A Flight of Broken Wings, page 29
part #1 of The Aeriel Chronicles Series
“Let me go, dammit. I need to talk to him,” he hissed at Ashwin, struggling in the latter’s unrelenting grip.
“And what?” Ashwin snapped back, irritation evident in his tone. “Get fried alive by my mother? If you’re that eager to die, I promise you there are easier ways.”
“Your…mother?” Ruban whipped around just in time to see the young woman turn towards the staircase. Even if he had not recognised her face, there was no mistaking those unnaturally luminous eyes, silver flecks dancing against the black like starlight.
As they watched, Subhas slammed the front door shut and latched it from within, his movements abrupt and rather more aggressive than the task warranted. Then he too turned around, training stormy eyes on his companion. His voice, when he spoke, was brittle with suppressed fury.
“What more do you want from me, Tauheen?” he all but snarled at the young woman.
Despite the eyes, Ruban was having a hard time thinking of her as Ashwin’s mother. For one, they both looked to be about the same age – late teens to early twenties, if that. And dressed like this in human guise, she looked oddly girlish, like the thousand other young girls milling around Ibanborah in cocktail dresses and injudicious heels, weighed down by overstuffed shopping bags.
“You know exactly what I want from you,” Tauheen said. She had not raised her voice, she didn’t even look agitated, but something about her melodic timbre made Ruban feel an icy blade slash through his veins. It was the same feeling he got when listening to Safaa talk, or to a lesser extent Ashwin – perhaps because he was pretending to be human, perhaps because Ruban was so used to him by now – a vague sensation of underlying, otherworldly power. Only, in Tauheen’s case, it was somehow corrupted, twisted into something more chilling than awe-inspiring. Tauheen wasn’t shouting, but Ruban sensed repressed malice within every syllable that she uttered.
Subhas expelled a frustrated breath, turning away from her. “The Aeriel is dead, isn’t it? You killed it yourself with a single throw – an X-class at that! That proves that it works. The experiment was successful. What more do you want?”
“But it fought back!” Tauheen hissed, rounding on Subhas, her eyes flashing. “It was able to fight back. That proves the exact opposite – the experiment was an utter failure. We need more raw materials. More sif-ore. If I am to take Vaan, I don’t just need effective sifblades that kill quickly, I need infallible ones! I need weapons that give the enemy no opportunity to fight back; weapons that kill on contact. Instantaneously.” She smirked. The expression sat oddly on her face, like a stolen countenance. “Nothing less will kill my darling daughter.”
Subhas scoffed. “Well then you’ll have to find another way, won’t you? Do you think I have a sif mine in my basement? It is a precious commodity you ask for, Tauheen. More precious than my life, several times over. Do you think people haven’t noticed that I have redirected multiple consignments of enhanced sif-ores with no explanation? That these consignments are yet to reach any known treatment facilities or labs? How long do you think I can keep doing that without risking discovery? Without risking everything? Even now, my colleagues are starting to get suspicious. They’re asking questions. My hands are tied, Tauheen. I can’t get you any more of the ores than we already have.”
Subhas sank into a nearby sofa, looking exhausted. After a moment’s silence, Tauheen sidled up to him, folding herself next to his body. Her voice went soft, cajoling; so much so that Ruban had to strain his ears to hear what she was saying.
“I understand what you have done for me, my love,” she said softly, her voice like warm honey, as her lips pressed momentarily against Subhas’s exposed neck. “But you have to do this one last thing, not just for me but for us. You must.
“We must win. We must defeat her, make her pay for what she has done to us. Both of us. You cannot abandon our cause, my love. Not now. Not after we have come so far.”
Subhas snarled, rounding on Tauheen and almost throwing her lithe form off the sofa. “I have sacrificed enough for your cause, Tauheen. Enough! I have allowed my own brother to die. Have in fact led your disgusting henchwoman to his door myself. I have done things for which I can never forgive myself. And now, now I almost lost my only daughter, my Hiya, to your blighted cause! So don’t you dare tell me what I must do, you damned witch. I will not do anything that’ll put my daughter at risk. Never again, do you understand me?”
