Chronicles of the Kiridians
Chapter 11

For it is written in the Chronicles of the Kiridians:

What is done in the dark always replaces a place in the light.

No matter how well you think you bury them:

Secrets always replace a way of resurfacing.

I’ve never understood people that wanted to shut their minds off. I’ve always found solace in my thoughts. It’s the only place that I could ever completely be myself. For me, thinking has always been a safe place. I’ve taken pride in allowing myself to wander through it.

Right now, I just want to shut it off.

I just watched a man get killed.

I can’t get the way his eyes went lifeless right in front of me out of my mind. I can’t forget the way it sounded when he took his last breath as he whispered good luck. Worst of all, I can’t remember the way it sounded when the blast hit him in the chest, the sound of his body hitting the floor, and the way the ground rustled when he was being dragged away to be hidden behind the bush.

“This is easier said than done, but you have to let it go,” says Brodie. This is the first time that we’ve spoken since Raina called us. His LOTUS is pinging our location to Raina, and we’ve been walking for what feels like hours. When we came into the woods the sun was still up, now it’s setting. The humid air makes this hike through the forest feel as though I’m swimming.

“You’re right,” I say to him stepping over a giant tree root. “It is definitely easier said than done to forget that.” The sword begins to feel heavier in my hand as I remember what I saw in the vision and what happened to Ralph. I still don’t understand how we got to this point. We were just supposed to replace a few pairs of siblings and get them home. Now it’s turned into someone dying, a king willing to kill anyone who gets in the way of killing his kids, my parent’s house is destroyed, and this ancient warrior who tasked me with this mission is nowhere to be seen.

Why couldn’t you do this yourself, Lena?

We walk for about ten more minutes in silence. According to the GPS we are still an hours walk away from Raina and Joey. For the first time today, I reach down and take my phone out of my back pocket. I have sixty-four missed calls from my parents and one hundred and four text messages.

“Crap,” I say as I click the call back button and listen for the rings.

“Kyle! Jerry! I got her!” screams my mom. “Kara! Where are you guys?! You skipped school! You’re out late at night and we don’t know where you are. This isn’t like you! What’s going on-”

“Mom, calm down,” I say. Granted, this probably is the least appropriate thing to say in this situation, but I’m a little new to the whole rebellious child thing. I just need them to trust me and understand I wouldn’t do anything bad.

“Calm down?! Kara, you get home this very minute!”

I look at Brodie and get upset bouncing up and down. I don’t know what to do here. There’s too much to unpack and not a lot of ways to open up the suitcase to do so without everything exploding. “Look, mom,” I say. “I know this is going to be the hardest thing I’ve ever asked you to do, but I need you to trust me. Trust me that you raised me correctly. Trust me that you taught me right from wrong, and trust me that yes, this is out of character, but I have a reason for it. I won’t be able to get home until around tomorrow afternoon.”

“Kara, you tell us what is going on right now-” she begins.

“Mom, just trust me. Please. I can’t tell you right now. Soon, I’ll tell you absolutely everything, but at this moment, I cannot tell you. I’ve never asked for something like this before, but it’s important. So right now, I need you and Ms. Jerry to trust that at this moment you raised exceptionally behaved children with common sense.”

There’s dead silence on the phone. So silent that I have to check the screen to make sure the call is still active. When I see that it is I quickly pull the phone back to my ear and I hear frivolous whispers from the other end. “Wait, Joey is with you?” I hear Ms. Jerry ask over the phone. The relief in her voice gives me some peace as to how they’re reacting right now.

“Yes,” I say to them. “And he’s safe.”

“Okay, then we will see you when you’re home,” says dad. I can hear the anger building up behind his tone, but I think they already know I’m in too deep to whatever is going on. “We know you two, and we know you probably have a good reason for what is going on. I just wish you told us.”

“I’m sorry,” I say to them with a quiver in my throat.

I wanted so badly to unload everything that happened today onto my parents. I wanted to let them know that this is bigger than I thought it was going to be. I want them to know that I still need them, no matter how embarrassing that is.

But I can’t do that to Raina.

“We love you,” says my mom. “Please text us when you’re in from whatever you’re doing,”

“We will. We are almost home,” I say wincing at the lie I just told. “I love you.”

“We love you too.”

The phone clicks off and I look at Brodie. He looks amused as he turns and starts walking again. “Seriously? Lying is what you’re bad at?”

“What is with you royal children and lying?” I ask him. “Raina gave me this same lecture just the other day. I have never had to do it with my parents. We’ve been very open with each other since I was a kid.”

“I can see that,” says Brodie. “Had I tried that line with my dad or even my mom-” he stops at the word mom, and his face contorts to grief. “I...I would have gotten laughed at and forced to explain.”

