Empyrean Iris

Chapter 39

So what did this mean?

His smile fell a bit and he cleared his throat, "So I uh.... Back in the factory...."

"Yes?"

He reached up a hand to rub the back of his neck, "What that Drev said about how your mother should have.... Burned you at birth."

She went still but nodded her head, listening, "What about it?"

"I'm sorry you had to hear that, and I.... Well, I think he's wrong. As far as warriors go, I've seen you fight, on multiple occasions, and I, well, I... You're good"

She blinked at him in surprise before, "I thank you for the kind words, though they are mostly incorrect."

He frowned, "What do you mean?"

"Perhaps compared to those we have fought, I am a match, but to other Drev I am hopelessly outmatched."

"You beat that Drev before."

She shook her head, holding her chin high, "I beat him with surprise. It was dishonorable."

The two of them lapsed into awkward silence. Outside, the sound of traffic gave a whirring background to their awkward silence.

"Why are you really here?"

She lifted her head to look at him.

His one green eye was fixed on her, still and unmoving blinking rather slowly in the dim light from the screen. All off his general talkativeness was gone, the smile that came so easily to his face had faded away, and there was a sort of shrewd or knowing tilt to his head that made her feel as if he was looking directly into her soul, "I think your telling the truth, at least part of it, but the whole wanting to know how to defeat your own species thing just seems so.... Incomplete. I mean, why come to me when any other human would do. Why did you choose me, someone who tried to kill you at one point?"

His question pulled her to a grinding halt. Her brain sort of just stopped functioning, and she wasn't sure how she was supposed to answer that question. Should she tell him the truth? No, that wasn't an option, but he knew she wasn't telling the whole truth. It's not like she could dodge his questions.

She sat there in near panic for the longest time as their taxi scooted through traffic giving her no way to escape.

"Because..." Her voice trailed off into silence.

"Because...." He urged her on one eyebrow raised and waiting.

Chalan looked at him then paused, then opened her mouth then paused again before the words came unbidden to her lips, flowing like a torrent from her even as she begged them to stop, "Because you killed my father."

***

Chalan scrambled over the ground tripping over herself as ash whipped at her face. Great swirls of dark grey material blew through the air in clouds diffusing the light of the sun so the clouds themselves were tinted in great patches of red, orange, and yellow.

Wind whipped at the side of her head, drowning out the noise of the battle around her except for the occasional snippet of a voice or of gunfire.

She landed flat on her chest on the ground and rolled to the side.

They were coming!

Drev warriors ran past her at a full sprint there one moment only to vanish into the smoke and ash the next. She had never seen anything like it before, had never seen a Drev warrior retreat, but there they were, running for their lives spears discarded on the ground. Those that weren't willing to make a retreat fell by the wayside, their blood watering the rocks and moss underfoot.