Rise of the Faire-Amanti (The Ascendant Series Book 3) (20 page)

Eventually, they landed upon the memory they sought. Kyr was falling in her parachute at what seemed an extreme rate of speed due to her dream state. She landed roughly, colliding with the tree where Ty found her chute. Along with Lia, Ty witnessed the shocking blow to Kyr’s face by the unknown male.

They flipped to the next sequence. They watched through Kyr’s eyes as she regained consciousness, registering things in her dream state that he suspected she hadn’t at the time. It was clear she had been under the influence of something powerful…something debilitating. He felt her fear when she was disrobed and she realized she couldn’t control her mind or her body. He heard her pleas for their baby that fell on merciless ears.

Then he watched helplessly as she was systematically tortured.

When it was over, Ty removed himself from his aunt’s thoughts. He blinked as the family room came back into focus and felt a drop of moisture trail down his cheek. He realized that his mother was now kneeling at his feet and clutching his hand. Her face was also glistening with tears.

“I’m so sorry, Ty,” Lia said. Her voice was full of emotion.

His mother released him when he shifted. His hands weren’t steady as he lifted Kyr to hold her against his chest again. If she had been awake, she would have felt the brisk thumps of his heart thrashing against his rib cage.

He couldn’t possibly convey just how enraged and appalled he was over what had been done to her. He was almost equally as terrified over what the strange V’larian drug might permanently do to her or their unborn child.

And he felt viciously betrayed…because her captor had been his cousin, Sem’s younger brother, Troi.

Chapter 24

“Troi? My sister’s son, Troi? Are you sure?”

Ty wished he could give his mother a response that wouldn’t break her heart, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t speak at all. It was Lia who had shared his cousin’s name with his parents.

“I’m sure of it,” Lia said, wiping her eyes. “I don’t know how he could have done such awful things to Ma’jah Kyr. To anyone. Oh, Elly. It was unspeakable.”

Elly’s face was sickly pale beneath her dark eyeshades. She pushed herself to her feet and probably would have stumbled right into the untouched tray of food if J’ael hadn’t anticipated it. He was up and clutching her in a tight hug before she could move.

“I can think of no reason why Troi would do something like this,” J’ael said, rubbing his amanti’s back as she pressed her face against his chest.

“Ma’jah said…in the dream she said that Troi had been influenced,” Lia revealed. “Influenced by VycorDane.”

Ty’s jaw clenched so tight at the name that it was a wonder his teeth didn’t shatter. He once again thought of Vycor’s vow to destroy his family. If Ty didn’t get to him soon and stop him, Vycor would have all of his family at each other’s throats. He knew that if Troi had been in the room right then, Ty wouldn’t have been held accountable for his actions, whether or not Troi had been influenced.

“Can you make her forget what happened?” J’ael asked Lia.

Lia’s gaze moved to Kyr. “I’ve already done what I can. By sharing the dream with me, it reduces its impact on her psyche. She won’t forget it, but nor will it rule her.”

Elly had collected herself and now stood straight, brushing her tears aside. “Tae, Kyr needs rest. Let’s get her settled in our bed. She’ll sleep peacefully now.”

He didn’t want to go against his mother’s wishes, but he didn’t want to leave Kyr alone with her dreams…not after what he’d seen. His aunt spoke before he could come up with a sound argument to keep Kyr close.

“I’ll sit with her,” Lia assured him. “I’ll make sure her mind is at ease.”

“All right,” he relented.

He rose with Kyr and carried her down the hallway to his parents’ bedroom. When he walked in, he headed straight to the large bed. It dominated the space, covered with an ivory and navy blue comforter and a plethora of pillows. The carved wood and rose-gilt headboard was the same as it had been when he was a child. Some of his childhood artwork still decorated the walls, having been placed in fancy wood frames by his mother in a rather heroic attempt to make them look more impressive than they were. A tall bureau and a single nightstand completed the furnishings. As he laid Kyr in the bed, the sheets released a faintly floral scent.

“I have a nightgown she can wear,” Lia said, walking in behind him with a folded pink garment in her hands. “I managed to borrow a few things before you arrived.”

