Chapter 6: The Truth
Aren felt like she had just been caught under one of Professor Agrist’s microscopes. She was trapped in the glare of Brisneron’s and her fellows’ eyes, and her only thought centered around how stupid she had been to leave her cabin in the first place.
So very stupid.
The gasps of disbelief that had rippled around the room full of Angels had almost died down, and Aren had tried to cover her wings with her tattered coat, but glittering feathers still could be seen in the half-light of the rusty pirate ship.
“Princess?” Brisneron clarified with a small shake of his head. His thick dark hair was soaked in sweat from the firefight and tiny drops of moisture flew at his tiny movement.
He had suspected she was keeping a secret, but royalty? This was beyond his pay-grade.
Aren swallowed loudly and stuttered, “Y-yes.” She winced inwardly at how feeble she sounded. She had just killed two Demonans and there she was acting like a child caught in some prank by her elders.
There was a murmur among the Angels and she could almost feel them as they shifted their perceptions of her in order to show the proper deference. The law was clear; she was a royal and commoners must treat her as her station demanded. What she wanted did not matter.
“Please,” she said, “please don’t think different of me. I’m trying to start over. I’m just Ren.”
She tried to meet each eye, but found that as she made eye contact, they would inadvertently bow their heads. Brisneron was the only one who withheld and she was silently pleased for that one small blessing, although terrified of what he might do.
The Demonan captain squirmed in his bindings, diverting the attention away from Aren, and the Angel in charge of keeping him subdued gave him a large shake that would have rattled a smaller body’s bones. Demonic eyes of the most alarming shade of orange with cat-like pupils glared at Aren but she refused to quail under his stare. She had not been raised a coward, at least not when faced with the enemy of her race.
“Aren’t you going to ask him why he wanted me?” Aren asked when no one responded to her plea.
Her question seemed to shake some sense into her watchers and Brisneron gave her a—still upset—but contemplative look that said “I’m not done with you yet” before returning to his prisoner.
“You have two options,” he said to the Demon at his feet. “You can tell me who hired you to attack us or you can die. The first option just might mean I’ll let you live. I don’t think I need to explain how the second option works.”
He patted his laser gun menacingly and then motioned for the Angel holding the Demonan to remove the gag. Once un-gagged, the Demonan continued to glare alternately at Aren and Brisneron.
“To answer your question with anything but a lie would go against the code of my race,” he replied. His voice was guttural, not pleasing to the delicate ears of the Angels. The Demonans claimed that Angels sounded equally abhorrent to them as well. Another reason in the long list as to why the two races were enemies.
“Nevertheless,” Brisneron said, “you will tell us what we need to know. You Demonans would sell your own kin to save your necks.”
The Demonan snarled and then chuckled because he knew he had been beat, and Brisneron was not wrong. With all of his men dead, the Demonan captain was willing to sell out his employer in order to save his own hide. He was no fool, at least when it came to negotiations.
“You will let me go? If I tell you?” he asked slowly.
Brisneron thought for a moment; the idea of letting an enemy go was repugnant, but he needed the information. Angels do not go back on their word, and if he agreed to the Demonan’s request he would have to follow through. At last, he nodded.
“Yes.”
The Demonan grinned wickedly and gave Aren another leer. His orange eyes flickered and his sharp teeth seemed to feast on his words.
“Yonder Princess has powerful enemies. Those enemies wish to see her…gone forever.”
Aren shuddered. She had feared as much.
Brisneron stiffened and asked gruffly, “What do you mean, gone forever? You were hired to kidnap her?” He gestured to Aren with a vague hand.
“No…I was hired to…kill her.”
Suddenly, out of the gloom of the moment, Aren started laughing. She clutched her stomach and bent over using one hand on her leg to support herself.
“I knew it!” she exclaimed through her laughter. She wiped sooty tears from her eyes and saw the other Angels looking at her in horror.
“Someone please escort the Princess back to the ship,” Brisneron growled. “She isn’t safe on this vessel. Nevero will know what to do.”
A group of three massive Angels gathered around Aren and began to herd her back in the direction of the shuttle.
“Wait!” she cried. “Make him tell you who sent him!”
