61. Aru
Aru glanced at his watch, his heart quickening as he saw the hands ticking closer to midnight. He had seen Kian and Syssi rise from their seats a few moments earlier, making their way over to the newlyweds to offer their congratulations and farewells.
Now that Kian”s sisters were in on the secret, they could cover for him and make his early departure seem less conspicuous. In a way, it was a relief to have more people in the know and not have to carry the weight of this burden alone, but it was also the main cause for the churning in his gut.
It was illogical to feel that way about people who couldn”t reveal his and Aria”s secret even if they wanted to, but it was so ingrained in Aru”s psyche to guard the telepathic connection with his sister that he couldn”t help but feel exposed and incredibly vulnerable despite the safety precautions the princess had provided by compelling her children and their mates to keep the information from leaking out of their small group.
”Go.” Gabi patted his arm. ”You don”t want to be late.”
Aru hated leaving her alone. ”Are you staying or going to call it a night?”
Gabi smiled. ”I”m staying. I”m going to spend some time with Karen, Gilbert and the rest of the family. Everyone is fussing over Karen, and I need to do my share of fussing as well. It”s my duty as her sister-in-law.”
Aru leaned in to press a soft kiss to her cheek, breathing in the sweet, familiar scent of her perfume. ”Enjoy yourself.” He brushed his lips against her soft skin. ”And if anyone asks where I am, tell them that I had something I needed to take care of, but I didn”t tell you what it was.”
Gabi chuckled, her eyes sparkling with mischief. ”I”ll tell them that you are sick of attending weddings.”
Aru shook his head. ”Only if you make it sound like a joke,” he warned.
She laughed. ”Of course.”
The truth was that he had attended enough weddings to last him a century. The princess”s speeches were great, full of warmth and wisdom and heartfelt emotion, but even though she had tried to make them individual for each couple, there was only so much variety she could introduce and only so many ways to say the same things over and over again.
With a final squeeze of Gabi”s hand and a murmured goodbye, Aru slipped away from the table and made his way out of the dining hall.
Thankfully, he didn”t encounter anyone in the elevator, and as he entered the corridor leading to the heir”s cabin, he glanced at his watch and saw that he had exactly two minutes left to get there on time.
Hurrying his step, he got to her door and was about to ring the bell, when he heard a cabin door open behind him, and as he turned around, he saw Kian and Syssi stepping out of their cabin, which was located on the other end of the long hallway.
Unlike the previous nights, they were still dressed in their evening clothes, most likely because they hadn”t had time to change out of them.
Aru waited for them to catch up.
He had no idea what Kian wanted to talk to him about before the telepathic meeting took place, and he hoped that it wasn”t about revealing his and Aria”s secret communication method to even more people.
Kian looked aggravated, and as the couple reached Aru, he tugged on his tux lapels and pressed the doorbell. ”Saying goodnight to all these people cost us valuable time. We only had enough left to grab Syssi”s notepad and had to rush over.”
The door opened, and the princess”s Odu bowed. ”Good evening, Mistress Syssi, Master Kian, Master Aru. Please come in.”
”Thank you,” Kian said before ushering his wife in.
Avoiding eye contact with the cyborg, Aru walked in behind them.
His aversion to the Odus was another illogical thing that he couldn”t help, and he wondered whether it had been encoded in his genetics.
”Good evening, Clan Mother.” He bowed to the princess.
She smiled and inclined her head. ”Please call me Annani, Aru. If you do not, I will correct you every time you use my title until you get used to using my given name.”
”As you wish.”
He was not going to address the heir to the Anumati throne so casually. He would just have to perform verbal gymnastics to avoid addressing her directly.
They sat down, Syssi next to the princess and Aru and Kian each taking an armchair, more pleasantries were exchanged, and then the Odu served tea and coffee.
When each of them held a cup in hand, Aru turned to Kian. ”So, why are we here early?”
”Syssi had a vision about the pods,” Kian said without preamble and turned to his wife. ”Would you like to tell it, or do you want me to do it?”
Aru was grateful on two counts. The first that Kian was not asking to let more people in on the secret, and second, that he wasn”t wasting time.
