49. Syssi
”Sweet dreams, my precious.” Syssi kissed her sleeping daughter”s cheek.
After exhausting herself and her granddaddy in the pool, Allegra had fallen asleep in Syssi”s arms on the way back to the cabin. The girl needed a bath, but Syssi knew better than to wake her up for that.
Allegra was a sweet child, but if anyone dared to wake her up before she was good and ready, she was cranky for the rest of the day and had a hard time falling asleep again at night.
The good news was that she would not wake up during the next two hours, so Syssi could use that time to summon a vision about Khiann and his fate, but the bad news was that Kian wasn”t there, and he didn”t like it when she induced a vision without him watching over her.
It wasn”t necessary, and Okidu could help her if she ended up needing it, but Kian wouldn”t be happy with the butler doing that, and maybe he was right. After all, Okidu had limited executive functioning, and he might not know what to do.
Tiptoeing out of the bedroom, Syssi walked over to the couch and pulled her phone out of her purse. Amanda had watched over her during a session before, and Kian had accepted her as a good substitute, but she might be busy doing something else.
After placing the call, Syssi cradled the phone against her ear and loaded the coffeemaker while waiting for Amanda to pick up.
She answered after several rings, sounding a little breathless. ”Hello, my favorite sister-in-law.”
Syssi chuckled. ”I”m your only sister-in-law.” It suddenly occurred to her that Amanda might be at Mey”s bachelorette party. ”Are you busy? Am I interrupting?”
”You are not interrupting anything, darling. Mey”s party hasn”t started yet.”
Syssi frowned. ”Yamanu”s bachelor party has already started. How come hers hasn”t?”
”Yamanu”s groomsmen are going to have a break between the bachelor party and the wedding, while Mey”s bridesmaids are supposed to stay with her the entire time. She wants them to get dressed in Jin”s cabin and then escort her to the event hall from there. Not that I intend to do that. I”ll excuse myself and join them for the ceremony.”
”I can totally understand that.” Syssi needed to decompress after social interactions, and going from one party to the next without a break would have exhausted her mentally and physically.
Funny how certain things hadn”t changed after her transition, proving how strong the mind-body connection was.
”It”s a busy day for you, so I”m hesitant to even ask, but is there a chance you can come over for half an hour to watch over me when I induce the vision I promised your mother about Khiann? Kian is at Yamanu”s party, and if I attempt it without anyone here to monitor me, he will pop a vein.”
Amanda snorted. ”Yeah, he totally would, even though it”s physically impossible for him. I”ll be there in five minutes.”
”Thank you,” Syssi said. ”You are the best.”
”Oh, I know, darling,” Amanda purred. ”I know.”
Syssi ended the call with a smile. It was the Amanda effect and one of the reasons she still worked at her lab. They weren”t making much progress with the paranormal research, but they enjoyed spending time together, and being around Amanda was uplifting. There was rarely a day that Syssi came home from the lab in a bad mood, and when she did, it was because Amanda turned the radio on and listened to the news on the way back home.
Lately, the distressing stuff Syssi heard was so overwhelming that she tried to stay away from it, but then she felt like a coward for hiding her head in the sand. It was even worse now than it had been right before she met Kian. Things had gotten better for a few years, and her visions of doom had subsided, but she should have known that it wouldn”t last.
Surprisingly, though, the visions hadn”t returned.
Perhaps motherhood was shielding her from the darkness the world was spiraling into.
Was it Navuh”s doing?
She had no doubt that he had a hand in it. The worldwide chaos had his signature all over it, and if he was indeed behind what was going on, it explained why he hadn”t bothered the clan in a long while. They had assumed that he was busy breeding the next generation of smart warriors, but he hadn”t been idle in the meantime. He”d been steering things via his drug and trafficking enterprises, enlisting the help of cartels and terror organizations to propagate his agenda of world domination.
Still, as evil as Navuh was, she doubted that he had a hand in child trafficking. His cohorts did that of their own accord.
Syssi let out a sigh. She wasn”t helping anyone by getting depressed over the sorry state of the world, but she could help Annani, even if it was just to provide her closure.
The mystery of Khiann”s fate had been weighing on her mind ever since Annani had first shared her suspicions about Ahn”s possible subterfuge. If Annani”s beloved mate was still alive, trapped somewhere in stasis, it would be a miracle. In a way, the unintended results of Ahn”s machinations could have been the survival of his daughter and her mate.