“Raina hasn’t talked about your mom a lot,” I say to him. “Is it inappropriate to ask what happened?”

He pauses and looks at me with a blank expression. I’ve never understood how people can mask what they’re feeling so well. I’m an open book when it comes to that stuff. “She was actually from Earth,” says Brodie.

My jaw drops as I hear those words. How did someone from Earth get to be the Queen of Kiridia? Isn’t that like some action movie? I think we’ve seen that somewhere. “From Earth?” I ask him

“Yeah,” he says. “My father wasn’t always the way he is now. In fact, he was at one point really fun. He and his brothers used to go on yearly trips to Earth when they were young. One day my father and his brothers were at a bar, and in walked my mom. They fell in love quickly, and he brought her home on that trip.”

“That’s actually insane,” I say to him.

“Yeah, well, it wasn’t as well-received as he was hoping. Especially by my grandparents. However, she won them over. She adjusted so well according to the people. They all really loved her.” he says with a twinkle in his eye. He has a smile that’s warm and bright on his face as he thinks about her. “But earthly people have earthly illnesses,” he says. “When I was four mom had a severe form of what you guys called cancer. We never experienced it up on Kiridia, and by the time we had a chance to fight it, she was to far gone.”

We walk in silence again, and I can tell he’s putting himself back together as he walks. “So Raina was 3. Anya was 5. Edwin was 6. We saw something switch in our Dad at that time. Raina didn’t really notice, because well, that was all she knew. He also had a huge soft spot for her. She looks just like mom. The rest of us saw it though. He became cold and hard. He became obsessed with death, or better yet how to avoid it. He also hates earth now. They used to come down yearly and see my grandparents, but Dad hasn’t brought us to see them since we were all really young. I’m afraid I can’t remember to much about them.”

“That’s like really intense.”

Really intense? What the heck, Kara! You’re so bad at this!

“Yeah,” he says nodding his head. “Well, now you know. I imagine mom’s death is why he wants to get the gift of eternal life. He’s studied it ever since we were children, and now he’s finally got all the pieces for it. Well,” he says with a sly smirk. “Except for his children.”

I think I’ve been able to isolate Kirdia into a separate category before we met Brodie. Yeah, I knew of Lena, I knew of King Delmund, but something about Brodie being here makes it feel like two worlds colliding. This is an adventure and one that I’ve desperately wanted for a long time. However, I just thought this adventure would be more geared toward a trip to Italy, maybe studying abroad at an undisclosed location.

I’ll say one thing. This will make for one heck of a college essay.

We walk in a comfortable silence the remainder of the way. It doesn’t take long for Raina and Joey to be heard throughout the forest. “Joseph!” squeals Raina while laughing. “You are so funny!”

“Is my sister...flirting with the Earth boy?” asks Brodie looking at me. “Did she really fall in love while here on Earth?”

“I don’t know about in love, but the two definitely have some undisclosed relationship information,” I say happy for the brief distraction. “Raina!” I call out to her. “We are over here!”

“Kara!” she hollers back.

I hear the padding of feet on the ground, and Raina and Joey almost run into both Brodie and I when they come to the same area of the forest as us. She is glowing in the moonlight, and he looks way too happy to be someone that just ran away from a space solider who was one hundred percent set on killing us if they needed too.

“You’ll never guess how brave Joseph was!” squeals Raina. “Brandon was firing shots, and he ducked behind a tree and grabbed a rock! He hit him in the head! Kara! Joseph hit him in the head!” Joey beams with pride as the girl he likes is gushing about him.

“What about you guys?” asks Joey. “I’m assuming everything is okay? What happened?”

“So much has happened,” says Brodie. “I need to sleep, a shower, and then we can talk about it,” he says stomping ahead of us leading the way. Raina looks at me confused, and then reaches out her hand to me.

“Kara, are you okay?” she asks me.

“I think I just need some time to process it, Raina,” I say. “I’ll talk to you both about it later. I just want a bed right now,” attempting to keep the pace with Brodie. I’m way too overwhelmed to watch a love story blossom. I’d honestly rather watch paint dry at this point.

“Hey, wait up!” I say running toward him.

“Can I ask you something?” asks Brodie suddenly. I guess we are past the phases of formality we were hiding behind before.

“Uh, yeah,” I say.

“I studied Lena,” says Brodie. “Like, actually studied her, and while I’m no expert, I do know that sword has never appeared to anyone else. At least anyone else that has reported it,” he says nonchalantly. “Forgive me for asking, but how well do you know Lena?”

“We met once,” I reply confused.

“Interesting,” says Brodie. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a lot to process.”

He saunters ahead leaving me in the middle of the group walking alone. How fitting for how I’m currently feeling.