But Aren wasn’t certain if Brisneron had heard, and she had a guard on each arm. She was practically being carried down the ship passages. They came to the place where Aren had left Corvo and Aren saw his confused face at the sight of her being ushered by giant Angels. His eyes widened ever further when he caught sight of her freed wings. Corvo’s mouth opened into a shocked O.
“Bring him with us,” Aren commanded.
The remaining Angel in her retinue complied and helped Corvo to stand and walk into the shuttle.
Once inside, Aren shrugged the hands of the Angels away and glared at them.
“If any of you presume to handle me in such a way again, I will see to it personally that it is the last thing you do. I can walk quite alright all by myself.”
Her guards merely shrugged and tried to reconcile the sight of the pouting Princess with their ideal: she didn’t exactly fit the description of royalty. The ruling clans were not known for rushing headlong into battle, at least not in the past hundred or so years.
One of Aren’s handlers, a thick-set Angel with red hair and wings, gave her a long-suffering look and replied softly, “It was either that, or we throw you over our shoulders, Princess.” He added the title as an afterthought.
Corvo laughed from his seat along the shuttle wall. The shuttle had taken off and was almost back to The Herald. Aren was surprised to find she was tired and realized that maybe the Captain had been right to send her away. Fighting was not quite the fun she had thought earlier. She kept seeing the faces of those Demonans she had killed.
Cat-like eyes, livid orange in color, and long black hair framing razor-like features. Their faces were twisted in rage and pain in her memory. Aren could not fathom feeling such terrible emotions in such immense quantities.
“They must be horribly unhappy,” she thought and then banished the idea because she felt the stirrings of a morsel of pity, and she could not afford to feel sorry for her enemies. Not when the reality of her own death sentence was still visible in her mind.
Aren gazed thoughtfully at the shuttle wall. She pictured Arenslayme sitting on her throne and giving the order for her death. It would have been easy for her to do it. Just a few words to the right person—someone with little moral capacity like herself—and killers from across the known galaxies would flock to do the deed.
Aren imagined the ships, countless hundreds, as they soared through space, combing the planets for her existence. How many people knew she was headed to Earth?
The face of the Registrar floated into her mind. She hoped he wouldn’t tell and that he would be alright. He’d been very kind to her despite having tried to convince her to remain on Arenstat.
The others on the ship knew. Wait. Not everyone knew. Only those who had been on this mission.
“Stop the shuttle!” Aren cried. She stood up and the others watched her frantic motions with confusion. The pilot had slowed the vessel, but hadn’t completely stopped. Aren surged to the front and tried to push him away from the controls but found herself being restrained by the other two Angels, one of which was the red-head.
“Let me go! I can’t go back yet! Just let me explain!”
She jerked herself free and collapsed back onto her seat.
“What are you doing, lass?” Corvo asked. “Have you lost your mind?”
Aren shook her head. “Corvo, please, no one can know that I’m on this ship. I’m in danger. You—all of you—must promise not to tell any of the other crew or passengers,” Aren pleaded.
“We know that, Princess. I don’t think you understand us. No one will say anything without the Captain’s permission. But if it is as important as you say for you to remain unknown, you might want to do something about those wings.” Corvo looked pointedly at her sparkly appendages.
“Oh,” she said after a second to process what he had told her. She rummaged around and found an unused jacket that smelled faintly of oil. It covered her wings nicely.
The shudder and sound of the shuttle docking on The Herald drew Aren back to her fears.
Professor Agrist was on the ship and so was Nevero. Neither of them were going to be happy with her.
“Come along, Prin—,” the red-headed Angel tried to say.
“Call me Ren,” Aren corrected.
She met his eyes and dared him to call her Princess.
Corvo laughed and eased himself out of the shuttle.
“Alright, Ren. Now that you’ve made your point to these nice soldiers here, let’s get me to the medical bay. It wouldn’t hurt for you to get checked out as well; besides, I need the company. I hate needles.”
Aren gave the now-amused red Angel a satisfied grin and followed Corvo onto the ship. Two of the other Angels in charge of her protection followed closely behind, the other flew the shuttle back to the pirate ship for the Captain and the rest of the crew. Aren’s guards shook their heads at their luck. Of all the passenger vessels in the galaxy, they had to work on one that now housed a feisty Princess.
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