Then again, if Ahn hadn”t framed Mortdh for Khiann”s murder and instead had sent a rescue team to dig out Annani”s husband and the immortals who had been with him, the gods could have still been around because Mortdh would not have flown over the assembly with a deadly weapon in his small aircraft.
Well, not really.
The Eternal King”s assassins would have found a way to destroy all the exiled gods and their descendants and blame it on the humans or some natural disaster.
They all needed answers, and Syssi was the only one who might be able to get them. Allegra”s presence had enhanced previous visions, and since it hadn”t affected her daughter in any negative way, Syssi intended to meditate in the bedroom next to her daughter”s crib to give herself the best chance of getting those answers.
As the door chime pulled her from her thoughts, Syssi rose to her feet and went to greet her sister-in-law.
”Thanks for coming.” She pulled Amanda into a quick, one-armed hug. ”I”m sorry if I interrupted your afternoon nap.”
Leaning down, Amanda kissed her cheek. ”You didn”t interrupt anything important.” She walked over to the kitchenette and opened the fridge. ”I”m making myself a drink. Do you want one before doing your thing?”
Syssi shook her head. ”I don”t want anything interfering with my concentration. I will do it in the bedroom and leave the door open.”
”That”s fine.” Amanda pulled a container of orange juice out of the fridge. ”I”m going to read on my phone and not make any noises to disturb you.”
”Thank you.”
Syssi left her sister-in-law in the living room and walked into the bedroom, where Allegra was still napping peacefully in her portable crib, her little face relaxed and serene, and her little mouth parted.
She was a vision of perfection, and Syssi felt a rush of love for her daughter wash over her. There were many types of love, but the strongest one in the universe was the love of a mother for her child.
Fighting the urge to bend over the crib”s side and kiss Allegra”s soft cheek, Syssi took a deep breath, sent a silent prayer to the universe, and settled herself in the armchair beside the crib.
She closed her eyes and let the world fall away as she slowly slipped into the quiet place in her mind and envisioned what she wanted to see. If Khiann was buried under the sand, she needed the location, and if he was gone, she needed to see his death.
Fates, she really didn”t want to see that and then have to tell Annani that there was no hope and that Khiann was really dead.
With her concentration shot, she had to start deep breathing and clearing her mind again. She pictured Khiann as Annani had described him—tall, strong, and beautiful, with chestnut dark hair and bright blue eyes that shone with love and mirth.
For a long moment, there was nothing, only darkness and silence and the steady beat of her own heart, but then, slowly, an image began to take shape in her mind”s eye, hazy at first but growing clearer with each passing second.
She saw a mountain steeped in heavy mist, its rocky slopes rising starkly against a pale, washed-out sky. And as she hovered up to the very top, she discovered that the peak was hollow. There was a gaping crater at its center, a deep, yawning hole that seemed to plunge down hundreds of feet into the earth.
The barren, rocky mountain and the gray sky above it couldn”t be located in a desert.
She was being shown something else.
Her consciousness hovering over the gaping hole, Syssi peered into its dark depths, her mind straining to make out the details of what lay at the bottom. When the clouds parted for a moment, letting the sun”s rays through, the light bounced back from the reflective material of a sleek object that was nestled at the bottom of the crater.
She couldn”t see any details, but her mind conjured the answer to what she was looking at without having all the necessary visual data.
It was an alien pod.
If she could force her consciousness to float down into the crater, perhaps she could see more details, but the vision refused to let her move from the one spot she was hovering over.
Syssi couldn”t dive down or move to the side. It revealed another clue, though. The weak sunshine managed to vaporize the mist just as four people crested the top and walked over to look down the crater.
Syssi recognized all four.
The three males were the gods Aru, Negal, and Dagor. The fourth member of their group was the most surprising one, though.
It was Jasmine, the woman who had crashed into their lives like a comet, trailing occult mysteries in her wake.
As the four gathered around the crater”s edge, Syssi wondered where the gods” mates were and why Jasmine was with them. And then, as quickly as the vision had come, it faded, and Syssi”s eyes flew open.
”Talk about strange,” she murmured.
”Did you say something?” Amanda asked from the living room.
”Give me a moment.” Syssi brushed her hair away from her face.
For some reason, the vision had decided to show her one of the missing Kra-ell pods instead of Khiann.
Poor Annani would be so disappointed.
Still, it was an amazing development, even though Syssi couldn”t tell where that mountaintop was. There had been no clues about that, but it was clear that Jasmine was somehow connected to the pods.