“Have you seen an Aldraian woman in the last stages of her pregnancy?”
“No.”
“We can’t fly. Physically. Our bellies grow so big, we can’t even fit behind the control panel. Gelnall carried twelve fetuses. She couldn’t be the one operating the aircraft that day.”
“Are you saying...” I hated to admit it, but this sounded suspicious.
“Xavran was with her,” she said with conviction.
“Do you think he was the one responsible for the crash?”
“I’m telling you, this was no accident. He’s too good of a pilot to let that happen, especially on a nice sunny day like it was. Unless he wanted it to happen, of course.”
I gasped, shocked by her revelations. “He crashed on purpose?”
“Exactly.”
“But why?”
Inie heaved a breath. “Isn’t it obvious?”
I shook my head, “No. Not at all. I’ve heard Xavran adored his wife.”
“At the beginning, maybe. But it soon became clear what a horrible man he really was. He kept Gelnall isolated from me and the rest of her family. We never knew where she was. When I called, he’d make up excuses, not letting me speak to her. I wonder if she realized her mistake in marrying him and wanted to leave. Then, he decided to get rid of her rather than letting her go. And he succeeded.”
She threw a glare behind me somewhere. I turned over my shoulder to find Xavran walking back under the canopy of the gazebo. When met with Inie’s stare, his expression darkened.
“Murderer,” Inie hissed under her breath. “Those poor children. My heart aches every time I think about them sharing a home with their mother’s killer.”
“But Xavran wouldn’t do that,” I protested. Everything inside me screamed it wasn’t true. Though, logic told me I didn’t really know him that well. “He couldn’t have...”
Inie kept staring at Xavran, as if trying to incinerate him with her glare. “He hasn’t shown any remorse for killing my daughter, not once.”
“It simply can’t be true. He would never deliberately put his kids in danger. He cares about them so much.” I couldn’t speak to Xavran’s relationship with his wife, but I’ve seen him with his kids. I thought about how devastated he had looked at a mere mention of their birthday and how caring he had always been to his surviving children. “They are his whole life.”
Inie shrugged. “Well, maybe he feels some guilt for killing their mother and siblings.”
“It’s just so... Horrible.”
“It is. Imagine how I feel, seeing this criminal literally getting away with murder. My poor Gelnall has been dead for over a decade now, and her killer is still walking free.”
Xavran squared his shoulders, heading our way in long, determined strides. My heart squeezed with worry. I sensed nothing good could come out of an encounter with his former mother-in-law.
The ground between him and us moved suddenly. The perfect pattern of the cobblestones cracked and broke.
“What’s going on?” I spread my arms wide for balance. “Is it an earthquake?”
Color drained from Inie’s face. She stared at the large mound that rose from the ground.
“We need to go home... Engage the shields... Home...” she kept saying rapidly, not moving an inch.
“Susanna!” Xavran shouted. “The children!”
He lunged our way, but the dirt jerked higher, throwing him backwards and off his feet.
Panic exploded around us. People screamed, rushing away from the mound.
The children!
I looked around wildly.
Illal was there, grabbing my hand.
“Daddy!” Ivex ran past me toward his dad, but the mound of dirt rose in his way.
“Ivex! Come here!” I got hold of his shoulder. “Where’s your brother?”
The boy pointed at the nearby table. Xilvo climbed from under it, the bowl with shohe fruit in his hands.
“Come here, Xilvo.” I waved at him.
We had to run, but where?
People rushed in every direction. The Ravil ambassador ushered Mara out from under the gazebo. I directed the children to follow them, but the ground kept rising all around us. The trench encircled the small group of people that included us, cutting all of us off from the exits.
Everyone seemed to try to stay as far from the churning soil as possible, and I did the same, stepping back.
“Stay close, guys,” I said to the kids. “Where is Ene?”
I searched the chaos erupting all around us for her small figure.
Patches of grass, clumps of dirt, and loose path stones shot up into the air as if blasted out from an underground cannon.
“Watch out!” I drew the kids closer to me, trying to shield them with my body.
A cobblestone hit me on the shoulder. I ducked my head under my arm.
“Susanna!” Xavran’s voice reached me through all the noise and shouting. “Don’t move!”
Don’t?
Did he want us to stay still? When everything around us was in motion? Even the hedges got uprooted. The chunks of their roots and branches shot up into the air, propelled by some invisible force.
What was happening?
“Hogas worm!” someone shouted.
The mound right in front of us grew even higher. A black, glossy dome rose out of it. It stretched upwards, narrowing into a thick column that towered over us.
The smooth end of it split open, then expanded, like a humongous umbrella. The inside of it was dark and glossy, like liquid ink, edged with circular rows of black, shiny teeth.
The monster hovered over us. The most nightmarish abomination I’d ever seen, either in dreams or reality.
Cold terror spread through me. My muscles vibrated with the urge to run.
But where?
The circle of the raised dirt surrounded us, moving closer, tightening around us.