A Call for Brighter Days: Aeriel Trilogy #2
Chapter 28

Overwhelmed with nausea and exhaustion, Shwaan felt himself being dragged off the truck and into a vast, if ruined castle with crumbling towers and scarred walls.

It had been centuries since he’d last set foot in this place, but even in his debilitated state, he recognized it immediately.

Reivaa’s castle.

Her stronghold during Tauheen’s reign, during the years of the Rebellion.

How Janak Nath had managed to get his hands on it was a question Shwaan was too disoriented to currently ponder.

The room he was thrown into – after much shouting and squabbling among his guards – was dark and dank, with moss-covered walls.

Sharp, sif-lined wires dug into his skin, making it hard to move. The damned necklace Janak had slid around his throat at the mines remained in place, suffocating him and draining him of energy.

His wings were twisted at an awkward angle and bound with the same rigid, sif-lined wires that restrained his arms and legs. He was too tired even to draw them in, to obscure them from human eyes. If he’d had the energy to care, this would’ve made him feel vulnerable, exposed. But for now, it was all he could do to keep himself awake and aware of his surroundings.

The aged, metal-framed doors creaked open, letting in a sliver of light from the hallway beyond. A tall, slender silhouette stepped into the cell, before pushing the doors shut with more force than necessary.

“I’ve seen you looking better.”

Despite his clouded vision and the dull ringing in his ears, Shwaan smiled, forcing himself to look up at the newcomer. He’d recognize that voice anywhere.

“Kaheen.” Wistfulness colored his tone. “I’d return the compliment, but I’m afraid I can’t see very well.”

She moved closer, her steps hesitant, careful not to come into contact with the sif enveloping Shwaan. “I won’t hold it against you. I may forgive you nothing else, but this…” She shrugged, her expression blank. “This suffering is long overdue. I won’t begrudge you your penance.”

He glanced down at the wires cutting into his flesh. “Is that what you think this is?”

“It’s less than you deserve. But it’ll have to do, for now. Janak wants you alive, at least for a little while. I’m sure he’ll get tired of you soon enough. He usually does. And then,” she smiled, feral. “You’ll be all mine.”

“Would this be where I’m supposed to blush?”

She laughed, taking a step back. “You haven’t changed. I don’t know why I expected you would have. It probably never even mattered to you, what you did to me. Probably never occurred to you to wonder what happened, where I was.

“All these years – centuries – I’d been building up conspiracies, excuses… Anything to make sense of what you did, why you did it.” She sighed. “But I was wasting my time, wasn’t I? Fooling myself into thinking there was a reason why you betrayed me, abandoned me. You didn’t hate me, did you Shwaan?” Her voice shook. “You just didn’t care.”

Guilt and regret gnawing at his gut, Shwaan closed his eyes. “You have no reason to believe me. And at this point, it wouldn’t matter if you did. After all, what difference do intentions make when my actions have caused you so much pain for so long?

“But,” he blinked, rested his head against the wall to be able to hold her gaze. After all these years, he owed her that much. “Not a single hour of a single day went by when I didn’t think about it, Kaheen. About you, and about Maya, and about what I did to the both of you. I did care. I just–”

“Just not enough to come back for us. Just not enough to actually do anything about it. Is that it? Is that your excuse?”

He shook his head, then sagged against the wall, exhausted from the effort. “No. It’s just that, to this day, I don’t know if I’d choose differently, if I could do it all over again. If I could live that day one more time, knowing what I do now,” he exhaled softly, fighting through the haze of fatigue. “I love you, Kaheen. I always did. But I don’t know if I could ever choose you over the world.”

She sneered. “Is that what you tell yourself? That you betrayed me, betrayed Maya – left us to rot here on earth and shut the gates of Vaan behind you – to save the ‘world’? Which world would that be, Shwaan? This one; or the one your sister stole from us?”

“Both of them. Reivaa would’ve massacred humans and Aeriels alike to get you back, had we taken you with us. And you know as well as I do why Safaa couldn’t allow Reivaa entry into Vaan. She’d have brought the war with her. And that was the point of the retreat, that’s what we were fleeing.”

“So fear and cowardice – those are your excuses?” Kaheen asked. “You called me a friend, a sister. Promised Maya you’d always protect me. And then abandoned me on earth, left me to be tormented and used by my mother, because you were too much of a coward to fight for me?”

“Yes.” Shwaan swallowed, his throat parched and aching. “Yes, I was a coward. I was scared of making a mistake, of causing more death and suffering. My mother had destroyed one of our homes; I didn’t want to be the one responsible for destroying the other. I–” he bit his lip, forcing himself to say the words, to express the doubts and fears he’d refused to acknowledge for six hundred years. “At the time, it seemed like the right thing to do. The only thing to do. I couldn’t disobey Safaa and choose my friend over the thousands of humans and Aeriels who’d be imperiled if Reivaa attacked Vaan. And to this day, I don’t know if my cowardice damned you, or saved us all.”

“We promised her we’d take care of each other.” Kaheen’s voice hitched, a faraway look in her eyes. “That we’d stay together no matter what. It didn’t matter if they hated us – the humans, the vankrai, our own mothers. Maya always said that as long as we had each other, it’d be alright. And then you were gone–”

“And there hasn’t been a day – in the last six hundred years – when I didn’t wish I could be stronger, braver, more selfless. That I could be what you’d needed, all those years ago. But I wasn’t, and I’m still not. I never had the courage to seek you out, to confront you and apologize. I’d hoped that you survived the war. That somehow, you and Maya made it out–”

“My mother killed her,” Kaheen snarled. “She killed Maya. But before she did, she made me–” her voice broke and she fell to her knees. “She made me kill, maim, and torture her enemies. Told me she’d kill Maya if I didn’t obey her.

“She hurt her, in front of my eyes, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. I-I did everything she said. I killed humans and Aeriels and vankrai; I’d have done anything for Maya. All I wanted was for her to be alive, for her to be safe.

“I kept waiting for you, Shwaan. I kept waiting for you to come back and save us. To take us home to Vaan. But you never came. And Maya died. Reivaa killed her, because I wouldn’t – I couldn’t…” She rose to her feet, her eyes cold. “It wasn’t enough. Nothing I did would ever have been enough. Maya was dead the day you locked us out of Vaan, although she kept breathing for a few months still. And don’t you dare pretend you didn’t know that. Don’t you dare pretend you didn’t know what you were condemning us to, when you left. Because I won’t believe you.”