Page 38 of Dark Princess Emerging

"Ell-rom knew how to thrall and shroud before he went into stasis. He only needed to be reminded of the technique."

Under the table, Ell-rom took her hand and gave it a light squeeze. "There isn't really much use for thralling. It's forbidden under most circumstances."

"I know, but I only need it to get into my father's head and see what he knows about my mother. If he had something to do with her death, I want to be the first one to know."

There. She'd said it. That was her biggest fear.

"I understand." Kian's expression softened. "And I would feel the same if I were you, but would it really be so bad if you were the second person to learn it? The Guardian who will perform the questioning is not going to do anything to your father that you don't approve of. If he's indeed guilty of murdering your mother, you will decide his fate."

Jasmine hadn't expected that, and now she wasn't even sure that she wanted to take the responsibility. She just needed to know what had happened.

"I don't think he killed her. But I think he knows something."

"Would you like to know what Roni has discovered about your mother?" Syssi asked, her eyes soft and understanding.

Jasmine knew that the clan had conducted a background check on her, so she wasn't surprised that they had information to report. "Yes, please."

"Her name was Kyra Fazel," Kian said. "She came from Iran on a student visa in 1988 and a year later married your father and dropped out of the university. She changed her name to Kira Orlova, taking on his last name and just slightly changing thespelling of her given name, but that could have been enough to cover her trail if anyone from her homeland was looking for her."

Jasmine frowned. "Why would she need to hide?"

"She might have married your father without her parents' permission, and if they were traditionalists, that might have been a great offense." Syssi's eyes were sad and full of compassion. "She could have been in mortal danger."

Jasmine swallowed. "That never occurred to me. They were legally married, so it wasn't like she was dishonoring her family or something ridiculous like that."

Ridiculous was not the right word, not when young women were murdered by their own family members for their supposed dishonor, but right now, there was a child present, and even though Allegra was probably too young to understand, Jasmine didn't want to use that kind of language around her.

"Your father was a Christian, right?" Syssi asked gently.

"Yeah, Russian Orthodox, but he wasn't very religious. We went to church only a couple times a year."

"It doesn't matter how religious he was," Kian said. "By marrying him, she dishonored the family."

"I see," Jasmine whispered. "Do you think they got to her?"

"Not if my vision is right," Syssi said, a little too cheerfully, probably trying to defuse the dark mood that had descended upon the gathering and was starting to affect Allegra.

Jasmine let out a breath. "Thank goodness for your vision. It gives me hope." She turned to Kian. "Did Roni find anything else?"

"He tried to trace her family in Iran but didn't find any data he could even hack into. What reinforces my belief that your mother is alive is that he also found no records of her death, and she wasn't buried by any traditional means. She simply vanished from all records around the time of her supposed death."

"Good." Jasmine allowed herself a smile. "That's good."

"Do you know if your father legally married your stepmother?" Syssi asked. "Because to do that, he would have needed to either prove that he was a widower or divorce your mother in her absence."

"They got married. I was there in the city hall when they did, along with my stepbrothers. But I don't know how he proved that he wasn't married anymore."

Syssi turned to Kian. "Wasn't Roni supposed to look into that?"

"Roni is swamped with a big project I assigned to him. It will be some time before he will be free to pursue this. It would be easier to find out all of this information by getting into your father's head."

Syssi cleared her throat. "I don't want to be a spoilsport, but isn't it forbidden?"

"Not when the life of Jasmine's mother is on the line," Annani said.

Jasmine didn't think her father could do anything about her mother at the present time, but if it was convenient for Annani to excuse the thralling this way, she wasn't going to say anything.

Syssi nodded. "Now that we've cleared up that issue, I think we should hurry with the investigation. I don't know why I was shown this vision when I asked about Khiann. Maybe it's likewhen I saw the pod, there's an urgency to find your mother, and that's why the Fates showed her to me." She paused. "Or perhaps your mother has a talent that could help us find Khiann. After all, if she left you a deck of tarot cards, she clearly had an interest in the esoteric. She might have been aware of having a special paranormal talent."