[Vankara Saga 03.0] War of Atonement

by SJ West

  “That’s not even a possibility in my mind.”

  Aurora remained silent, which was unusual for her. Did she doubt my feelings for John also?

  “Of course I don’t.” Aurora literally huffed impatiently as twin trails of smoke erupted from her tiny nostrils. “I simply want what John wants.”

  “Which is?”

  “For you to be happy with whomever you choose to love.”

  “I love John.”

  “Then fight for that love in the days to come because once Gabriel learns the truth, I believe he might try to win his wife back.”

  “But it’s been so long and so much has happened between the two of us. …”

  “Exactly, Sarah. So much has happened between the two of you since then. Why not have some patience and wait. Or do you fear time will lessen what you feel for Fallon now?”

  “No,” I said readily. “In my heart, I feel like he is the only man for me.”

  “Then give yourself and Fallon the certainty that nothing will change after you speak with Gabriel. I don’t think he’s asking much from you.”

  “All right,” I said to both Fallon and Aurora. “We can make our plans later.”

  “Thank you for understanding,” Fallon said, letting go of my hand. “Now, are you hungry?”

  “Famished,” I replied, eager to taste the fare laid out on the table.

  It took almost a day and a half for us to reach Iron City. During the voyage, the bond between Fallon and I grew as he watched me practice not blowing things up with my magic. Not only did I feel the bond between Fallon and I grow stronger, I also began to feel a closer connection to Dracen. There were times I caught him looking at me with pride, like any good father would. After a few instances of this, I noticed that I began to anticipate making him proud of my accomplishment, as any child would want from their parent. He was more relaxed and carefree with me now. The change in him was remarkable. It was almost as if he had walled up his emotions after Kira left him and only now felt comfortable enough to peek over that wall. He was reaching out a hand of friendship to me, and I readily accepted it.

  As we approached Iron City, Inara steered the airship directly towards the Royal College. From the air, the city didn’t appear much different from when we had left it. Dragons were still perched on the tallest buildings, keeping their eyes trained on the streets below them to quell any uprisings quickly. I was thankful to see that there were fewer fires blazing. Perhaps Nuala finally came to the realization that taking a city didn’t mean destroying it. If she truly wanted to be Queen of Vankara, she would need to learn how to rule without relying so heavily on brute force.

  It made me wonder exactly how she treated her own people. I could remember the one and only time I set foot inside the Fae capital. The townsfolk acted frightened, but I had a feeling it wasn’t me they were afraid of. At the time, I felt sure that it was repercussions of Nuala’s wrath they feared if they tried to speak to Fallon or me.

  None of the dragons tried to attack us as we flew in. I could only presume that they had been told to stand down when we reentered the city. Though, they did know that the airship was protected by the same magic that protected the school. Isabelle had cast her spell on it to ensure our safe departure the last time we were here.

  Even though I knew the dragons could do us no harm if they attempted an attack, I didn’t breathe easier until we were safely on the ground in the courtyard of the college.

  Fallon let down the stairs and turned to me.

  “Are you ready?” he asked, holding out a crooked arm in my direction.

  “Not really,” I replied in all honesty. “But we need to get things done quickly so we can have that little talk you promised me.”

  Fallon smiled. “I absolutely agree.”

  As Fallon and I walked down the stairs to the grassy courtyard, Dracen followed close behind us.

  “Gabriel!” I heard a man shout.

  When I looked up towards the entrance to the school, I saw Gabriel running towards us with Adam Bellas chasing after him and screaming, “Gabriel, stop!”

  It was obvious from the wild, angry look on Gabriel’s face that he was paying no mind to Adam’s plea.

  Before I knew what was happening, Gabriel ran up to Dracen, who was standing to my right, and slammed his fist so hard across Dracen’s jaw I could have sworn I heard bones break.

  As Dracen lay flat on his back on the grass, Gabriel made to jump on him to continue his attack. Thankfully, Fallon’s quick reflexes prevented that from happening as he placed himself between Gabriel and Dracen.

  “Hold on, Gabriel,” Fallon grunted, placing a restraining hand on the other man’s chest. “What’s gotten into you?”

  I knelt down beside Dracen, worried that Gabriel had permanently injured him.

  “Are you all right?” I asked him worriedly, studying his face for any signs of damage.

  Dracen lifted his left hand up to cradle his injured chin.

  “I think so,” he said weakly, as he tried to lift himself up.

  I placed a supporting hand on his back to help him in his effort to sit upright on the ground while he opened and closed his mouth as if testing its functionality.

  “Get the hell out of my way, Fallon,” Gabriel growled, trying to push past Fallon to get to Dracen, but John kept him at bay by roughly forcing him back.

  By this time, Adam Bellas, my brother, finally made it to us and stood with Fallon as they presented a united front to protect Dracen from any bodily harm Gabriel still wanted to inflict.

  “What the hell has gotten into you, Gabriel?” Fallon questioned, just as confused by Gabriel’s actions as I was.

  “That son of a bitch had it coming for what he did!” Gabriel stormed irately.

  “And how exactly,” Dracen said, regaining his feet with a little help from me, “did I offend your sensibilities all the way from Kamora?”

