Chapter 19

Slow.That was my first impression of Caeda, because it was almost an hour that we had been sitting here now.

The soldiers still stood. Iliantha, Amara, and Luci stood with them. The rest of us—me, Graham, Warren, Ezra, Jake, Ramona, Laila, Jeremy, Connor, and Naomi—sat. The Fae were the first to settle in on the ground. The rest of us followed. Even Jeremy's massive winged wolves sat with us.

We sat, and we waited.

Although the topsoil was moist, the ground below must have been frozen for it to be so goddamned cold beneath my ass. It only got colder as the night dragged on. Graham had tried to start a fire when someone atop the city wall flashed the spotlight on him, shouting, "Don't fuck up our soil."

"I'll grow it back?—"

"Don't fuck up our soil."

So he didn't fuck up the soil.

I would've loved to cuddle with all of my guys for warmth, but two of them were just as cold as the wind around us. Instead, I curled up against Graham and used his cloak as a blanket. Obviously, I had my cloak, but he was warmer. Jake must've agreed, because he was cuddled up against his other side.

It was the strangest thing, really. Because the bond allowed us to use one another's powers, I expected my body temperature to match his. That usually fell anywhere between one hundred and hundred and ten. But nope. I remained a steady 97.8, aside from when I used his flames. Even then, within minutes my body would return to its normal temperature.

Ezra marveled over that. It was a scientific mystery he couldn't wrap his head around. Neither could I. But I also couldn't fathom how we were able to ignite fire with our fingers on a scientific level. For me, some questions were better left unanswered.

Laila tossed a twig at Iliantha. Iliantha furrowed her brows and dusted the spot on her blue gown where the bark had hit. "Do you need something?"

"Is she always like this?"

"I'm assuming you're talking about Caeda?" Iliantha asked. Laila nodded. "Late?" Another nod. "Usually, yes."

Amidst resounding groans, Naomi voiced the question everyone was waiting for. "Think she'll leave us out here all night?"

Iliantha tilted her head slightly, opened her mouth, then snapped it shut. It took a moment for her to say, "I do hope not."

"Huh," Laila muttered. "No way for any of us to see in there, huh? Get an idea of if she's out of bed yet?"

"Not that I know of, no," Connor said. "If we had a good enough Witch, they could probably break through the barrier at least to see something, but I don't think anyone here is strong enough."

"Excuse me." Luci gave him a look. "I did create an entire dimension, in case you forgot."

"Guess I'm chopped liver too," I said.

"In fairness…" Naomi looked me over, then shrugged.

I flipped her off.

"Well?" Connor said to Luci. "Can you?"

"No." Luci crossed his arms against his chest. "It's Elvan magic. Not my specialty."

"Thanks for proving my point," Connor said.

"Don't be rude." Luci gave him that same look again. "I could criticize the fact that you, a Fae with Elvan ancestry, should be more familiar with this magic that I am, but I have not."

Laying on the ground a few strides away, using Jeremy's massive winged wolf as a pillow, Connor snatched a pebble off the soil. He flicked it in Luci's direction. "Ah, but you just did, esiasch."

"Only because you were mean first."

"Fight nice, kids," Naomi said, squinting up at the dome. "If I'd known it was going to take this long, I would've already taken my husband into the woods for a quickie."

"No way." Grinning, Laila elbowed her in the ribs. "I was just thinking the same thing."

"So that's all we are, huh?" Jeremy asked.

Smirking, Connor said, "Just pieces of meat to you."

"Oh, sweetie, you're more than that." Naomi playfully tapped Connor's thigh. "You are our pieces of meat."

"Do you really need us for this?" Warren asked. "The four of us. We can be done in five minutes."

"I resent that," Graham said. "I need at least ten."

"That's all it takes for you," I said, turning to Warren. "Just the mention of sex, and you're ready to rumble."

"I can think of two times in my adult life when I have ever not been ready to rumble." Warren paused. "I can't decide if I like that phrase. Ready to rumble."

Scrunching up his nose, Ezra shook his head. "I do not."

"And you guys say that I'm so immature," Jake said under his breath.

"Making dumb sex jokes is ninety-nine percent of adulthood," Laila defended. "And taxes."

"Fuck taxes," Warren said.