Catching herself in one graceful move before she hit the ground, Tauheen whirled, fury etched into every line of her face. Then, as soon as it had appeared, the anger dissipated, leaving behind a tranquil mask that chilled Ruban’s blood in his veins. “It was a necessary risk, and you know it,” she whispered, her tone hypnotic. “We risked everything on this, both of us. And it is not only for me that you are doing this. It is for them too. Your wife and your daughter. Or have you forgotten it? Have you forgotten your vow of revenge?
“Besides, Reivaa repaid your debt when she sacrificed her own life to protect your daughter from Safaa’s soldiers. Can you imagine what they would have done to her had they taken her? What she would have done to her? Safaa would have torn her apart, Subhas. Torn her apart and used her mangled corpse to coerce you into betraying me. If that had happened, we would have had no choice but to go to war immediately, facing almost certain defeat because you were too much of a coward to bring me what I need to kill Safaa, to bring peace to earth and Vaan once more. To make both the realms safe again and to avenge those whom we lost.
“Reivaa’s sacrifice might have protected Hiya this time, but I know my daughter. She won’t stop until she has what she wants. She will try, and then she will try again. As long as she lives, neither you nor anyone you love will ever be safe.”
From behind the latticework, Ruban could see his uncle shaking on the sofa, his face a jumble of emotions the Hunter couldn’t read. He was too far away. And in that moment, he would have given almost anything to break free of Ashwin’s hold and rush down the stairs to the entrance hall, if only to see for himself, just this once, what his uncle was thinking. What lies, what treachery had driven him to do what he had done.
Even as they watched, however, Tauheen continued to speak, her lips spilling venom in an endless cascade. “Safaa murdered your wife nine years ago for the formula, because she had access to it at SifCo. What makes you think she’d refrain from doing the same to your daughter today, for much greater gains? You do remember how Misri died, don’t you? What my daughter did to her before ending her life. How many times have I told you?” Her lips twisted in a malicious little smile even as Subhas all but whimpered, his face turned away from the Aeriel. It was a sound born of pure agony; as basic as the wail of an animal in pain.
Tauheen continued, relentless. “Or do you just not care anymore? Do you not care that the creature that murdered your wife in cold blood, that tortured her until she begged for death; the creature that would do the same to your daughter, your only child, in a heartbeat…do you not care that she is still alive? That she rules one realm and prepares to rule the other even as we speak? As you act like a coward and refuse to bring me what I need to destroy the evil that is my own child. Because if that is the case, I don’t need you anymore. I never want to see you again. If that is the case, then Reivaa died in vain. She should have let Safaa’s soldiers do with Hiya as they pleased.”
As Tauheen stopped speaking, an oppressive silence enveloped the house. Ruban was almost afraid to breathe, fearing the echoes of his breath would be heard down the stairs. Beside him, Ashwin stood stock-still, like someone had replaced him with a sculpture in his likeness.
At length, Tauheen closed her unnatural eyes, releasing a shuddering breath in a way that was so human it almost fooled Ruban for half a second. Then she turned and folded herself on the sofa like an overlarge cat, draping half her body over Subhas’s motionless form. Gently, she ran a finger down the side of his face – part soothing, part seductive. Caressing him, she spoke in a voice that was – disorientingly – the tenderness of a mother wrapped in the sultry desire of an eager lover. It made Ruban’s skin crawl with the sheer wrongness of it, like a mannequin trying to mimic human emotions and getting it all wrong, mixed up and mangled beyond recognition.
“Safaa killed your wife, Subhas. And she tried to kill your daughter. And Reivaa may have stopped her this time but she will try again. Again and again until she has succeeded. Until she has destroyed you, destroyed the whole world and brought humanity to its knees. And the only way to stop her is to wage war on Vaan. To defeat her and to kill her before she can realise her dark vision. I made you an offer after your wife died, Subhas. I gave you a choice, and you chose of your own volition, did you not? You swore to kill Safaa, to avenge your wife no matter what the cost. Will you go back on that promise now? Will you betray your family, leave your daughter at Safaa’s mercy, to do with as she pleases now that no one remains to stop her?
