Chapter Fourteen
Reina
I spoke with Calrin over the intercom. He told me that while members of our mountain town were searching the nearby lands—searching for me—they had run into a traveling group of traveling militia. The band had offered their forces and had become part of the mountain town—bringing their guns and their war machines with them.
It was good to hear the relief in his voice, but the relief was short-lived for both of us. After ascending the massive rock, the men at the top who came to greet us all aimed their guns at Oron, causing a massive stir in our little town.
Lele and Jareth stood beside us, standing firm against the vicious verbal attacks of those who I once thought were my people.
“How could you do this?” my father yelled, throwing his hands up into the air as though I were a teenager again. “How could you bring that… that thing up here?”
“He saved me!” I argued over the campfire, stomping my foot like a petulant child, demanding to be heard. “He’s the one who brought me back!”
Oron stood next to me, silent but watchful as he stared my father down: quiet and curious.
“He’s the one who took you,” Calrin argued, sitting back in his chair, legs up, rolled cigarette in his mouth. “Don’t be fooled by them, Reina,” he said with some pain in his voice. “They’re the problem. How do you know you can trust him?”
“Why would he bring me back?” I argued.
“Look around you!” Calrin yelled, surprisingly out of character for our relationship. “Look at this tech! Our food!”
“You’ve compromised everything we’ve worked so hard to build,” Kennedy said, still a fixture in our camp I see.
“Wow. Welcome home, Reina!” I said with venom in my tone. “We’re so glad you’re alive!”
My father looked at me, pained but furious. “Of course we are… but it’s a bit of a… shock, Reina. You brought the enemy right into our safety net.”
“He’s not like the rest of them,” I spat.
“They’re all the same!” Calrin shouted.
My father stared at me. “Maybe not,” he said and quickly shot his hand up to block Calrin’s protests. “Let’s say he’s different: that his mind has been swayed by you.”
Kennedy stared at me, and we exchanged an understanding. The only way a Vithohn would be calmed, he knew, was if I had slept with him.
“I knew you were a runner,” Kennedy said, narrowing his eyes at me. I had liked him before: a schoolgirl crush. But now, the way he looked at me, I couldn’t imagine why.
Kennedy was always irritated with me: a gentle flirtation that always bordered somewhere between tense and tired.
“I didn’t run,” I spat back. “I was taken.”
Kennedy’s eyes flicked over to Oron, the unwelcomed stranger.
“And then you brought him right on home,” Calrin snapped, lifting his chin toward us.
“What do you care anyway?” I scoffed at Kennedy, grabbing Oron’s hand.
“You’re right,” Kennedy seethed: his words coming out slow and venomous. “Why should I be offended? They only attacked my base. Killed my friends. They only ruined my life. What’s it to me, Reina?”
“Oron didn’t,” I said.
“I don’t want to hear his name,” Kennedy said, looking up at Oron. “What are you… together?”
“I love him,” I said, noting how wide my father’s eyes became when he caught sight of my hand in Oron’s: at my admission.
I squeezed Oron’s hand and continued, “There’s something coming. The day we left Willow, I saw a—”
“—A Vithohn?” Kennedy said callously, like I was wasting his time. “Willow told us.”
“No. It wasn't a Vithohn. It was something else. Some other species that can shapeshift. They're coming for the Vithohn. They want to wipe them out and probably us too,” I explained desperately.
And then we heard it: the flames exploding in the distance along with a terrifying storm of footsteps. They were coming: the Vithohn.
“Hey, if they want to attack these sons of bitches, then by all means, let them come!” Kennedy yelled.
“And you, too, idiot,” Oron snipped.
“Then we fight!” Kennedy said. His eyes flicked up then, seeming just then to notice the immense sound of an impending army.
“Not with him here,” Calrin said, suddenly moved by our conversation. He pointed an arm straight at Oron.
As if on cue, my father stepped out from the crowd. He stared at Oron, a strange look overwhelming his face as he winced back, drawing his brows together as if trying to figure out some puzzle.
Then he reached his hand toward my love and shook it, eliciting gasps from the camp behind us.
“We meet again,” my father said.
Calrin looked up, just as shocked as the rest of us.
Oron inhaled a deep breath and shook my father’s hand, nodding. He turned his profile to me and grimaces. “When the Vithohn came… and overtook Bolmore, I refused to fight,” he said slowly.
My eyes went wide and still: refusing to blink.
“When Sylas forced my hand, I was sent into the battlefield, and your father there,” he continued.
“He saved me,” my father said, and suddenly those around us who knew my father well looked as if his stories were all coming together. He was spared on the field, he’d always said: told us that someone died so that he didn’t have to. But we never thought it was a Vithohn who’d saved him.
The crowds behind us suddenly looked full of hope: forgiveness readily apparent on their faces. My father was a beloved, respected man. If he deemed Oron worthy, then they would loyally follow his lead.
“I thought you were dead,” my father offered, finally releasing Oron’s hand.
“I… was cut,” he said, taking back his lie about who cute his spire as he grabbed hold of it and displayed it to my father. “Cut me off from my powers.” Oron looked at me. “That’s why they banished me.”
“Oh, Oron…” I breathed.
I felt goosebumps tingle down my spine as he finally made his admission to me. He’d saved… my father? My lips went dry and then suddenly it felt like my whole body was being filled with warm water. I was overcome with love.
It was a guilt that had stayed with him all this time. He was so worried about protecting his people, protecting me, living up to some standard that he was made to feel like he’d betrayed back during the war.
The secret he’d been hiding from me, his shame, was that he couldn’t protect his people—but he never realized that he was saving mine.
“They’re coming,” Oron said suddenly to my father, nodding at him. “Get your mech ready.”
“Will you fight with us?” my father asked and then corrected, “With me?”
Oron swallowed his emotion and gave a solemn nod. “It would be my honor.”
My love looked at me and grabbed my hand before signaling to Lele and Jareth. It was time to fight. We turned to grab our weapons, walking away from the once hostile crowd suddenly being cheered on like heroes.
“Oron,” my father called out, and we both turned to him. “Welcome home.”