”I”ll do it.” Syssi put her teacup down. ”Bear in mind that visions usually should not be taken literally, and sometimes their purpose is just to hint at things. Also, I didn”t ask to be shown where the pod with the royal twins was buried. I asked for something else entirely and was shown this instead.” She continued to tell him what she had seen and what she and Amanda thought about Jasmine”s role in the vision.
As Aru listened, he found it hard to believe that two intelligent females like Syssi and Amanda had put so much faith in tarot cards and Jasmine”s ramblings about her promised prince. Not only that, but it also seemed that they had managed to rope Kian and his mother into supporting that questionable narrative.
Aru didn”t want to offend Syssi, but he couldn”t contain his incredulity. ”Are you seriously suggesting that a human who bases her life decisions on tarot cards and crystal balls can help us locate the pod with the royal twins?”
Syssi smiled indulgently as if he were the one whose logic was skewed. ”Tarot cards, crystal balls, and other instruments of divination are just conduits for the energy that is inside the individual. On their own, they are just inanimate objects with no innate power. Jasmine has something, a spark of potential that we can all feel. And besides, my visions are never wrong.”
She had just told him that her visions shouldn”t be taken literally, and now she was telling him that they were never wrong.
”So, let me understand what you are suggesting.” Aru took a deep breath. ”You want us to take Jasmine with us and have her direct our search for the pods?”
Syssi nodded. ”What harm could that do? One more person on your team is not going to make much of a difference, but she might be able to point you in the right direction when you have no other clues.”
”Jasmine is human,” Aru said. ”She will slow us down.”
Syssi smiled again. ”Yes, she will, but on the other hand, she might save you a lot of time by pointing you in the right direction.”
He couldn”t argue with that, but there was one more point he could raise. ”What if we determine that she”s useless?”
”She won”t be,” Kian said. ”I have full faith in Syssi”s visions. But if you decide that Jasmine is not helpful to your search, you can send her back home. We will cover the bill.”
”Sounds reasonable,” Aru agreed. ”Did you speak with her about it? Maybe she doesn”t want to go?”
”We”ve told her nothing so far,” Kian said. ”I wanted to check with you first. There are also a few other concerns that we need to address.”
”Like what?” Aru asked almost defensively.
Kian lifted the teacup to his lips and took a small sip. ”The twins are rumored to be powerful compellers, and your team will need the specialty earpieces William developed that block the sound waves carrying compulsion.”
Aru shifted in the armchair and crossed his legs. ”That would be much appreciated. Thank you.”
Kian regarded him for a long moment. ”Does the queen know that her son fathered the twins with the Kra-ell princess?”
”I believe so, but you need to understand that my interaction with the queen has been minimal, and my sister serves the oracle, not the queen. We provide information, but we don”t get much back, and we can only speculate on what the queen knows and thinks. There were rumors that claimed a dalliance between her son and the Kra-ell princess, who later became the queen, but I don”t think the Anumati queen believed them at the time. She probably thought it was more of the Eternal King”s negative propaganda aimed at discrediting his son and painting him as a deviant. The Kra-ell queen was very good at concealing the twins from the public eye and shrouding the identity of their father, and even the Eternal King, with all his spies, wasn”t sure that the twins were his grandchildren. It”s common for the Kra-ell queens to hide the identity of their children”s fathers, especially those who father the daughters that will rule one day, so no one thought much of it. On the other hand, the twins became acolytes at a very young age, so they must have raised a lot of brows at the time. That was very uncommon.”
Kian nodded. ”I keep forgetting that this is ancient history to you. We”ve only learned all of this recently, and the Kra-ell, who told us about the twins being in stasis for thousands of years, said it was recent history for them as well. The question is whether my mother should inform the queen of Anumati about this new thread that might lead to them.”
Aru leveled his gaze at Kian. ”There is nothing I keep from the queen. I don”t share every thought and speculation I have, and I don”t bother her with every unimportant detail, so I can refrain from telling her about this new line of inquiry until it is proven to be relevant, but if it is, then I need to inform her.” He dipped his head toward the heir. ”My apologies, but my first loyalty is to my queen.”
Annani nodded. ”I understand, and I appreciate your loyalty to my grandmother and your honest reply, but I have no intention of keeping this from her.”