Invincible (The Aerling Series Book 3)

by DelSheree Gladden

  “Who?” he demands. “Who else has his power? Another Escort? Aerling? Who?” He’s nearly shouting at the end, frantic and scared witless.

  I don’t know what I’m doing, if I should keep this all secret or tell the truth. All I can do is wing it and cross my fingers. “An Aerling,” I say, my voice shaking despite my best efforts to stay calm. “My Aerling.”

  Where he was struggling against his bonds before, his entire body goes slack. His massive shoulders slump under the shock of my answer, though I’m at a loss for why. The wheels of my frightened mind turn slowly. The Father’s turn much faster as his shock gives way to anger so hot I scramble back in fear when he lunges against his bonds. They strain and whine under his power, but hold him captive as he rages.

  “He has been planning this for years!” the Father screams. “Planning to overthrow us since the Warden’s birth. He is your Aerling! He must be. Tell me!”

  Shaking so badly I can barely speak, I whisper, “Yes.”

  The Father howls in frustration and unrestrained fury. “Tāwhiri was the son who fought to keep the others from destroying us, but now even he has betrayed the ones who gave him life. His other attempts were so pitiful, a single Aerling up against even just his brother never had any hope, but now he has fallen from his purity and succumbed to the lust for power. He claimed he never would. He claimed he would protect us from annihilation! Now he dares to abandon those promises and seek to rule over everyone?”

  The Father’s entire body is quivering with rage. I want to run. I want to get as far away from him as I possibly can and never come back to this awful place…but I can’t. Terrified, I force my feet to move, to step closer to this horrible force of fury.

  “That’s not why he’s doing it,” I say. It comes out as a whisper, but the power backing my words meets his ears and forces him to hear me. I know by the tempered look of anger in his eyes that he heard me, but he doesn’t respond.

  Trying again to make him understand, I say, “Tāwhiri isn’t after power. He never has been. He’s just trying to protect his children and this world. It’s dying, Father. What you and the Mother and Tū have done and are stilling doing is killing both worlds. Maybe all you care about is power, but all of this will be gone if we don’t stop what’s happening. Where will you be then? Maybe you’ll end up with all the power there is, but what good will it do you when all you have to reign over is two dead worlds?”

  In the silence that follows my words, my fear lessens just enough that my other senses seem to come back to life. There is little to see through the mists, no sounds to hear, but the sensation of the mists brushing up against my body finally reaches my mind. They don’t seem to be simply flowing aimlessly, driven by some external force instead. I realize when a tendril curls around my left forearm that they are moving of their own free will. They’re trying to give me comfort and support.

  It’s not me they recognize, though, it’s Tāwhiri’s power. It’s only then that I realize this is why Tāwhiri only had so much left to give us. The rest of his power is here, holding his father prisoner and protecting his people. Lifting my hands, I momentarily forget about the Father, and simply watch the mists curl around me lovingly. They make no sound, but it feels as if they are speaking to me, begging me to be strong and continue the work of the man who brought me here.

  When I finally look back up, the Father is staring at me with an empty-eyed expression. “Where is my son?” he asks.

  I’m surprised to find true sadness in his eyes. Cedrick mentioned that Tāwhiri came here regularly, but at the time I assumed that was only to make sure the Father was still contained and helpless. Now I begin to understand that wasn’t the case. Tāwhiri fought with his brothers to keep his parents alive. He agreed that they needed to be stopped from working the Aerlings as slaves and hoarding power, but I never saw that his motivations came from love rather than only a moral objection. He visited his father for the same reason.

  Stepping up to the wounded man in front of me, I kneel. “Tāwhiri is gone. He knew the worlds had little time left, so he gave up the last of his power to us. He sacrificed himself to save the people and worlds he loved.”

  Pain etches his features, but anger washes over it in a flash. “He was a fool! A fool to give up so much for a hopeless cause.”

  “It’s not hopeless,” I argue.

  The Father’s black eyes meet mine, full of fire and heat. “You will never convince the Mother to give up her power.”

  “That’s not the only way of stopping an Aerling god,” I say firmly. He knows the secret. Maybe the Mother was the one who killed or defeated the other children, but he knows how she did it. He has to know. “Your other sons, they wouldn’t have given up their power, either, but she got it all somehow. She did something to take them out of the picture. If she didn’t kill them like you claim, she took their power somehow.”

  The Father shakes his head angrily. “It is impossible! Tāwhiri knew this. His plans to stop his brother were all fruitless, but they at least had hope of working. No one is powerful enough to stop the Mother.”

  Standing again, I glare down at him, patience running low. “Then why were you so freaked out when I told you that my Aerling and I have your son’s power? That means something, doesn’t it?”

  His only answer is a frustrated growl.

  “Blood has an effect on power,” I say as my brain starts working for real this time. “That’s why Tū and Tāwhiri were able to separate the two of you in the first place.” I look back down at him, judging his every facial movement and twitch. Fear is plain on his face. “I’d be willing to bet blood isn’t the only thing that allows the power wielders to increase their abilities beyond normal. In fact, I’d wager just about anything on the guess that an Aerling and Escort bond can do all kinds of interesting things, especially when they’re both holding part of an Aerling god’s power.”