“Will you watch as she rips your only child to shreds, my love? As she destroys all that you care about? Or will you stand up and fight? That’s the only question you need to ask yourself. And you should ask it now.”
Ruban jerked, almost involuntarily, in Ashwin’s grip as Tauheen uttered the last few words, gave Subhas her ultimatum. At some point during her speech, Ashwin’s hold on him had slackened without him noticing. Now, his arm slipped easily out of Ashwin’s unresisting fingers. The Aeriel looked transfixed.
Ruban didn’t know when he had decided to do what he did next. He didn’t think he had – not consciously anyway. But then, his ability for logical reasoning had deserted him the moment Tauheen brought Hiya up in her venomous diatribe. Rationality had never been his strong suit when it came to those he loved, and this situation was so far beyond the realm of any logic that Ruban felt as though he was stuck in an alternate reality.
One moment he stood behind the latticework, peeking out at the entrance hall below, the next he was flying down the stairs like a man possessed, with every intention of lunging straight for Tauheen’s throat. His sifblade hung forgotten from his belt, everything he had learned at Bracken taking a backseat to the sheer, primal need for violence, for vengeance. He craved the satisfaction of feeling the Aeriel’s life snuffed out under his bare hands.
Ashwin, apparently resuscitated from his stupor, raced down after him, grabbing him from behind moments before he had reached his target. “Get off me!” he snarled, thrashing in the confines of the Aeriel’s stranglehold as he fought to get close to Tauheen. Close enough to kill. “Get off me you bastard! I’m going to kill her. I’m going to fucking end her. Make her pay for what she did to Baba, to Miki, to Aunt Misri. For what she almost did to Hiya. Dammit Ashwin, she has to die!”
“And how would that noble purpose be accomplished by your untimely demise, pray tell?” Ashwin snapped behind him.
“Ruban!” Subhas exclaimed, stumbling to his feet. He looked like the earth had burst open under him. “Ruban, what are you doing here?”
“Don’t you dare talk to me, you bastard!” Ruban roared, turning fiery eyes on his uncle, the Aeriel Queen momentarily forgotten. He felt like someone had reached into his chest and torn his heart out. It hurt, the pain almost physical in its intensity. But even more potent, more immediate than the pain was the fury, and he let it take control. “You betrayed me! You killed my father, burned my home to the ground. Almost killed me! Hell, you’d wanted to kill me, hadn’t you? That was the plan. To destroy us all. And for what? So you could sleep with some Aeriel whore? You left your own daughter to die for this wretched harlot–” at this, he turned blazing eyes on Tauheen – pure, unadulterated hatred suffusing every pore of his being. “If it hadn’t been for a random stroke of luck, Hiya would be dead now! Dead like Baba, like Aunty Misri and everyone else these foul creatures have murdered. And after all that, you have the fucking audacity to say my name, to talk to me like nothing’s changed!”
When he spoke, Subhas’s voice sounded wrecked, defeated. He looked like a man awaiting his own execution. “Ruban,” he said again, and it came out in a broken sob. “Gods, Ruban, it’s not like that. It wasn’t like that. You don’t understand. I-I don’t expect you to understand, but I was only doing what had to be done. I had no choice. Safaa needs to be defeated, needs to be killed. She killed your aunt; she was the one who tried to kill Hiya. And she will kill us all, destroy the earth if she’s not stopped. I had no choice but to do what I did,” he blanched, as if burned by his own words. “It’s unforgivable, what I have done to you. And I don’t expect you to forgive me, to understand. But it had to be done. This is bigger than you or me or any of us. It’s about the fate of the entire world.”
For a moment, Ruban just stared at Subhas, as if he was seeing him for the first time. Then his lips parted, and a broken, jagged little laugh seemed to tear itself out of his throat – a bitter, humourless thing. “You really believe that, don’t you?” he finally gasped, wiping tears from his eyes. He supposed someone who saw him now would think he had recently escaped an asylum. “You really believe all the ridiculous lies she’s been telling you. Safaa didn’t kill Aunt Misri, uncle, Reivaa did. By Tauheen’s command. She said so herself, moments before she died. Moments before we killed her to save Hiya, whom she had abducted, also at Tauheen’s command. Do you know what she said? Do you know what she said before we finally put the blade in her gut? She said that Hiya had her mother’s eyes, and that she would die screaming like her mother did, when she’d killed her and made it look like an accident. By Tauheen’s orders!”
