Chapter Thirty
Lena
Lena stared blankly at Vor.
“Did you hear me, Lena?” Vor leaned closer, careful not to touch her. He was always so careful.
“Yes,” Lena whispered. “The surface is changing all of you, but I speed up the process.”
“No, not exactly.” Vor frowned. “The surface is changing us, yes. It's making us feel emotions we've never felt before. But you tune our tech parts. You enhance us so that we can accept these changes more easily.”
“I don't understand how this is possible.” Lena stared at her hands.
Six days had passed since Lena had sung for the Nethren in the dining hall.
And those six days had been the most eye-opening of her time there.
Vor had escorted Lena around the fortress to meet and interact with all of his soldiers every day.
At night, they gathered in the dining hall, and she sang for them with her borrowed guitar.
And they listened. Raptly. And changed. The stony expressions once directed at her had become more animated.
Pleasant. Nethren smiled at her now. They spoke to each other with more vigor.
They laughed. Couples were forming. This was normal behavior for Medeans, but for Nethren, it was revolutionary.
Lena knew she was a big part of their change, but she couldn't explain it.
And her emotions concerning the Nethren seemed to change with them.
She saw them as people now. People just like her and her family.
People who wanted to live free. That's what they were fighting for.
It was why they were there. Not only for the freedom to come to the surface but also to live fully, with all the feelings that every person has a right to feel.
It wasn't fair that they were trapped underground while the Aethari had the freedom of the sky. The Aethari had taken so much from the Nethren, and Lena’s ancestors had helped.
“Lena?”
She looked up to meet Vor's beautiful eyes. Then she flinched. When had she accepted his attractiveness? More importantly, when had she accepted that his attractiveness affected her?
“You don't look well.” Vor lifted a hand as if to touch her face, but then lowered it. “Is the singing wearing you out? You don't have to sing every night.”
“No, I'm fine. I enjoy it.”
He frowned. “Did you hear what I said about vibrations?”
“Huh? No, I'm sorry.” Lena looked around the sitting room in the quarters they shared.
Shared. There was another shift in her thinking.
Lena no longer saw the rooms as a cage. No, the cage was underground, and her people had trapped Vor's people in it.
She didn't blame him for bringing her there anymore.
He had done what he had to do to help his people, but he had been as kind and respectful to her as he could.
“Everything has a vibration.” Vor slid over on the couch to give her a little more space.
“That's what Tech has taught us. The ward that protects the fortress, for example, uses vibration. Unfortunately, we cannot create wards such as that because it’s Magic that focuses the vibrations to form a shield.
But the vibrations are what's important.”
Lena frowned, trying to understand where he was going with this.
“What I'm trying to say is that vibrations affect things. The same type of vibrations that the ward uses to protect us can be used to break glass. It's all about how they're employed. Do you understand?”
“Yes, but what do vibrations have to do with my enhancing you?”
“I think you're special, Lena. Your vibrations heal. I believe your unique frequency calibrates technology, including that within my people. I think it's why you love music. Your voice sends your vibrations forth. It magnifies them and makes them into a tool.”
“But it's through touch that I do the most change.”
“Yes, but singing negates the need for touching.
You send your energy forth through your voice as you do through your hands, you see?
The frequency you vibrate at adjusts other frequencies.
You are a miracle, Lena. But don't overthink it.
It doesn't matter why you can do what you do, only that you keep doing it.”
Lena sighed. “And then you'll release me?”
Vor blinked. His lips parted. He swallowed visibly. “Lena, there are so many more people you could help.”
“Right. So, I'm your tool now.” She stood up and went to the window.
Beyond the wall, her sister still waited for an opportunity to save her.
Liria should have been celebrating her union with Thaxvarien.
Instead, she was in a war camp. For Lena.
And Lena was inside the fortress, comfortable and cared for, doing nothing to save herself.
Because Lena wasn't sure if she wanted to be saved.
Lena's perspective had changed, and with that change came so many confusing feelings.
Desire, longing, hope, despair, guilt. They bombarded Lena.
She wanted to help the Nethren, but it felt like a betrayal of her family and her entire race.