  The mottled red and white scattered over his fear-tightened features is answer enough. He doesn’t dare utter a word.

  “We have the power to stop her,” I say, a mixture of terror and excitement making my skin crawl. “All we need is the way to do it.”

  “You want my help?” he scoffs. “Why would I give you the key to destroying the Mother? What makes you think I’m any less ruthless than her?”

  Swallowing my remaining fear, I breathe in the mists and let them calm me. I’ll only get one chance at this. It has to be the right answer. Resisting the impulse to cross my fingers for luck, I say, “Because you didn’t run.”

  The mocking quality of the Father’s expression softens, but he doesn’t say anything.

  “When your sons confronted you both, you stayed while she abandoned everyone and ran away to save herself. I don’t know if you only stayed for Tāwhiri,” I admit, “but there is some small part of you that sees your children as more than just vessels for power. For at least him, you cared enough not to abandon everything. You allowed yourself to be imprisoned while she destroyed her own children.”

  A long moment of strained silence passes before the Father’s lips finally part with a response. “What makes you think I allowed myself to be imprisoned?”

  “Because Tū was already trapped on earth and Tāwhiri wouldn’t have had enough power on his own to contain you if you fought him.” I hold my breath, waiting for him to prove me wrong, but he only breaks eye contact with me and looks into the mists.

  “We only created them because the work of protecting and caring for the human world was too much for us on our own,” he says, still not looking at me. “They were never meant to be our children, our family. We had no need for such things. They each had an area of dominion and duties they were to perform. It was too much work for so few, even still. Tāwhiri asked us to create more Aerling children to aid in the work. The Mother refused, saying it would weaken us too much. That was when the others began plotting to destroy us.”

  Feeling somewhat more secure now that he isn’t screaming at me, I kneel
back down. “But Tāwhiri didn’t want to see either of you destroyed.”

  “No,” he says. “He did not even want his brothers to separate us. He mistakenly believed he could make us change. The war began here, on this world, and while Tāwhiri did not help his brothers, he did not stop them. Instead, he started creating the Aerlings you know now.”

  “On his own?” I ask in surprise.

  The Father shakes his head. “With my help.”

  This conversation has been full of surprises, but this catches me off guard more than anything. “Why? Why would you help him?”

  His eyes finally find their way back to mine. “Because he is…was my son.”

  “If you were helping him, why are you here?”

  Sighing, he says, “Because he was my son and he knew me better than anyone. He knew the draw of power would be impossible for me to resist, and he was right. I crave it, always needing more. The more Aerling children we created, the more it weakened us. Tāwhiri kept working selflessly, but there was only so much I could stand to give. I tried to stop him from creating any more, but when he couldn’t take any more from his own power, he started drawing on the world’s power to create more children. It wasn’t just about protecting the human world. He needed an army to protect our world from Tū and the Mother.”

  “Wait, what do you mean he started drawing on the world’s power?” I demand. “I thought there was a limit to how much power there is.”

  The Father nods slowly. “There is, but Tāwhiri chose to risk weakening this world in order to create enough Aerlings to defend it.”

  “That sounds dangerous.”

  He nods again. “Tū is not the only one killing this world.” Sighing once more, the Father says, “Tāwhiri believed the power would equalize once the war ended, but too much has become trapped on Earth.” He shakes his head. “He was not the only one with this idea, unfortunately, and now the human world is being bled dry even faster than this world.”

  “The Sentinels?” I ask.

  “The Caretakers,” he corrects. “You couldn’t have possibly expected the Mother to give up any of her own power to create them, could you? As soon as she knows you are coming for her, she’ll siphon as much power from the human world as she can in order to stop you from destroying her.”

  That’s what Tū meant, I realize, my stomach sinking to my toes. He warned me that the Mother would sacrifice my world to save hers and he was right. Looking back up at the Father, I beg, “Please, you have to tell me how to stop her.”

  Shaking his head slowly, he says, “I cannot. Tāwhiri took the knowledge from me. That was always his greatest talent.”

  “Taking people’s memories?”

  The Father shrugs. “Taking, restoring, he knew how to influence the memory of other Aerlings. I once knew, but he did not trust me enough to retain that knowledge.” He acts as if it’s a matter of little consequence, but I’m really starting to panic. Before all my hope is lost, though, he says, “You don’t need me to tell you, though, because the Warden already knows. Tāwhiri told me about the damage the Warden did to Tū.”

  “He can’t remember.” I sound so defeated, so lost, but I can’t help it any longer. “Mason’s memories…he can’t remember what he did to Tū.”

  Straightening as much as his bonds will allow, the Father says, “When you inherit enough of another Aerling’s power, you gain access to their talents as well.”

  Hope claws its way back up from my toes to lodge itself firmly in my mind. “How? How do I access it?”

  “How did you get into this room?” he asks.

  Without waiting for my answer, he sits down in the same place he occupied when I first found him. I watch as he settles into some kind of trance, knowing this conversation is over. There’s nothing more he can tell me anyway. I get that, but as I walk away I can’t help thinking that this won’t be the last time we’ll meet. I’m almost to the door when a new realization hits me and I stop. I need to do one more thing before I leave. Focusing on this one task, I open myself up to the power circulating in the room and take it all in.

