Invincible (The Aerling Series Book 3) (20 page)

The answering pain nearly doubles me over,
but I freeze, the throbbing in my hand fading as I stare openmouthed at the
blood running down his lip. I probably wouldn’t have been so freaked out about
it if the Father wasn’t panicking like a toddler who just got stung by a bee.
Rearing and bucking against his bonds, he rages in fear.

“No! He can’t have. No! An Escort?” he
screams. I think he’ll just go on ranting forever, but his eyes suddenly snap
to me and I stumble back under the force of his fury. “Where is my son?” he
bellows. “Where is Tāwhiri? How do you have his power? An Escort! He
wouldn’t dare!”

I’m too terrified to answer, never mind
being able to actually listen to the warning bells blaring in my head right
now. I’m half a second from sprinting out of here. The only thing holding me
back is the desperate need for answers. Racing from thought to thought, I
scramble to patch a few of them together.

Me having his son’s power seems to be a
huge red flag that something’s happened to Tāwhiri. Does that affect
anything? Does it matter if he knows whether Tāwhiri died or gave it up
willingly? I have no clue. He’s also having a meltdown about me being an Escort
and having Tāwhiri’s power. Why? I can only guess it has something to do
with me being able to travel between worlds…or maybe it has something to do
with Mason?

Focusing on one thing at a time, I try to
figure out the first question. “I’m not the only person with your son’s power,”
I say slowly, testing his reaction. I get it when his bronze skin pales to a
sickly grey.

“Who?” he demands. “Who else has his
power? Another Escort? Aerling? Who?” He’s nearly shouting at the end, frantic
and scared witless.

I don’t know what I’m doing, if I should
keep this all secret or tell the truth. All I can do is wing it and cross my
fingers. “An Aerling,” I say, my voice shaking despite my best efforts to stay
calm. “
My
Aerling.”

Where he was struggling against his bonds
before, his entire body goes slack. His massive shoulders slump under the shock
of my answer, though I’m at a loss for why. The wheels of my frightened mind
turn slowly. The Father’s turn much faster as his shock gives way to anger so
hot I scramble back in fear when he lunges against his bonds. They strain and
whine under his power, but hold him captive as he rages.

“He has been planning this for years!” the
Father screams. “Planning to overthrow us since the Warden’s birth. He is your
Aerling! He must be. Tell me!”

Shaking so badly I can barely speak, I
whisper, “Yes.”

The Father howls in frustration and
unrestrained fury. “Tāwhiri was the son who fought to keep the others from
destroying us, but now even
he
has betrayed the ones who gave him life.
His other attempts were so pitiful, a single Aerling up against even just his
brother never had any hope, but now he has fallen from his purity and succumbed
to the lust for power. He claimed he never would. He claimed he would protect
us from annihilation! Now he dares to abandon those promises and seek to rule
over everyone?”

The Father’s entire body is quivering with
rage. I want to run. I want to get as far away from him as I possibly can and
never come back to this awful place…but I can’t. Terrified, I force my feet to
move, to step closer to this horrible force of fury.

“That’s not why he’s doing it,” I say. It
comes out as a whisper, but the power backing my words meets his ears and
forces him to hear me. I know by the tempered look of anger in his eyes that he
heard me, but he doesn’t respond.

Trying again to make him understand, I
say, “Tāwhiri isn’t after power. He never has been. He’s just trying to
protect his children and this world. It’s dying, Father. What you and the
Mother and Tū have done and are stilling doing is killing both worlds. Maybe
all you care about is power, but all of this will be gone if we don’t stop
what’s happening. Where will you be then? Maybe you’ll end up with all the
power there is, but what good will it do you when all you have to reign over is
two dead worlds?”

In the silence that follows my words, my
fear lessens just enough that my other senses seem to come back to life. There
is little to see through the mists, no sounds to hear, but the sensation of the
mists brushing up against my body finally reaches my mind. They don’t seem to
be simply flowing aimlessly, driven by some external force instead. I realize
when a tendril curls around my left forearm that they are moving of their own
free will. They’re trying to give me comfort and support.

It’s not me they recognize, though, it’s
Tāwhiri’s power. It’s only then that I realize this is why Tāwhiri
only had so much left to give us. The rest of his power is here, holding his
father prisoner and protecting his people. Lifting my hands, I momentarily
forget about the Father, and simply watch the mists curl around me lovingly.
They make no sound, but it feels as if they are speaking to me, begging me to
be strong and continue the work of the man who brought me here.

When I finally look back up, the Father is
staring at me with an empty-eyed expression. “Where is my son?” he asks.

I’m surprised to find true sadness in his
eyes. Cedrick mentioned that Tāwhiri came here regularly, but at the time
I assumed that was only to make sure the Father was still contained and
helpless. Now I begin to understand that wasn’t the case. Tāwhiri fought
with his brothers to keep his parents alive. He agreed that they needed to be
stopped from working the Aerlings as slaves and hoarding power, but I never saw
that his motivations came from love rather than only a moral objection. He
visited his father for the same reason.

Stepping up to the wounded man in front of
me, I kneel. “Tāwhiri is gone. He knew the worlds had little time left, so
he gave up the last of his power to us. He sacrificed himself to save the
people and worlds he loved.”

Pain etches his features, but anger washes
over it in a flash. “He was a fool! A fool to give up so much for a hopeless
cause.”

“It’s not hopeless,” I argue.

The Father’s black eyes meet mine, full of
fire and heat. “You will never convince the Mother to give up her power.”

“That’s not the only way of stopping an
Aerling god,” I say firmly. He knows the secret. Maybe the Mother was the one
who killed or defeated the other children, but he knows how she did it. He has
to know. “Your other sons, they wouldn’t have given up their power, either, but
she got it all somehow. She did something to take them out of the picture. If
she didn’t kill them like you claim, she took their power somehow.”