“Thanks, Aunt Lia,” he said, accepting the nightgown. The robe Kyr was wearing had seen better moments.

“Of course. I’ll give you a minute to get her settled.”

He waited until she closed the door behind her before he got to work removing the robe. It was harder—oh, so much harder—to handle seeing the bruises on Kyr’s body when he knew exactly how they had happened. She had suffered so much.
They
had suffered.

When would it be enough?

To avoid dwelling on it and letting it drag him down into a spiral of hate and despair, he focused on getting Kyr comfortable in the bed. He kissed her as he touched her to change her into the nightgown…her lips, her cheeks, her forehead, her abdomen…and murmured words he hoped she somehow heard in her sleep.

His aunt knocked and waited for him to invite her in. He thanked her again as she took a seat on the bed and gathered one of Kyr’s hands into her own.

She smiled. “You know you don’t have to thank me, Ty. She’s family, and we take care of our own.”

Neither of them mentioned that it was family that had put Kyr there. He just nodded and headed back to the family room with one last glance at Kyr.

He spotted his mother sitting on the couch he had abandoned. His father was nowhere in sight. Elly was adding cream to one of two cups of tea she had poured.

“Come and have a seat, Tae,” she urged, patting the couch beside her. “I sent your father off to give us some time together.”

Ty obeyed, walking over and sitting beside her. He didn’t have an appetite for the food or tea still sitting on the table, but he knew his mother would fuss if he didn’t partake. He lifted the cup and saucer as she brought her own cup to her lips.

“You don’t have to drink that,” she told him. “I poured it out of habit, truth be told. I imagine it’s the last thing you want right now.”

Her insight didn’t surprise him. She was one of the most powerful females he knew. While female Mynders were more in tune with relationships and feelings than thoughts, she had always been as intuitive as many male Mynders. He knew that she wasn’t offended when he put the tea back on the table.

“Tae,” she said, “I know you can read our thoughts. But I feel it’s important that you hear directly from me and your father that we never for one minute believed that load of farsil dung that came from the palace.”

Ty met her intent gaze. An unseen weight slid from his mind. He hadn’t realized how much he’d needed to hear that until just then. Leave it to his mother to know, he mused.

“Thanks, Mom.”

She gave him a look that said he didn’t need to thank her. “It was a mockery of a trial. A blind mud rat could have seen that. We scanned numerous memories of it, and they all showed how absurd it was.” Her hand reached out and touched his. The gesture transported him briefly back to his childhood and the feeling of comfort she’d always provided him. “You have enough on your mind, my sweet, strong child. This should never have been a burden for you to carry.”

“I hadn’t realized it was,” he admitted. “But I suppose my judgment has been clouded by everything that’s happened.”

She gave his hand a squeeze. “Tell me.”

He did, starting with receiving the news that Kyr was in danger during her life lesson on Earth. The retelling was concise, as he was trained to report. Thorough and factual. His mother didn’t interrupt once, merely nodding and making small sounds of understanding. He knew she inferred much that wasn’t explicitly stated. There was something very reassuring about that.

By the time he was done, his mother had to light a few of the wall sconces to brighten up the gloom of dusk. Ty noticed that his plate and teacup both bore evidence of being used, and vaguely remembered his mother handing him things to drink and eat while he spoke.

His gaze again moved to her as she once again sat beside him and took his hand. “Now,” she said, “you’ll listen to me, TaeDane.

“I was young—younger than even you and Kyr are now—when I discovered I was pregnant with you. Your father and I were practicing birth control, so the news came as a total shock. But I believed then what I still believe today. You’re our miracle.”

Ty wanted to be uncomfortable with this conversation. Instead, he realized he had been waiting a long time to have it.

“It wasn’t only difficult for me to let you leave our house when you were still at such a tender age,” she continued, “it was devastating. In my head, I understood that you were fulfilling your destiny. The timing of your birth had been foretold…the same date at the same time and under the same star as the Ascendant. In my mother’s heart, though, I shouted at the heavens that this would be my fate…to have so little time with my firstborn—my only—child.