"Oh, are you catching on to my commie ways now?" Jeremy asked. "I bet you money, in a few years, you'll be rooting for universal basic income right along with me."

"I told you, I have no issue with welfare programs," Warren said. "I just don't believe in communism. Shoot me."

"But why?" Jeremy asked, sitting forward. "Why are you against it? Because of the CIA propaganda? Is that it?"

"Maybe." Warren gestured to Connor and Naomi. "They've been brainwashing me for decades."

"Don't look at us," Connor said. "We're just working within the system until we can break it."

"What the hell does that mean?" Right along with Jeremy, I was sitting up straight. "Do you have plans for world domination? Overthrowing the government?"

"Why do you ask?" Naomi asked. "You want to join us?"

"I can't tell if you're being serious or not."

"Alright," Laila said. "I'm too fucking tired to hear you two bitch about politics."

"Coming from the goddess of political power, that's saying something," Graham said.

"No, I want to know." Propping his elbows on his knees, Jeremy leaned in. "What's your problem with communism?"

"People," Warren said. "People are greedy."

"Coming from the multimillionaire," Jeremy said.

"The multimillionaire who donates thousands of dollars every year to hundreds of organizations," Warren said. "And this is why we can't talk about politics. Because you use every single thing that comes up as a personal attack."

"I'm still stuck on the world domination thing," I said.

Naomi only laughed.

"Fine. I'm sorry," Jeremy said. "I won't attack you personally. What does greed have to do with it? Because in communism, everyone has access to the same amount of resources."

"And who distributes that?" Warren said. "In every communist country I've ever seen, there are a handful of people at the top, and they hoard all the wealth. Just like there are a handful at the top of capitalist countries who hoard the wealth from everyone beneath them."

"But that's just it." Jeremy wagged his finger at Warren. "You've never seen a truly communist country. Countries that call themselves communist now are closer to dictatorships. True communism exists without a government."

"And then what?" Warren said. "You know how many horrible people there are out there? If we have no governing entities controlling us, what does society come to?"

"What does the government do now aside from control us?" Jeremy narrowed his eyes. "How many people have you had to kill because the government didn't fucking arrest them after they raped or murdered someone?"

"No law enforcement can be perfect, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't exist."

"Sorry, baby, but I'm with Warren on that one," Laila said.

"That's funny, because I can clearly remember several occasions where you screamed ‘fuck the pigs' as we drove past cops," Jeremy said.

She shook her head. "We've had this conversation before. The way things were back home, that's what I would like to see Earth look like. Like it did before we died. I'm with Connor and Naomi that we need to burn it down and rebuild it, but that isn't to say that there shouldn't be some type of governing entity built in the ashes. The modern definition of the government, especially cops, yeah. We need to dismantle it all. But there has to be some type of authority thereafter. Whether it's a jury of peers, or elected officials, there has to be something."

"All we had was an army back home," Jeremy said. "And that was plenty."

"That's when we lived in a world of Fae who never had a religion or lived under capitalism." Connor shook his head. "Not a world where people have been indoctrinated into patriarchal bullshit for eons. There has to be something outside of the army to protect people from each other."

"Not if countries aren't fighting with each other over dumb shit like religion and land and oil. Then the army isn't wasted and can actually serve the people by protecting them from each other," Jeremy said.

"Yeah, sorry man," Naomi said. "But you're thinking about a perfect world. Just because that worked once doesn't mean it'd work on Earth. You should remember this from experience. Morduaine worked with just an army. Matriaza didn't. Don't you remember the hell it was when you and Véa took over?"

"That's my point," Laila said. "Communism is great in theory. On a realistic level, I'm more of a socialist. Which I think you would be too, if you hadn't lived through the cold war, Warren. You hear socialism and think dictatorship. Even though we agree on a moral level, that buzz word makes you cringe."

Squinting over them, listening to them bicker and bicker some more, I cocked my head to the side. This conversation didn't seem too hypothetical. It seemed like they were genuinely discussing what type of government Earth should have one day.

"You guys are serious," I said, looking between them. "You're going to overthrow the government."

"No," all four of them said in unison.

Convincing.

"But we were gone for a long time," Laila said.

"And no, we're not happy with the way the world looks now," Jeremy said.