Subhas was shaking his head, refusing to meet Ruban’s eyes. His entire body shook like a leaf in a storm, and he looked like he was about to retch his guts out. Shoulders slouched, eyes bloodshot, he looked nothing like his usual, commanding self. Ruban could almost believe this was a different man he was looking at, a stranger wearing his uncle’s face.
“No-no, that’s not how it happened. Not how it happened,” he was saying, repeating the words over and over again like a personal mantra, an anchor in a thunderstorm.
“That’s exactly how it happened,” Ruban snarled, unrelenting. Some part of him, something deep within the dark crevices of his mind, was deriving a perverse, twisted kind of pleasure from this; from seeing Subhas as broken as he felt. From being the one to break him. “You don’t have to trust me. Why would you? I am the son of the man you murdered in cold blood.
“Call Hiya, why don’t you? Call her right now and ask her what it looked like – the creature that kidnapped her from school. The creature we killed at Zikyang to rescue her. Ask her if that Aeriel had two red marks on its wings. Ask her what it called itself. Ask her what it said about her mother.
“For once in your life, stop being a bloody coward and face the truth that’s right in front of you. Call your daughter and ask her who took her. Ask her what happened at Zikyang. Ask her who tried to kill her, and who was there to fight for her life. You would trust your own child, wouldn’t you, you fucking hypocrite?”
Subhas looked as though each one of Ruban’s words was a blade piercing his body. He was still shaking his head, flinching at every word that left his nephew’s mouth. A small, distant part of Ruban, a kinder part, thought that it would perhaps be a mercy to kill him. A larger part of him revelled in his suffering, in the pain etched clearly on his broken face.
In his fury, he had almost forgotten about Tauheen, who still stood, unruffled, beside his uncle. When she spoke, her voice jerked him out of his frenzy like cold water splashed on his face, raw and disorienting.
“He’s lying, love,” she murmured, a hypnotic quality to her dulcet tones that made Ruban’s blood boil. “He’s lying, trying to turn you against me. They’re Safaa’s agents, all of them. He has betrayed you. Betrayed humanity. We have to kill him.”
For a moment, Ruban thought his uncle looked conflicted, torn. Like a rag doll pulled in too many directions at once – battered and helpless. Trembling, he turned pleading eyes on the Aeriel.
“We have to kill him, my darling,” she said, touching a gentle hand to his cheek.
Subhas snarled, “You keep your hands off him, you lying bitch!” He lunged at Tauheen, unarmed, a madman rushing to his own death. “You keep your hands off my family. I will kill you myself before you so much as lay a finger on him.”
And for a moment, despite everything, Ruban thought that he really would. Subhas’s fingers closed around Tauheen’s delicate, exposed throat and for a split second Ruban was sure – against all logic – that she would die. That he would kill her.
And then Tauheen raised one delicate, slender hand and flicked her wrist like she was swatting a fly. Subhas’s eyes widened, going almost comically round, before he went flying across the room like a broken doll thrown away by a bored child.
His body crashed against the opposite wall – more than twenty paces away – and he crumpled limply to the floor, unmoving.
As Tauheen turned her unnerving eyes on them, Ruban noticed her hands: they were aglow, long fingers enveloped in an incandescent light.
He had barely had time to shout out a warning before a shell crashed into the spot where they had been standing seconds ago. If they had leapt out of the way a moment later, they would have been a black, incinerated splotch on the white marble floor.
Instinctively, Ruban reached for his sifblade, the familiar weight in his hand an anchor in the storm. He let his body relax, the tension bleeding out of his shoulders as he dropped into a defensive stance, his movements fluid with years of practice. The Aeriel Queen’s radiant eyes followed his every move even as she recovered from the last attack. She must have already been drained for such an inconsequential effort to tire her.
