paused, when she noticed black trainers sticking out from under the apple trees. “That’s where you are. Hiding in plain sight.” Latsoh smiled at the thought of Rhen and Ceceta as she walked the rest of the way to the dining hall. “Hey,” she whispered to her friends, so William and Rachel wouldn’t hear her at the adjacent table. “I found them. Come on.”
Together, they sneaked out of the dining hall, making their way down to the apple trees. “So, this is where you two have been hiding,” Erfce said while he and the others sat down on the ground around Rhen and Ceceta. “Why did you skip your classes today?”
“We were busy,” Rhen said. He had been lying on his back, but when his friends arrived, he sat up.
“So busy that you’ve decided to fall behind?” Erfce asked.
“Yup,” Rhen said.
Ceceta looked tired. They could see she’d been crying. Her eyes were red and her nose was running. Crystam put her arm around Ceceta’s shoulders and hugged her. “Are you okay?” she asked quietly. Ceceta nodded, keeping her eyes on the ground.
RHEN (Themrock Series Book 1) Page 36