  “I know what you did!” Gabriel screamed accusingly, practically frothing at the mouth with anger. “I know everything about Kira!”

  I heard myself gasp at this revelation and could do nothing but stare at Gabriel for what felt like a long time. In actuality, it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds.

  “Is there nothing that you don’t fail at?” Dracen questioned Adam heatedly, singling out the only other person present who knew my secret.

  “I lost my temper with the insufferable lout and the truth just spilled out of my mouth before I knew what I was saying,” Adam said in his own defense. At least he had the decency to look ashamed of his weakness. “I was so angry, the only thing that I could think to do was tell him the truth.”

  “It wasn’t your secret to tell,” I whispered, still feeling stunned that the one thing I thought I would have control over had been taken away from me.

  My words seemed to act like a bucket of cold water on Gabriel’s anger. He stared at me in confusion and disbelief before asking, “You knew … all this time?”

  I immediately shook my head. “No. I only found out on this trip. I promise.”

  Gabriel’s breathing became steadier, and his shoulders began to relax as his full attention remained on me.

  “Then we need to talk,” he finally said in a calm voice.

  Slowly, I nodded my head.

  “Yes,” I replied. “I think we do.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  I looked towards the entrance of the Royal College and saw Isabelle standing there surrounded by a few members of parliament that I recognized. One of them was Thaddeus Irondale, Inara’s father.

  “What’s going on?” Inara asked me, her brow furrowed as she looked between Gabriel and me.

  “It’s a very long story,” I told her, realizing she would now demand an explanation that was long overdue. “Why don’t you go say hello to your father, Inara? You and I can discuss things later, if you want.”

  Inara audibly gasped at the mention of her father’s presence. She quickly whipped her head around in the direct
ion of the college and smiled brightly when she saw him standing there.

  “All right,” she said to me as she began to stride towards the college, “but I expect a full explanation when I see you again.”

  As I watched Inara walk away to reunite with her father, I wondered if her words would be some of the last civil ones she ever uttered to me. After I told her the truth about my life and all the lies we had all told her, would she ever be able to accept me as a friend again? Since the moment we met, I had basically lied to her about everything. I wouldn’t blame her in the slightest if she hated me after she learned the truth, and I hated myself for keeping things from her for so long. The timing just never seemed right, but it appeared I would need to come clean with her about my past sooner rather than later.

  By sheer willpower alone, I forced myself to turn and face Gabriel once again. His drawn expression made him look like a man who had lost his way, unable to escape the puzzle his life had suddenly become. For the most part, I pitied him for his apparent confused state, but a small portion of my soul held no sympathy for his emotional turmoil. Could I be feeling the lingering remnants of Kira’s last feelings for Gabriel? If I was, there appeared to be no affection lost on her side of their tragic love affair. Perhaps a spark of her resentment for his leaving when she needed him the most remained within me. I pushed it aside because those feelings were no longer mine. They belonged to someone who willingly relinquished her life years ago, and I would not allow them to affect the person I had become.

  “Perhaps we should go into the airship to speak privately,” I suggested to Gabriel, not wanting to take the chance that our conversation would be overhead by those inside the walls of the college.

  Gabriel nodded his head in agreement but remained mute on the subject.

  “If you need me,” Fallon said to me in a low voice, “I’ll be waiting here at the foot of the steps.”

  “Thank you,” I told him, giving him a reassuring smile that everything would be all right.

  I’m not sure if I was trying to set his mind at ease or my own. Regardless, it didn’t appear to work in either of our cases.

  I walked back up the stairs to the airship’s traveling compartment, acutely aware of Gabriel’s presence behind me every step of the way. Even though I couldn’t see him, I could feel his gaze watching my every move. As if the situation wasn’t awkward enough, this sensation made it feel doubly so. Once inside the cabin, I walked over to the area between the couch and the coffee table. I kept my back to Gabriel because the unease between us was practically suffocating. I didn’t know how to start this conversation, and luckily, I didn’t have to figure it out.

  “How much do you know?” Gabriel asked me, his voice husky with pent up emotions. “And when did you find out?”

  “All he wants is the truth, Sarah,” Aurora said to me. “Give it to him.”

  I took in a deep breath to help steady my nerves before turning around to face him. Gabriel looked even more haggard now than he did when we were outside.

  “I didn’t find out until we reached the dragon island,” I told him. “A dragon named Vincent helped me recover some of my memories from when I was Kira.”

  “What do you remember?”

  “Not much,” I admitted with a shake of my head. “I know your name was Jacob. I remember how we met. I remember the death of our daughter, and I remember you leaving Kira, and her choosing to shift into a dying child. I can’t remember anything else.”

  “And when you look at me,” Gabriel said, already looking worried about my response to his next words, “what do you feel?”

  I wasn’t sure if I should be honest or simply try to ease his worry.

  I decided to be honest.

  “Resentful,” I told him. “But I don’t think they’re my feelings, only remnants of Kira’s last feelings for you.”

  I didn’t think it was possible, but Gabriel’s face began to look even gaunter after my words.

  “Tread lightly, Sarah,” Aurora cautioned. “I sense his emotions are a jumbled mess.”