  Chapter 22

  Binding

  (Mason)

  There wasn’t much we could do by the time we left the Parkers. If I had called home that night and asked Olivia’s parents to bring Molly to meet me, they would have wanted to leave right that second. Not wanting to risk them being exposed at night, I held off until this morning, even though it nearly drove me crazy to do it.

  I’m pretty sure I did drive Sloane a little nuts with all my pacing and talking over my theory a million times. I don’t know if she put up with it all because she’s as anxious as I am for answers, or if her own thoughts about Hayden being her Escort kept her from noticing how obnoxious I was being. Either way, neither one of us has much to say as we drive.

  Worried about my decision to not have Olivia’s parents try to shake their Caretaker guards, I wonder for the millionth time if I made the right choice. The Caretakers could cause us a wealth of problems, but we’re short on time and allies at this point. Plus, I’d rather be sure someone was keeping an eye on my little sister and Olivia’s family. That alone was worth the risk.

  “Do you think the ban between humans and Aerlings is something the Mother made…or is it more, built in or something?” Sloane asks.

  I don’t have to ask for the reason behind her question. It’s not about Olivia and me. “I don’t know, Sloane. It could be either.”

  “But if it was a rule the Mother made, to protect any power from escaping her grasp…”

  Shaking my head, I say, “There’s no point in worrying about it right now. We can’t know for sure.” I don’t want to give her or myself false hope.

  For several minutes, Sloane is quiet, but eventually she says, “If it was her rule, maybe…things could be different once we’ve defeated her.”

  “If we defeat her,” I snap. “Nothing is guaranteed.”

  She falls back into silence after that, not offering up any more comments or thoughts for the rest of the drive. I pull into the driveway of a house I’ve never seen before and put the car in park. There’s another car, Olivia’s mom’s, parked next to us, and two more imposing sedans parked in front of the house and across the street. Caretakers. Not my favorite group.

  Stalling, I ask Sloane, “Do you ever think about going back to visit your Caretakers?”

  “All the time.” Her expression is heavy with emotion as she stares out the windshield. “It was wonderful to meet my real father, but they were my family for eighteen years. Blood, it can’t just replace that, you know?”

  My head bobs slowly. “Yeah, I do know.” I roll my shoulders and try to shake off my anxiety. “These people, they’re my family, more than anyone else has any right to claim. If I have to choose between the Aerling world and them, going home won’t mean going back to where I was born.”

  “You’re not the only Aerling who feels that way,” Sloane says quietly.

  It’s actually comforting to hear that. When we first met, Sloane was very devoted to the Aerling world, but I see now that her attitude was mainly one of desperation. She had been ripped away from the family that raised her, told she should be thrilled to be home, and given a new parent only to lose him soon after. All she had left was being an Aerling. I have the opposite problem.

  Breathing in and out slowly, I ready myself. It’s not Molly or Olivia’s family that has me worried, even though Olivia not being with us will inspire a million questions. It’s partly having to face the Caretakers and partly fear that my theory will prove useless. My hope that Olivia will come back with all the answers is slim. If this doesn’t work, there’s no chance of us finding the Mother in time.

  The seal on the door pops when I open the door. I hear Sloane get out a second later. She’s already waiting at my side of the car when I finally pull myself up to standing. When our eyes meet, she nods and lets me take the lead. I’m sure the Caretaker Officers in the cars on the street have
already recognized me, but when the front door of the house is pulled open in response to my knocking, a man I recognize stares out at me in amazement.

  “Mason?”

  I rarely talked to the Caretaker Officers protecting us before my birthday, but this is the guy who took us to Robin’s mother when I desperately needed to create my wind spirit. He’s always been polite and respectful, even kind to Molly. “It’s nice to see you again.”

  Recovering from his shock, he stands back from the door and ushers us into the house. His eyes dart briefly to Sloane, but return to me quickly. “How is this possible?”

  “What you all think you know about Escorts and the Aerling world could fit in a thimble,” I say with a bite to my words. “If you continue to need Escorts after all of this is over, I’d suggest you start treating them a little differently.”

  “If?” he asks in confusion.

  I don’t have time to answer him when Molly throws herself into my arms. She’s laughing as tears run down her cheeks. Olivia’s parents and Evie aren’t far behind, and soon we’re all crammed in body-to-body in a massive hug. It takes a few minutes to untangle ourselves and get down to business.

  “Where’s Olivia?” her dad is finally able to ask.

  “And Hayden?” Molly demands.

  “They both went back to the Aerling world to try and find the Father and get some answers.”

  Both of Olivia’s parents look worried at that idea, but Evie serves to distract them when she asks, “When will they be back and what are we doing out here in the middle of nowhere. Traveling around with a Caretaker Officer isn’t exactly enjoyable, or something I’d ever want to do again.”

  Man, I’ve missed her smart mouth. Suppressing a laugh, I say, “They should be back some time tomorrow. In answer to your other question, you’re here because I have an idea I need to test, and I can only do that with Molly.”