She wanted to be with Vor, but that would mean giving up everything she knew and loved.
Vor said Tech led him to her to help his people.
Now that Lena accepted her feelings for him, she also had to accept that his feelings were unreliable.
Vor wanted her because the Source of Technology told him to.
If she allowed her feelings for him to grow into love, it would be one-sided.
Still, she hoped that the changes she made in him would open his heart, while she simultaneously called herself a fool for that hope.
But the worst of her emotions was guilt.
How could Lena befriend the Nethren when her sister was out there fighting to free her?
Vor was suddenly standing beside her. “Is that what you think? That I only want you for what you can do for my people?”
Lena looked at him.
Vor's lips parted as he sucked in a breath. “You . . . Lena.”
“What, Vor? Are you feeling strange again?”
Vor cursed and looked away. “I don't know what I'm feeling, and you won't explain it to me.”
In the vortex of Lena's emotions, one rose to rule the rest—fury. It was so much easier to be angry than try to make sense of the rest.
“I'm not your path to emotions!” Lena turned her back to him. “And I'm not your caged songbird either!”
Vor made a strange sound, a sort of gasping, wounded inhale. “All right. You don't have to sing. You don't have to shake hands. Will you please just come and sit down with me?”
“No.”
“As you wish, Lena.” Vor sighed and resumed his seat on the couch.
He sat there silently for a few minutes while Lena seethed, and then he said, “My parents never held hands.
I've never seen them kiss. My mother smiled at me only once, when I became commander. Thinking about it now, I can see her beauty. Back then, I thought nothing of it. I felt very little for her beyond gratitude for my upbringing.”
Lena's chest shivered. She had to blink back tears as she thought of the cold childhood Vor had endured.
But he didn't endure it, did he? No, it was worse than that.
He was perfectly fine with it; thought it was normal.
She turned to look at him. Vor had his forearms braced on his knees and his head bent.
“Your father is out there. He came for you with your sister. He confronted me on your behalf.” Vor looked up and met her gaze.
“I understand parental love now. I saw it in him.
His expression—determined and desperate, full of fear and fury—haunts me.
There is a bond between you and him that I've never known. Before I met you, I would have sneered at it. Now, I mourn my lack of it. I envy you, Lena.”
Lena went to sit in the chair across from him. “I'm sorry.”
“Don't be sorry. You’ve given me insight. You’ve made me stronger, but I'm afraid that loving you will weaken me.”
“Love is not a weakness.”
“Of course, it is. When you love something, you make yourself vulnerable.
Your father is not a warrior, and yet he's here for you. He would fight and die to see you safe. If he could have, he would have climbed the wall and fought me. Even knowing he would have failed and likely died, he would have done it. For love of you. That is a weakness, Lena. It is a lack of reason. And yet, I want it. My chest aches with how badly I want it.”
“You want it because it's powerful.” Lena lifted her chin.
“My father is not a warrior. You're right about that.
But love has made him one. Love gave him the courage to come here and stand with trained soldiers.
Yes, if he could have surmounted the wall, he would have.
But he didn't try because he knew it was impossible.
That is not a lack of reason. He's waiting, biding his time for an opportunity to save me.
And when he finds one, he will take it, and I don't care who goes against him—my father will win. He will win because of his love for me. It motivates him and gives him strength. What do you fight for, Commander Vor?”
Vor blinked at her. “My people. I want them to see the sun again.”
“Why?”
“Because . . . because it's something I want, and I know they want it too. Because being up here is living fully.”
“Yes, but why are you fighting for them?”
“I am their commander. I'm responsible for them.”
“That is a weakness. You fight out of responsibility, and it will not give you half the drive and power that love would. Now, think about your mother.”
Vor scowled at her. “Why?”
“Just think about her. Remember her smile.
She didn't show you love because she's trapped underground, incapable of it. If she had been up here, she would have loved you as fiercely as my mother loves me. Now, thinking about all that, what do you want for your mother? Do you want her to know what love is?”
“Yes,” he whispered in revelation. “I want that for her.”
“Why?”