The Father shakes his head angrily. “It is
impossible! Tāwhiri knew this. His plans to stop his brother were all
fruitless, but they at least had hope of working. No one is powerful enough to
stop the Mother.”

Standing again, I glare down at him,
patience running low. “Then why were you so freaked out when I told you that my
Aerling and I have your son’s power? That means something, doesn’t it?”

His only answer is a frustrated growl.

“Blood has an effect on power,” I say as
my brain starts working for real this time. “That’s why Tū and
Tāwhiri were able to separate the two of you in the first place.” I look
back down at him, judging his every facial movement and twitch. Fear is plain on
his face. “I’d be willing to bet blood isn’t the only thing that allows the
power wielders to increase their abilities beyond normal. In fact, I’d wager
just about anything on the guess that an Aerling and Escort bond can do all
kinds of interesting things, especially when they’re both holding part of an
Aerling god’s power.”

The mottled red and white scattered over
his fear-tightened features is answer enough. He doesn’t dare utter a word.

“We have the power to stop her,” I say, a
mixture of terror and excitement making my skin crawl. “All we need is the way
to do it.”

“You want my help?” he scoffs. “Why would
I give you the key to destroying the Mother? What makes you think I’m any less
ruthless than her?”

Swallowing my remaining fear, I breathe in
the mists and let them calm me. I’ll only get one chance at this. It has to be
the right answer. Resisting the impulse to cross my fingers for luck, I say,
“Because you didn’t run.”

The mocking quality of the Father’s
expression softens, but he doesn’t say anything.

“When your sons confronted you both, you
stayed while she abandoned everyone and ran away to save herself. I don’t know
if you only stayed for Tāwhiri,” I admit, “but there is some small part of
you that sees your children as more than just vessels for power. For at least
him, you cared enough not to abandon everything. You allowed yourself to be
imprisoned while she destroyed her own children.”

A long moment of strained silence passes
before the Father’s lips finally part with a response. “What makes you think I
allowed myself to be imprisoned?”

“Because Tū was already trapped on
earth and Tāwhiri wouldn’t have had enough power on his own to contain you
if you fought him.” I hold my breath, waiting for him to prove me wrong, but he
only breaks eye contact with me and looks into the mists.

“We only created them because the work of
protecting and caring for the human world was too much for us on our own,” he
says, still not looking at me. “They were never meant to be our
children
,
our family. We had no need for such things. They each had an area of dominion
and duties they were to perform. It was too much work for so few, even still.
Tāwhiri asked us to create more Aerling children to aid in the work. The
Mother refused, saying it would weaken us too much. That was when the others
began plotting to destroy us.”

Feeling somewhat more secure now that he
isn’t screaming at me, I kneel back down. “But Tāwhiri didn’t want to see
either of you destroyed.”

“No,” he says. “He did not even want his
brothers to separate us. He mistakenly believed he could make us change. The
war began here, on this world, and while Tāwhiri did not help his
brothers, he did not stop them. Instead, he started creating the Aerlings you
know now.”

“On his own?” I ask in surprise.

The Father shakes his head. “With my
help.”

This conversation has been full of
surprises, but this catches me off guard more than anything. “Why? Why would
you help him?”

His eyes finally find their way back to
mine. “Because he is…
was
my son.”

“If you were helping him, why are you
here?”

Sighing, he says, “Because he was my son
and he knew me better than anyone. He knew the draw of power would be
impossible for me to resist, and he was right. I crave it, always needing more.
The more Aerling children we created, the more it weakened us. Tāwhiri
kept working selflessly, but there was only so much I could stand to give. I
tried to stop him from creating any more, but when he couldn’t take any more
from his own power, he started drawing on the world’s power to create more
children. It wasn’t just about protecting the human world. He needed an army to
protect our world from Tū and the Mother.”

“Wait, what do you mean he started drawing
on the world’s power?” I demand. “I thought there was a limit to how much power
there is.”

The Father nods slowly. “There is, but
Tāwhiri chose to risk weakening this world in order to create enough
Aerlings to defend it.”

“That sounds dangerous.”

He nods again. “Tū is not the only
one killing this world.” Sighing once more, the Father says, “Tāwhiri
believed the power would equalize once the war ended, but too much has become
trapped on Earth.” He shakes his head. “He was not the only one with this idea,
unfortunately, and now the human world is being bled dry even faster than this
world.”

“The Sentinels?” I ask.

“The Caretakers,” he corrects. “You
couldn’t have possibly expected the Mother to give up any of her own power to
create them, could you? As soon as she knows you are coming for her, she’ll
siphon as much power from the human world as she can in order to stop you from
destroying her.”

That’s what Tū meant, I realize, my
stomach sinking to my toes. He warned me that the Mother would sacrifice my
world to save hers and he was right. Looking back up at the Father, I beg,
“Please, you have to tell me how to stop her.”

Shaking his head slowly, he says, “I
cannot. Tāwhiri took the knowledge from me. That was always his greatest
talent.”

“Taking people’s memories?”

The Father shrugs. “Taking, restoring, he
knew how to influence the memory of other Aerlings. I once knew, but he did not
trust me enough to retain that knowledge.” He acts as if it’s a matter of
little consequence, but I’m really starting to panic. Before all my hope is
lost, though, he says, “You don’t need me to tell you, though, because the
Warden already knows. Tāwhiri told me about the damage the Warden did to
Tū.”

“He can’t remember.” I sound so defeated,
so lost, but I can’t help it any longer. “Mason’s memories…he can’t remember
what he did to Tū.”

Straightening as much as his bonds will
allow, the Father says, “When you inherit enough of another Aerling’s power,
you gain access to their talents as well.”