  “Gabriel,” I said, taking a cautious step towards him, heeding Aurora’s words. “I still see you as my friend and one of my closest confidants. I can’t help it that I still sense some of Kira’s feelings for you, but they’re not my own, not really.”

  Gabriel’s eyes squinted as he considered me. “How can you talk about Kira as if she’s someone else? You are Kira.”

  I immediately shook my head. “No, I’m not. Kira died the day she transformed into April Pew.”

  “But that’s not entirely true, is it?” Gabriel questioned harshly. “You just admitted that you can feel her resentment for me. She must still be inside you somewhere!”

  “Stop yelling at me,” I told him, feeling my temper rise. “If this is the way you treated Kira while you were together, I can understand why she chose to leave her old life behind.”

  If I had physically slapped Gabriel in the face, I think it would have had the same effect as my words. He stared at me in stunned disbelief, obviously shocked by what I said. To be honest, I was a little appalled that I said that aloud. I wasn’t normally rude to people, especially not my friends. Gabriel had been a friend and protector to April Pew when she needed one the most. Perhaps awakening Kira was having more of an effect on me than I realized. John was right when he suggested that my relationship with Gabriel might change now that our true identities had been revealed to one another. However, I didn’t expect that change to be an aggressive one.

  “Then, you really can’t remember how we were when we were together, can you?” Gabriel asked, looking confused and hurt by my words. “All those years we spent laughing and loving each other. …”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t remember any of that,” I admitted, feeling guilt over something I had no control over. “I only remember bits and pieces of our relationship as husband and wife. I assume that’s how Kira wanted it.”

  Gabriel’s eyes looked red with unshed tears. He sniffed and looked away from me so that I could only see his profile.

  “I guess it’s just as well that you can’t remember,” he whispered. “Sometimes I wish I didn’t either.”

  The longing in Gabriel’s voice told me that his life with Kira wasn’t always filled with pain, and I know from reading the passages in Kira’s journal that she loved Jacob as fiercely as she loved life itself. With the tragic and untimely demise of their daughter, all of that changed, leading them both down different paths in their lives. Yet, were our destinies always meant to converge at this particular point in time? Were we always meant to find ourselves fighting to save Vankara? If our daughter had lived, neither of us would hold the positions we do now. Perhaps fate, or whatever higher power there was in the universe, had been leading us here since the moment we met.

  “This isn’t the way I wanted this conversation to go, Gabriel,” I confessed. “I wish Adam hadn’t told you the truth. I wanted you to hear it from me first.”

  Gabriel looked back at me, but I’m not certain he actually saw me. His eyes looked unfocused, as if he was remembering a time I couldn’t recall.

  “I’ve always known there was something … familiar about you,” Gabriel told me, his voice sounding detached as he tried to make sense of everything. “Though, the possibility of you being Kira never even entered my mind. I’m not even sure I can think of you that way anymore.”

  “Perhaps you’re not supposed to, Gabriel. We’ve been friends for a very long time now in the new lives we chose for ourselves. Please, don’t make me lose a friend over something neither of us can change.”

  Gabriel looked me in the eyes then, and I knew he was back with me in the present.

  “I have very few people who I consider a friend,” he told me. “And you have been one of my most important ones in all of my lives. I don’t think it’s possible for us not to care about one another.”

  “I take it …” I paused for a moment because I wasn’t sure this was the most appropriat
e time to broach the subject with Gabriel, but I knew it needed to be out in the open as soon as possible, “that you and Queen Emma were intimate friends.”

  Gabriel’s eyes narrowed on me. “How would you know something like that? Have you had visions of my relationship with Emma?”

  “Then it’s true?” I asked, needing to know.

  “If you’re asking me if Emma and I were lovers,” Gabriel clarified, “then yes, we were for a time.”

  “Were you in love with her?” I asked, finding myself more than slightly curious to learn the answer.

  “I loved her as a friend, nothing more. We were convenient for one another. Neither of us wanted a relationship with strings attached, but we both had physical desires that needed to be met. We were compatible in bed, but love never accompanied us there.”

  Involuntarily, I lowered my right hand to my belly, wondering what the child within my womb would think about his parents making him from pure lust for one another.

  “I did consider the possibility that the child could be mine,” Gabriel told me, looking pointedly at where my hand rested. “At the time, I was too embarrassed to tell you about my carnal relationship with Emma. Besides, I had no way of knowing if the babe was Chromis’ or mine. It’s still possible that it’s his child. I don’t know what Emma did during her trip to Chromis.”

  “Aurora believes that the babe isn’t his.”

  “I know it isn’t!” Aurora told me rather adamantly.

  “I hope it isn’t either,” I continued. “Of the two of you, I would much prefer it if you were the father, Gabriel. Technically, the child isn’t mine. I will love him as if he were, just as I do Dena, but if the child can have a relationship with at least one of his real parents, he should be given the opportunity.”

  “You seem so calm about everything,” Gabriel commented in amazement. “Don’t you find this at all strange? My once thought to be dead wife is possibly carrying my child conceived by another woman? If it wasn’t happening to me, I certainly wouldn’t believe it.”