Page 68 of Dark Witch: Entangled Fates

"Thank you."

Syssi left her sister-in-law in the living room and walked into the bedroom, where Allegra was still napping peacefully in her portable crib, her little face relaxed and serene, and her little mouth parted.

She was a vision of perfection, and Syssi felt a rush of love for her daughter wash over her. There were many types of love, but the strongest one in the universe was the love of a mother for her child.

Fighting the urge to bend over the crib's side and kiss Allegra's soft cheek, Syssi took a deep breath, sent a silent prayer to the universe, and settled herself in the armchair beside the crib.

She closed her eyes and let the world fall away as she slowly slipped into the quiet place in her mind and envisioned what she wanted to see. If Khiann was buried under the sand, she needed the location, and if he was gone, she needed to see his death.

Fates, she really didn't want to see that and then have to tell Annani that there was no hope and that Khiann was really dead.

With her concentration shot, she had to start deep breathing and clearing her mind again. She pictured Khiann as Annani had described him—tall, strong, and beautiful, with chestnut dark hair and bright blue eyes that shone with love and mirth.

For a long moment, there was nothing, only darkness and silence and the steady beat of her own heart, but then, slowly, an image began to take shape in her mind's eye, hazy at first but growing clearer with each passing second.

She saw a mountain steeped in heavy mist, its rocky slopes rising starkly against a pale, washed-out sky. And as she hovered up to the very top, she discovered that the peak was hollow. There was a gaping crater at its center, a deep, yawning hole that seemed to plunge down hundreds of feet into the earth.

The barren, rocky mountain and the gray sky above it couldn't be located in a desert.

She was being shown something else.

Her consciousness hovering over the gaping hole, Syssi peered into its dark depths, her mind straining to make out the details of what lay at the bottom. When the clouds parted for a moment, letting the sun's rays through, the light bounced back from the reflective material of a sleek object that was nestled at the bottom of the crater.

She couldn't see any details, but her mind conjured the answer to what she was looking at without having all the necessary visual data.

It was an alien pod.

If she could force her consciousness to float down into the crater, perhaps she could see more details, but the vision refused to let her move from the one spot she was hovering over.

Syssi couldn't dive down or move to the side. It revealed another clue, though. The weak sunshine managed to vaporize the mist just as four people crested the top and walked over to look down the crater.

Syssi recognized all four.

The three males were the gods Aru, Negal, and Dagor. The fourth member of their group was the most surprising one, though.

It was Jasmine, the woman who had crashed into their lives like a comet, trailing occult mysteries in her wake.

As the four gathered around the crater's edge, Syssi wondered where the gods' mates were and why Jasmine was with them. And then, as quickly as the vision had come, it faded, and Syssi's eyes flew open.

"Talk about strange," she murmured.

"Did you say something?" Amanda asked from the living room.

"Give me a moment." Syssi brushed her hair away from her face.

For some reason, the vision had decided to show her one of the missing Kra-ell pods instead of Khiann.

Poor Annani would be so disappointed.

Still, it was an amazing development, even though Syssi couldn't tell where that mountaintop was. There had been no clues about that, but it was clear that Jasmine was somehow connected to the pods.

50

AMANDA

When Syssi emerged from the bedroom looking pale and shaken, Amanda tensed. "What did you see?" she asked, even though she was afraid to hear the answer.

"I didn't see Khiann." Syssi sat next to her on the couch and let her head drop back against the cushions. "I'm not sure what I saw or why I was shown it."

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