by Dani Hoots
How was it always Thomas who was the one to retrieve me? It had to be Joss’ way of putting salt in the wound, making me have to face the fact I had messed up and the one person who I didn’t want to boast about how I screwed up was right there to show off. He probably thought that the Emperor saw him as his right-hand man. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t realize Joss was using us all. That we all were just puppets in the end.
Then again, he probably liked it that way.
We arrived at the bar and Tim shoved me through the door a little harshly. I thought about kicking him in the leg, but knew that would just end in more petty fighting. Jack was there, being held back by Logan and Jane. Seriously, why did he always bring his top people, it was like he had nothing better to do. Jack had cuts on his face and his nose had blood dripping out of it.
“At last, Myra, I see you decided to show up,” Joss said. Dan stood next to him, watching as I glared at Joss and glanced quickly at Jack. “I was beginning to wonder if you would come to witness his execution.”
“Don’t kill him. I will leave him here and do whatever you say. Just let him be.” I knew it wouldn’t work, we weren’t beyond begging. Joss wanted to teach me a lesson. He wasn’t going to hold back ever again.
“Like I haven’t heard that one before Myra.” Joss pulled out his Class Two gun and gestured to the guards to make Jack kneel. He pointed his gun at his head. “Say goodbye to your precious crime-lord.”
“Jack no!” I screamed as Tim pulled me back.
“Joss stop this now!” Dan ordered. Joss stopped and turned to face him. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Why would Joss stop just because Dan told him to?
Dan didn’t waver. “Let him live. I can’t watch Myra suffer like this.”
I looked at Dan as if he was crazy. He had no authority over Joss, why would it matter what he said. Dan’s appearance changed. He looked as if he was the master, not just some smiling friend as he had always been.
Joss put his gun back into his holster. “Fine, but he will only cause trouble for us and you know that.”
I pulled myself out of Tim’s grip and ran into Jack’s arms. He held me close. I was so happy that Dan stopped Joss, but I couldn’t help but wonder why.
“I don’t understand, how did Dan stop Joss?” I asked.
“Because,” Jack never let his eyes leave Dan’s. “He’s the true Emperor. He’s Nygard.”
I whirled around and stared at him. I could see it now, the resemblance between him and the statue. The statue had crumbled a bit and features weren’t as detailed as they used to be. But now I saw Dan in a new light. He was the infamous Nygard.
No, he couldn’t be. He was nice, he was kind. He couldn’t be that murderer. He couldn’t be…
“That means you are…” I began. I couldn’t finish what I was saying, I couldn’t bear the fact that he was my true father, that my father that I had grown to love, the one I cared for, wasn’t actually my father.
No, he was. He was more of a father than this person ever could be. I knew that for a fact.
“I am your father, yes,” Dan explained. “Sorry I haven’t been there for you, I was… indisposed.”
“You can read my mind too?” I asked, because that was all I needed.
He smiled. “No, not yours. Your mother made sure of that.”
I just stared at him. Had Violet protected my mind from him? When did she do this? Everything was so confusing, and I still hadn’t heard a word from her since Anosira. Did it have to do with Dan? Or I guess it was Nygard now.
Jack stood up, his eyes still not leaving Nygard. I wasn’t quite sure what he was going to do, but I knew I couldn’t stop him. “May I?” he asked Nygard.
Nygard nodded. “Go ahead, be my guest.”
Jack smiled and turned to Tim. He punched him in the jaw as hard as he could, which believe me, was hard.
“Jack!” I yelled as I ran to him, holding back his arm as he was about to punch again.
“The bastard deserved it,” he said as Tim looked at him, rubbing his jaw.
“I know, but there’s one thing you forgot,” I said as I turned and punched him myself. This time Tim hit the ground. “I wanted to punch him first.”
“Now, reunion aside,” Nygard interrupted. “Myra, you stole something off Ttkas, what was it?”
I looked at Jack and back at Nygard. “What do you mean? I told you I was just looking around.”
The look Nygard gave me was cold, colder than I had ever seen on his face. Yes, I now knew he was the Sanshlian Emperor, my father, but the moment he gave me those icy cold eyes, I knew that this man had to be capable of anything.
And there was no way I could ever defeat him. Not in any way that I knew as of yet.
“I know you took something,” Nygard repeated. “I’m not that stupid. What did Violet hide for you?”
I took a deep breath. I had to make this genuine, I had to get him to believe me. Though, it wouldn’t be hard. I ran off from Anosira super-fast, not grabbing anything as I left. I had just been lucky that the gem and my pocket watch were on my person.
“It was a gem, it’s supposed to show me where Sanshli is. It’s still on Anosira, I hid it late one night.” I didn’t let the lie show through, I knew Joss was reading my mind. He was watching me closely.
“She’s telling the truth, at least from what I can tell.”
Logan looked the most pissed. “Seriously? We came all the way here for nothing? Damn it Myra.”
I couldn’t wait until he found out it was actually on Recar all along. He would probably punch me just for the heck of it.
