Enoria is preparing for war with Irithara, and the team sans Kaleth are doing the best they can to put a stop to it before it progresses even further.
Their plan? Find Mereria, get her help with killing Relioth, and save Kaleth in the process. They...
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To say that Rayni was furious would be an understatement. She'd gone with Mel on this mission to protect him, and even then, he ended up getting kidnapped somehow. She wasn't even sure who she was angry with more—the people who'd attacked them, or herself.
The attackers didn't even bother fighting her once Mel was too weak to get up. Rayni just got hit in her temple with the butt of a gun, and before she could get back up again, the attackers and Mel were gone.
She should have seen it coming, she berated herself as she got into the car. Since she'd been pretty much unconscious during the take-off, she had no idea where those people were taking Mel, but since it had clearly been a trap, someone inside Aren must have been responsible for leading them into it.
So the best lead she had was asking Mereria where she'd gotten her intel.
The car ride stretched infinitely. Never before had Rayni hated the autopilot this much. She usually could let out some of her anger through flying aggressively, but the autopilot had no such setting, and even if it did, it most likely wouldn't help her.
As soon as she got back to the island, she jumped out of the car and tried to reach Mereria through telepathy. Rayni could quite easily find the other Eternal—Mereria was the most powerful being around here—but when Rayni actually tried talking to her, she only hit some sort of a mental wall.
Gritting her teeth, Rayni suffered through the elevator ride down and pretty much ran towards the building she could feel Mereria was in. Somehow Rayni could easily pinpoint where the Eternal was, which was really handy right now, but it was still weird. Rayni was glad there were so few people around because otherwise, she wasn't sure she'd be able to handle being aware of so many minds at once.
As Rayni got close to where Mereria was, she noticed that besides her there were also Nef, Alor, and their mother. Rayni wasn't sure how she'd missed that, maybe Mereria just overshadowed everyone around her.
"No, please, they don't know the rules. Punish me instead," Rayni heard Orina say, sounding uncharacteristically emotional. Usually, Rayni would have wondered what was going on, but right now, she didn't give a damn. Mel was in danger, and that was the priority.
"They knew this one," Mereria replied coldly as Rayni finally reached them. "And you can't protect them from the consequences, Orina."
Orina seemed to want to continue arguing, but Rayni didn't care. "Everyone, shut the hell up!"
Surprisingly, they did. Then again, she might have sounded much angrier than usual.
"Who told you where that former Umbra was?" Rayni asked, focusing solely on Mereria and pointing her index finger at her. Mereria didn't answer, and instead she walked towards Rayni with a concerned expression. And then she reached out to touch her temple.
Rayni immediately jerked her head away, glaring. It seemed Mereria wasn't going to give up, despite what she'd said.
"Who hurt you?" Mereria asked darkly. Rayni frowned, wondering how Mereria had figured that out. She touched her temple and only then realized that there was dried blood where she'd been hit. Rayni hadn't thought it had torn her skin, and later she'd been too angry to notice.