"We're going to live forever," Connor said.

"And we plan to do so on a better world than the one you call home." Naomi leaned against the winged wolf behind her. "Over time, we'll fix as much of the broken shit as we can."

Her eyes were sincere, her voice no different. The same went for the others.

But I wasn't sure I believed them.

They didn't talk about these things philosophically the way most discussed politics. They talked about it as if they knew. Knew what was wrong, knew what was right, and knew how to fix it all.

It was their plan. Whether they would admit it or not, they planned to abolish the systems back home and rebuild them from scratch. And why wouldn't they?

I still wasn't sure I understood most of their story, but I knew that this was their world. They built it. They created the souls that lived upon it. And I didn't know much about how the world looked five thousand years ago when they were in power, but I knew from what I read in the Fae holy books that their systems had worked.

So who was I to object?

What would they do if I did?

That was a silly question. Laila made it clear that, when I disagreed with her, she'd like me to voice it.

The real question was why. Why had she given me and Graham eternal life? Why had they invited us into that circle? Why was she granting eternity to people?

Iliantha was more than a thousand years old. Véa had given her eternity before she died. Yet, all these years later, Iliantha was still indebted to her. Even if Laila didn't act on it, or take advantage of it, the respect Iliantha gave her was clear.

Would the same be expected of us? Would we be expected to help them in whatever political endeavors they were planning? Was that why she agreed to give us eternity?

While I went through that rapid train of thought, Laila's eyes settled on me. Ever so slightly, her brows pinched together. Not in annoyance or anger, but maybe offense.

"Well, fuck me." A woman's voice, followed by a sound I could only describe as a giggle. It came from atop that wall. "How long has it been now, do gràs?" She spat that word, as though it tasted bitter on her tongue. "A decade, at least."

Caeda, I had to assume.

She was several stories off the ground, making it difficult to ascertain her features. All I could see was icy white hair atop a floor length, sky-blue gown. Even from here, though, she looked tiny. The man beside her was around her same height, but her limbs were thin. Like a ballet dancer.

Iliantha pushed past us to the front of the crowd. Folding her hands, she held them just before her hips. "About a year and a half, your Majesty." There was an edge to Iliantha's voice when she spoke the honorific, though her tone was still less disgusted than Caeda's. "We are sorry to have awoken you."

"No matter." Opening her arms out at her sides, an invisible force took hold of her. Again, I had to equate her to a ballet dancer. Her movement was incredibly graceful as she floated to the ground. Nothing like the chaos I was used to with air travel, where currents of wild wind carried you off through the atmosphere. She was being lowered as if by strings, not a hair out of place.

When she finally touched the ground, I was able to make out her face. Her features were sharp, thin body no different. The smile that tilted the edge of her pale pink lips, however, was almost maniacal. Like a mischievous child.

"And who might all of you be?" She flicked around the group, each movement a bit jarring. "Mutts, apparently." Her gaze turned to Warren and Ezra. "And leeches." Forehead scrunched, she turned back to Iliantha. "You brought mutts and leeches to my gate. Surely they aren't my gift."

"They're friends. One of those leeches is a very valuable tool in our fight against the air an tagadh. The other is a doctor from Earth. A lot of your healers could learn from him." Iliantha walked ahead of us all, then motioned over her shoulders to the elders in our group. Luci, Connor, Naomi, Laila, and Jeremy. "These are your gifts."

My face screwed up. Laila's didn't, though, so I retained my composure.

"I like that one." She pointed at Luci, but it was more of a tap of the air in his direction. "Do I get to keep them?"

"You do not," Luci said firmly.

"Aww, but we could have so much fun." The smirk she gave him was somewhere between maniacal and seductive. "I've always wanted to play with an Angel. It's fun, isn't it? To teeter around death?"

"Their knowledge, that's your gift," Iliantha said. "In exchange for your help, of course."

"Mmm, that's not a gift." Caeda wagged her finger from side to side, shaking her head. "Gifts are given freely without anything expected in return. This sounds more like a trade."

"Are you open to a trade?" Laila asked. "Knowledge for knowledge?"

"Perhaps." Looking her over, Caeda smiled wider. She pointed at Luci again. "But only if he sits beside me while we talk."