9. Chapter Nine
Chapter Nine
Ryker
D olta was a small village on the northern end of the Eckterre Mountains. The temperatures were much cooler than back in Voara. I had constructed a home—an estate, really—for my father and mother just on the outskirts of the village, hidden behind dense trees. Which proved beneficial, giving my father the privacy he needed since my mother had disappeared.
Theron and I appeared on the front lawn. With winter in full force, the ground was covered in a thick blanket of snow that crunched beneath my boots as I walked up the stone steps.
I didn’t bother knocking, opening the wooden door and stepping into the foyer. All was quiet for the most part, and I glanced around the space. The foyer was mostly empty, with the exception of a bare table against the wall, and the open sitting room to the left was furnished but looked unused with dust collecting on the surfaces. Which wasn’t surprising.
While Mavris and I arranged for healers to attend to my father regularly, no one else came here. I wondered many times if a place this big was too much for a single person to reside in. Perhaps it’d be more manageable if he had a smaller home. But he held hope my mother would come back and insisted she would want her home when she did.
“Hello?” I announced, my voice echoing off the walls.
A moment later, footsteps sounded from upstairs, and I looked up to the landing.
Althea came around the corner and descended the stairs, greeting me with a bow. “Lord Ryker.”
“Althea.” I nodded in return. “How is Cadoc?”
“I’ve been giving him an elixir over the past several days to keep him calm. He’s been more agitated than usual lately. You were wise to request we tend to him full-time. Something about his recent trip to see you has him more…unsettled than before,” she said softly.
“Yes, I know.” I didn’t want to offer up any more details. I had assumed that since he had met Kya, knowing she had once gone into the Rip and returned, that he would be more erratic than usual.
She craned her neck, looking behind me.
I gave her a questioning look with a quirked brow.
“Cadoc mentioned something about your mate. And I heard rumors of her as well—a Worthy. I thought she might be with you,” she said sheepishly, lowering her head.
I inhaled sharply. She hadn’t heard of what happened. I doubted many had. It wasn’t exactly something I had announced, and while word had likely gotten around in Voara, it hadn’t reached here yet. And I wasn’t going to be the one to mention it—not yet.
“No, she’s not with me,” I said stiffly.
“Oh. Well, maybe next time.”
I can only hope.
“I’ll go see him now. He’s in his room?”
Althea nodded, and I went up the stairs to my father’s bedchamber. I reached with my mind, listening for his, and could hear his chaotic thoughts. His mind gripped me instantly, thrusting me into a cavernous space, pulsing with a frenzied energy.
“She’s out there…”
“Trapped.”
He couldn’t fixate on a single idea, bouncing around without a grasp on reality.
“…wouldn’t leave me. Something happened. I have to find her. I’m not crazy.”
“…she’s not dead…”
“My mate. ”
The anguish of the words in his head…it wasn’t so different from mine.
I knocked softly, then entered when I didn’t get a response. My father was bent over his desk, papers scattered across it. His thoughts may have been frantic, but he was so still I would have assumed he was sleeping while sitting up. That elixir Althea gave him calmed his body, but did nothing for his mind.
I couldn’t help but wonder if this is what would happen to me if I didn’t get Kya back in my arms—going completely mad and needing healers to make me seem sane. I couldn’t lead a Nation like that. I couldn’t live like that. No, I had to find her. I needed her.
“Father,” I greeted.
He slowly lifted his head to look at me. There was nothing in his distant brown eyes. There hadn’t been in nearly fifty years. Not since my mother fell.
“What are you doing here, son?” he asked almost sluggishly. He wouldn’t meet my eye, and I wasn’t sure if it was because he was upset with me or if he just couldn’t.
After observing him for another moment, I grabbed a chair from the corner of the room and pulled it up next to him. I sat and rested my elbows on my knees, running a hand through my unkempt hair.
“I need you to tell me everything you know about what happened to Mother.”
His eyes narrowed. “I have told you everything. You failed to listen. For years, I’ve told you and your brother. Either you didn’t care, or you thought I was crazy!”
“I’m listening now!” I yelled, smacking my hand on the desk. My temper heated faster than I anticipated. “Yes, we all thought you were crazy, but trust me when I say, I believe you now. So tell me what the fuck happened!”
He remained silent, holding my cold, demanding stare. “You believe me?” he asked carefully.
“I don’t know anything about Mother, which is why I’m asking you. You would know.” I repeated the same words Theron had said to me. “So tell me everything.”
He hesitated for a moment. “Why now?”
“For the love of Xareus… Will you just tell me already?” My patience was wearing thin.
“Why now, Ryker?” he articulated each word. “Is there something you know?” The question sounded more accusatory than curious.
“Because I think the same thing may have happened to Kya. Now tell me what happened to Mother before I find out for myself,” I warned, lowering my voice. I had never threatened my father, but when it came to Kya, I would do just about anything.
