Suddenly, all the hate Aradella had felt for most of her life dissolved. It was over! One of the women who had caused her so much pain was dying. She sat down on the floor beside her enemy, not touching but close, and removed the medallion and held it. “Is there anything you’d like to reveal before you leave this existence?” Aradella raised an eyebrow. “Maybe you know something that could hurt the mother who never loved you. I assume she’s alive and safe somewhere.”
Olina glared at the medallion. “So you found it. My mother was insane with anger that it was gone.”
Aradella opened the case and looked at the picture. “Tell me about it. Who is the beautiful woman?”
“My mother.”
It was hard to believe that the pretty woman could age into the old crone that was Urah, but then Aradella looked at the picture. “This looks like you. I saw that it reminded me of someone. Do the stones mean something?”
Olina was getting weaker. “It’s a lock. I played with it when I was a child—until my mother caught me and took it away from me. Start with the big one and push 3 7 1.”
Aradella pushed the stones in that order and a tiny door opened to show a picture of a man. She instantly recognized him. When he’d disappeared, his picture was everywhere as people searched for him. “This is Haver Beyhan, Tanek’s grandfather. Why is his picture with Urah’s?”
“She loved him. He was my father.”
It took Aradella moments to digest this information. She knew that Haver had not left his wife and family to be with Urah and their child. It must have made Urah furious. “Isthiswhy Urah destroyed the Homestead and killed Haver’s son?”
“Yes.”
“It wasn’t an Empyrean conspiracy?”
“No. It was about my father. He wanted nothing to do with us.” She gave a half smile at Aradella’s look of shock mixed with disbelief. “So you don’t know everything as you think you do!He and my mother were first in love as children. They were to marry but he saw my mother do something he didn’t like, so he left her. It was cruel of him as what she did was a small thing. What did a peasant child matter?”
Aradella didn’t want to imagine what horrible thing Urah had been caught doing. “But he did impregnate her.”
“A few drops of this and that and men are easy. I doubt that he remembered what happened either time.”
Aradella’s eyes widened. “Eithertime?”
“I have a brother, but my mother sent him away when he was a baby. For his protection.”
“Protection from what?”
“From me, of course.” Olina’s tone said she was proud of that. “I tried hard to kill the brat and I was making progress, so she took him away. I’ve searched for him but I couldn’t find him or the key.”
Aradella drew in her breath. “What key?”
“I don’t know! But it’s something important. She thought it would protect him, but it didn’t.” Again, Olina gave a weak smile. “The key does something on Empyrea and only he can use it. Without him, it’s useless.”
Aradella looked at the picture in the medallion. “Haver died in a cave,” she whispered.
Olina gave a nod of admiration that she knew that. “My mother only meant to killhimbut she got one of his sons instead. He tried to hide from her but she found him. To be fair, she offered him their son, Ramil, as a replacement for his other son, but he said no.” Olina shrugged. “He forced her to do what she did.”
“Meaning that she killed Haver in that cave.” Aradella spoke softy as she imagined the horror of the scene.
Olina nodded at the medallion. “That’s when she put his soul in there. It’s why she was so angry when that goat-man stole it.”
With wide eyes, Aradella looked at the medallion. “His soul is in here?” she whispered.
“It’s an easy spell. Even a nothing like you could do it—7 7 7 will unlock it. I wanted to put his soul into one of my riding birds but I was kept from it. My mother—”
Olina gave Aradella a wide-eyed look then she said no more. Her head fell forward onto her chest and she was silent. That her lifelong enemy was dead—at her hand—wasn’t something Aradella could quite comprehend. With her hand on the edge of the table, she tried to stand, but her legs were wobbly.
Then, suddenly, Mekos was there. She smiled at him in a drunken way. “I did it again.” Then the room seemed to start turning around rapidly.
Mekos caught her before she went down. Holding her in his arms, he looked at Davro. At their feet was Olina’s body. His eyes were asking,Whatdo I do about this?
“I will take care of this,” Davro said. With his thumb and a finger, he picked up the knife off the table, dropped it into an empty jar and tightened the lid over it. He ran his disk down Aradella’s inert body. When he looked at his nephew, there were tears in his eyes. “I never thought I’d see this. You are going to be a father to—” He swallowed. “Totwobabies.”