“Well then.” Nygard turned to the door. “We shall get back to Anosira immediately.”
CHAPTER 25
“Well that escalated quickly,” I commented as the door shut behind Jack. We were in my quarters on Joss’ ship. Nygard decided to let us be on the ship not as prisoners, but as regular people. Strangely, he trusted me more than he honestly should.
And I knew the design of these ships. There weren’t any cameras in the regular quarters so Nygard must have really trusted me.
I rubbed my face, thinking of all that had happened over the past couple days. I started using my powers, thought Jack was dead, found out Jack wasn’t dead, hid the gem, got caught by the Empire, Jack almost got killed, my father is Dan who is Nygard, and I almost slept with Tom. It was all too much to handle. Especially the last part.
“How did you not know it was him?” Jack asked. “I mean, he taught you how to use your powers.”
“I didn’t expect a nice guy like him to be Nygard. Seriously, he was pretty kind.”
“Other than when he shot you?” Jack asked.
I sighed. He had a point. I hated it when he had a point. I should have figured something was up when he would shoot me to coerce me into learning my powers. Made me wonder how exactly he learned his powers as well. “Yeah, there was that. And probably a few other things.” This included how he could teach me my powers, why he was so nice to me, to the point of even worrying about me, and how he could be so good at fighting. He had a lot of years of experience, and perhaps some lingering paternal feelings too.
“It pretty much answers everything, doesn’t it?” Jack added.
“Stop reading my mind.” I swore that if he did it again, I would punch him. I hated it when people kept reading my mind, especially since I didn’t know to what extent they were doing it. It was the only thing I had to myself, and apparently, I never even had that.
“I’m not, I’m just making an educated guess. Give me more credit than that. I wasn’t the one who didn’t recognize their own father,” he smiled.
I gave him a look. “Hey, after everything you think it would have been easy for me to recognize him? The only time I ever saw him was when we were in front of that statue, during which my head was swimming in agony. Remember that? I almost went insane.”
Wrapping his arms around me, he kissed my forehead. “And I’m glad they are
gone, though I’m not sure you losing your sanity would be anything new.”
He did have a point. I had been through a lot, and I could honestly break at any moment. “After all that has happened, I’m pretty surprised myself. Especially after being with my brother and Joss all this time.”
Thinking of my brother made me think of Lance. I wondered what they were all doing at the moment, if they were searching for me, or if just Lance was. He didn’t have anyone to play games with anymore. He was probably bored and spent all his time in the library.
Jack frowned. “What do you think of Lance as?”
“Excuse me?” I asked. He better not be reading my mind or I was going to be pissed. I could already feel my cheeks turn a little red.
“Just now, you are thinking about him. Why is that?”
I pushed Jack away. “I thought you said you were going to stop reading my mind. What happened to that?”
“I saw that look on your face and I had to know what you were thinking about. To my surprise, you were thinking about another man.”
“It’s not like that and you know it. Lance, David, he was the only one who has stood by me after all of this. My brother and Alan were going to kill me and he stopped them. He was my only friend, the only person I could trust would not stab me in the back. That’s all.” At least that was what I kept telling myself. Honestly, I wondered if my Father hadn’t been killed, if our Uncle would have still picked up Will and David on Cisum, maybe we’d still have ended up together. I knew it was highly unlikely, but when I had a year of not doing anything, my mind pondered different hypotheticals.
“You were quick to stab him in the back though.”
I didn’t know if he meant that in a good way or a bad way. Probably both. “And that’s the difference between you and him. I would never do that to you and you know it.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You pulled your gun on me on Sanshli.”
Right, I had forgotten about that. “Yes, I did, but you knew I wasn’t going to shoot you. I wouldn’t shoot you, at least not a fatal shot anyway.”
Jack laughed. “Oh, that’s reassuring.”
“You know that’s a compliment from me.” I let out a sigh and fell on top of the bed. “I don’t know what to do next, Jack.”
He sat down on the edge of the bed and traced my cheek with his finger. “That’s a first coming from you.”
I let out a brief chuckle. “I know. This is all so much more complicated than normal. I’m not sure if it’s going to turn out how I want it to.”
“I think it will. I believe in it, believe that we will win this one.”
I shrugged. “So many variables, and now we know Dan is Nygard, I’m not sure I can ever defeat him. I can’t even defeat him in hand-to-hand combat, let alone master my powers like that. I don’t know what to do.”
“We stick to the original plan,” Jack said. “I go get Rik and his crew to the races.”
“I don’t know how easy that will be. We will need to figure out an escape plan and then you will need to be able to convince my brother that he needs to get the gem.”
“Oh, that can be arranged easily. Besides, Nygard isn’t the one I’m worried about sneaking past. I’m more nervous about Joss. I don’t think has stopped keeping an eye on us since we left Recar. He wants us destroyed but Nygard is too distracted by you to notice me leaving.”
I wasn’t sure exactly what he meant by that. Nygard had interest in me, that was for sure. I was his daughter that had been taken from him when he tried to destroy Sanshli, then ultimately succeeded in destroying Sanshli. He had killed so many innocent people, yet in person he seemed like a nice guy. I couldn’t even think of how it was possible.