Father tsked and glanced out the window for several moments before finally speaking. “The Glaev had been around for half a century, showing up at random all across the continent. While it was concerning, it hadn’t been a pressing issue at the time, only appearing in small, deserted, and desolate areas of land.”
I leaned back in my chair, wondering where this was all going.
“But then it started to show up near towns. Inside of towns. And people died.”
“I don’t need a history lesson. I was there,” I snapped, but he ignored me and continued.
“Your mother had a friend whose family was killed by the Glaev, a Scholar. She was determined from then on to find out what it was, how to stop it, and how to cure it.”
“She left to find some of the Scholars who were working on it at Morah. She and Vicria followed a lead, then she fell into the Rip. I know the chain of events. I’m asking what else happened.” My temper was holding on by a thread. I understood how the last fifty years had driven him mad.
“I wasn’t there,” he said coldly.
“You’re her mate. Didn’t you speak to her? Through the bond? How did she fall?”
“She didn’t fall!” He stood abruptly. “It wasn’t some accident. She wouldn’t have been that careless. Someone sent her over the edge—to somewhere else.”
“And you think it was Vicria?” I asked.
That had been the running theory for years, seeing as she was the last person to be with her and only offered up that she fell in by accident while researching the Glaev’s origin. It was the main reason I despised her so much. She had been my mother’s friend, yet couldn’t bother to be transparent about how she died. But I suppose she never did die.
He shook his head, looking back down at the papers. “I don’t know. That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out.”
His unusually calm demeanor made it easier to talk to him than it had been for decades. Perhaps just finally giving him the validation he was right all along settled something in him.
“Why do you think she’s alive?” I asked. This was the entire reason I was here.
He gave me a look as if I was the one who had lost their mind. “I’ve told you before. I know she’s not dead.”
“But how?” I pressed.
“The bond,” he said pointedly. “It lives. And so does she. I can’t reach her, but I know she’s there. She’s just…lost. Everyone thinks I’m crazy, and I wish I could somehow show you our bond—that it’s still there, no matter how faint. ” He looked me directly in the eyes before they narrowed slightly, and his face softened. “But you know this, don’t you?”
I said nothing.
“Your mate. The Worthy I met—Kya.”
I stiffened at her name.
“What happened to her exactly?”
Do I tell him?
If I did, he could think I knew more than I did and lash out, and that was the last thing I needed right now. On the other hand, he knew this connection—this loss, this drive—better than anyone else.
“She fell into the Rip.”
I explained everything that I knew to my father—what happened to Kya at the Rip, what I felt. His confirmation of the bond was all I needed to know Kya truly was alive and his theory of my mother being somewhere else was likely correct, but that posed a greater problem.
Where the fuck is she?
“You’ve been bonded much longer than I have. What do you know about it? What have you learned over the years? We now personally know what the bond feels like when they’re…gone. But would we know if they truly died or not?” I needed to understand more than just the basics of the mating bond.
I knew bonds had been forged by the Gods since the beginning of time. They were a gift, giving the fae one true companion to live their lives beside with a divine fusion of their souls. Everyone was born with half of their soul resting in another, but it wasn’t guaranteed their other half would be born within their lifetime. That connection, that drive, encouraged breeding which ensured the species to survive and thrive. It wasn’t until the fae were bestowed abilities by the Gods that those with the bond realized their powers grew along with their connection.
Males felt the bond stronger than females. It forced them to an almost primal state, causing them to be possessive and even violent. The females only felt that same compulsion to protect the bond after their mating.
“I don’t know what it’s like when a mate dies. I just know Leysa hasn’t. But like you, after she disappeared, I became obsessed with finding her and learning everything I could about the bond to see if there was any way I could use it to find her. Like when she was here, it would always lead me to her,” Cadoc started.
It was the same for me. The tug of the bond, was irresistible and unrelenting. Fighting against it was pointless.
“What I discovered is also why I know she’s alive.” He twisted his hands together, like an anxious tick I had seen so many times. “When the mating bond is broken, half of the soul is lost. The majority of those who lost a mate couldn’t bear to live without them and would ultimately follow them into the After to rejoin their souls once again. And it’s been more commonly seen when the female passed first.”
I assumed it was because the bond was more controlling of males.
“I don’t think… I couldn’t live like that.” My father shook his head. “I barely can now.”
He had been suffering from this for decades. I felt bad for never having believed him before. I wished I hadn’t had to have experienced it for myself before I took his word, even though there was no way for anyone to fully understand it without that experience.
“And nothing in all your years of research mentioned anything about mates being separated?” I asked. Surely someone in the past few millennia had to have some experience with this.