“I was so proud of you, but I was terrified, too. A child needs his mother, no matter his destiny. So I asked…I
begged
Guardian Shaya to allow me and J’ael to move into the palace so we could be close to you. When that request was denied, I pleaded with her to allow us to move into the Vawn megai. That, too, was denied. Shaya felt that you needed to be one hundred percent focused on your training and learning to protect her daughter. She felt that we would prove too distracting.”

Shaya had offered the same justification for giving Ty the marks on his forearms that caused him pain whenever he touched Kyr for a reason other than for her protection. He realized now that Shaya had suspected something more than just protective feelings might develop between him and Kyr. She had hoped the physical deterrent would be enough to keep them apart.

“I never intended to tell you any of this,” Elly admitted. “You’ve had enough to worry about. In light of everything that you’ve shared with me, however, I felt that you should hear it. It seems clear enough that the Guardian has had selfish intentions from the moment her daughter was born and declared the Ascendant.”

Ty couldn’t argue. She was exactly right.

Elly issued a quiet sigh. “If I’m sharing that much, I should be completely honest with you. The truth is, I’ve resented Kyr for a long time.”

His heart dropped. He didn’t think he’d be able to handle it if she didn’t approve of his relationship with Kyr. Not on top of everything else.

She patted his hand, probably intuiting his thoughts. “That confession makes me feel like a horrible person, especially in light of everything you’ve just told me. That poor girl has suffered under her mother’s thumb just as much as you. More, it seems, due to Shaya’s sickening jealousy. I find myself happy that Kyr had you to help her through what was clearly a loveless and difficult upbringing. I should never have questioned your fate. You two really were destined to be together.”

He met her gaze, struggling to ignore the emotion he saw there so he could speak. “Over the years living in the palace, I’ve thought many times about the fact that I came from much more humble beginnings than Kyr did. Yet I always felt that I was the more fortunate one because I had you and Dad, and Kyr didn’t really have anyone.”

A tear trailed down his mother’s cheek. She could only nod.

“I missed you as much as you did me. I wish we hadn’t been forced to spend so many years apart, and I hope our future will be much different.”

That produced a small, watery laugh from Elly. “I won’t accept any other way,” she said. “I fully intend to be a part of your life, not to mention my grandchild’s.”

He blinked over the straightforward statement, though he shouldn’t have been surprised. “How did you know?”

Elly smiled. “Pregnant females give off a different aura in the eyes of skilled female Mynders.” Her gaze settled on his with a mother’s pointed look. “I do wish you had undergone the Proce-Amanti before you had started having sex, though.”

Ty’s neck burned. He reached up to rub at it, not quite meeting his mother’s gaze.

“It’s clear you two bonded strongly enough on your own,” she said. “But I’d like to perform the proper Rite once Kyr is feeling well enough. Are you open to that?”

Relief flowed through him. “Sure, thanks. I’d like that.”

“All right. That’s settled. Why don’t you go and check on Kyr? I’m sure she’s been on your mind. I’ll let your father come back inside for dinner,” she added with a wink.

He firmed his hold on her hand before she pulled away. “Thanks, Mom. For everything.”

She sniffled. “Stop that. I’m barely holding it together as it is.”

Grinning, he let her go and got up to check on Kyr. Lia reported no change, so Ty asked her to take a break and come to dinner with them. When they got back to the cooking area, J’ael was busy placing a few things on the counter while Elly worked over a pan on the cooking fire. Ty’s eyebrow lifted when he recognized the bottles and implements that J’ael had set out.

“No sense in keeping up your disguise when your amanti doesn’t have one,” J’ael pointed out with a smile. “And since Vycor surely knows by now that Kyr is still alive, it doesn’t much matter that you both look like yourselves.”

Ty figured his father was right. Assuming Troi was under Vycor’s influence—and he had no reason to doubt Kyr’s conviction on that—the Advisor most definitely knew of her survival by now. Hell, he’d probably been watching what Troi did through Troi’s eyes, even guiding him through the torture session.

“I’m sorry I brought his name up,” J’ael said, his smile fading. “It was careless of me. In all seriousness, I know your mother would like to look at you as Yen-Ki intended.”

Ty’s gaze moved consideringly to his mother’s back. She was very intent on cooking whatever she had in the pan. He considered the fact that they hadn’t seen each other since he left for his training at the palace.