But then again, was that where I got my heartlessness? It made sense, really, that he was my father. I had done a lot of the same things he had, killing those who were innocent because they were in my way.
“Why do you think Nygard is easily distracted by me?” I asked, shoving back the thoughts of being like him. I didn’t strive for power, I just strived to survive.
“Are you kidding? He stopped Neil killing me for you. He had no reason to keep me alive other than to make you happy. His original plan was to never tell you who he was until he fully gained your trust. He ruined his entire plan for you by stopping Neil. He wanted you to trust him, he wanted you to help him take over the galaxy once again. Doesn’t matter though does it? You trust him and like him, even knowing the truth. You think you are just like him.”
“I told you to stop reading my mind.”
“Cadi, I’m not, I just know you better than anyone else.” He rubbed the scruff on his face. “How can you trust him after all of this? He’s the Emperor who destroyed Sanshli! He’s the one who brought the Empire into existence in the first place.”
“But he’s not like the stories, Jack. There has to be more to it, he couldn’t have done all of that just for power. He must have had an ulterior motive, a reason he would go so far as to destroy so many people.”
Jack shook his head. “No, he is just acting nice to you because he’s a sociopathic freak. Honestly, Cadi, I can’t believe you would side with him on this. What are you going to do when we get to Sanshli? You have to defeat him.”
“But he’s my father.”
“Family has never stopped you before,” Jack’s voice cooled. I glared at him. “Didn’t you tell me you killed your uncle? You would have killed Rik too if the idea of Sanshli didn’t fill your mind. Don’t try to say family matters to you when I know it doesn’t.”
Jack was irritating me now. He didn’t understand what I had been through all this time. “That was different.”
“How? That those people were actually close to you? Those people once cared about you while Nygard only wants you to help him gain more power? Or is it that you want that power too, now that you know what you are capable of?”
“Jack, stop it. Now.”
Jack went on. “Tell me, Cadi, what makes him different? What makes you not do what you need to do and kill him? We could all go home, safe and sound. Don’t you want to go home?”
“Killing him won’t send us home,” I said.
He stared at me. “You know that for a fact?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“When’s the last time you heard from Violet?”
Jack was pushing me further than he had ever before and it was ticking me off. Was it because of all the time we were apart? Or was it because for once in my life I wasn’t walking in a straight line? There was so much going on, I couldn’t just make up my mind and do it. I needed to get more details. I stood up and faced Jack. “I said stop reading my mind!”
“Stop letting me. You can block your thoughts. Do it.”
I stared daggers at him for a moment longer. This was going nowhere, Jack was just trying to get me angry so I would side with him. It wasn’t going to work, I needed more time to figure out what to think, who to believe. There was more to this than any of us could have imagined, more to the stories, more than Violet was letting on. The fact was I hadn’t seen her since I left Anosira. She had left me for some reason and I had no idea why that was. I could get some of the answers from her, if she was willing which she wasn’t more often than not. Either way, I couldn’t believe she would just leave me when I needed her most.
“We need to figure out what to do next.”
“Changing topics, you are great at that, aren’t you?”
“And you are good at being a selfish ass, but you don’t see me pointing that out right now, do you?” I said. He frowned as I went on. “You will need to convince my brother that he can bring back Amanda with that stone on Sanshli, then he will try and get the stone. As for me, I don’t think I will have any problem leading the Imperials to Sanshli. Nygard needs to go there in order to regain his full strength.”
“Who do you think will win the races?”
“Me, of course. Is that even a question?”
He shrugged. “I’m j
ust saying it’s going to be a very interesting match, especially with the powers we all possess. The people of Recar are going to see a show that none will ever see again.”
I laughed. “That is true. It will be quite interesting, to say the least. But before that, we will need a way to communicate once you leave.
“A way that no one can over hear us, so that leaves out about any communicators.”
I tapped my chin. “There may be a way as an illusionist that I can set that up. Mentally calling each other, in a way. Especially if you can read minds already.”
“How will you figure that out?”
“Nygard, of course.”
Jack crossed his arms. “And how do you think you will figure that out without him being suspicious?”
“I will find a way. Don’t worry about that for now.”
CHAPTER 26
It was a six-day trip from Recar to Anosira. Jack and I discussed how we would get him off of Anosira and to Valle. It wouldn’t be hard, not when I had the powers of an Illusionist and the fact Nygard kept my training up on the way back. He taught me how to start fires all around, as well as strengthen my skills with using ice, metal, and rock illusionist abilities. It was all becoming easier and easier with more rigorous practice and I was about to move on up to the more complicated things, things that didn’t involve the elements themselves, powers related to the human mind.
An Illusionist, as I knew it, could make a person see anything that they wanted them to see. They could place a person in their worst fear, or their greatest pleasure. Theoretically, I could make someone think they were falling off a cliff, drowning, so on and so forth. I was not sure how I could do just that, but from what I gathered that was the next power that I could possess.