“Nothing other than simple distance, like being in another Nation. I even searched for anything I could find on anyone whose mate could have been on the Drift Islands or gone to the Trials. Still, nothing like this has happened before.” I could sense his anger rising. “And why would it? Mates are rare. The fact you and I found them at all is an anomaly. The Gods, damn them all, only want some of us to experience this kind of connection—and the pain that comes with it.”
He wasn’t wrong. They gave us this bond and then made it unbearable whenever it was broken or fractured. But even with all of this pain, I would have always chosen to be mated to Kya. No matter where she was, no matter that she left me behind, I wouldn’t have spared myself from this. Even if all I had had with her was a few months, it was worth it. But I refused to allow us to be separated forever.
“We need to find out where they are.” I stood and began pacing, speaking more to myself than my father. “Another realm. Obviously there’s more than one. There’s Hylithria—the Spirit realm—but when she was there before I still felt her, even before we sealed our mating.”
“I don’t know, son,” Cadoc said, following me back and forth with his eyes.
I paused for a moment. I needed to know more about the Rip. I needed to know more about what else was out there.
How many realms are there? How can they be found? How do I get there? How did Daegel ?
“I’m going back to Voara,” I stated, facing my father. It was an open-ended invitation for him to come along.
He stared at me for a moment, contemplating. I resisted rolling my eyes. What did he have to hesitate about?
“Ryker, I’ve been looking for answers for years. Decades…” He sighed.
That made little difference to me. I wouldn’t stop. “Well, you’re welcome to join me. Two of us is better than one. And like you said, you were all alone before.”
He made no attempt to move, and I was growing frustrated with him. I really thought we were making some headway.
“Fine. You know where to find me.” I didn’t waste another moment before I walked out of the house and had Theron Travel me back to Voara to meet with Mavris.
While he was my brother, Mavris was also my advisor and for good reason. He was incredibly smart and resourceful.
I tracked Mavris down, finding him in his study a few doors down from mine. When I entered through the open door, he was standing next to someone, deep in discussion. They both looked at me. My eyes darted to Mavris, then the male he was with.
“Leave,” I commanded.
The male’s eyes widened just before he gave a curt bow and fled from the room, leaving Mavris and me alone.
“Not exactly the most polite greeting,” Mavris mumbled, crossing his arms over his chest.
“He’ll be fine.”
“I get you’re in a pissy mood, but you’re still the Lord of Oryn. You owe people respect.”
“I didn’t come here to get berated, Mav,” I snapped.
“Fake it if you have to. Just be nicer.” He rolled his eyes. “You went to Dolta? ”
“Yes. And I think Father has been correct all this time. If he feels like I do, then Mother is alive. I think she and Kya are in another realm. Could be the same one or not. I have no idea. I need you to tell me what you know about the other realms.”
Mavris wasn’t moving. He didn’t respond, and I swore he wasn’t even breathing for a moment.
“What?” I barked.
His mouth gaped slightly as if he couldn’t find the words. “Ryk…that’s kind of a big announcement to make to someone who has believed their mother dead for the last fifty years.”
I had been so consumed with the thought of Kya that even I hadn’t truly taken in the fact that my mother was likely still alive. It was my father who told us something had happened. He felt it. We had tracked Vicria down, and all that bitch said was that she was ‘gone.’
Her death broke me. Even after I became a Lord, she still mothered me as if I was an adolescent. I missed her love and care, her sweet, gentle demeanor. Being there, supporting me, no matter what.
But she hadn’t died. And neither did Kya.
I exhaled sharply, kicking myself internally for being so careless. “I’m sorry. I should have been more considerate. But, yes, Mother is alive, and I need you to tell me what you know about the other realms so I can find them both.”
He shook his head slightly, attempting to clear away the shock. “The only other one I know about is Hylithria. Are you sure there are others?”
“Yes.”
“Well,” he shrugged. “There’s one place that would have that information if it exists.”
Morah.
I didn’t want to go back to the library in Riyah. Just another place with a memory of Kya. And her family was there. But now that Kya and I had wed, they were my family too, I supposed.
Fuck.
And Mavris was right. What better place to find information about other realms than the most extensive collection of information and Scholars?
“Fine. We leave immediately,” I snipped. I turned to leave and was just about to tell Theron where we were going.
“Wait,” Mavris said.
I stopped and looked at him over my shoulder.
“The male that was here—that was Atrey.”
“And his significance to this conversation is…” I drawled.
“He’s a messenger,” he paused. “From Bhara.”
My breathing stopped. I had completely forgotten with everything going on. The Sages, the Worthy… They didn’t know. No one had informed them. I hadn’t informed them.
I turned to face him fully, noting the paper he picked up from his desk and read from. An unnatural wave of rage, mixed with a deep sadness, pulsed through my veins.
“You’re due to appear in front of the panel of Sages and Worthy in accordance with the law or be subjected to the Raith.” He looked up from the paper and met my stare. “Your mating trial starts in three days.”