“Dad never explained to me why my brothers attacked me,” I said.

“They were jealous of you, because you had something they didn’t,” Mom explained.

I was almost afraid to ask, but I did so anyways. “And what’s that?”

“You have a special Dome-ni called Perception. It is the ability to expand your awareness so you can comprehend and see connections that ordinarily allude others. It can be applied to everything from understanding the potential actions of others to how things are made and put together. It can even be used to orchestrate a series of events in order to get people or a person to a certain outcome.

“It’s what makes you such a good engineer, and why your dad created an atmosphere in which you could easily work in that field. Neither your dad or I are capable of giving you the training needed to expand your talent at a higher level, but we wanted to at least provide you with a direction that gave you a solid foundation in your Perception ability.”

My mind quickly deduced what she was skating around. “Wait. So dad intentionally created a business in technology to train this Dome-ni?”

My mother smiled. “There were several reasons why your dad did that, but that was one of them, yes.”

That made me sit back for a moment as I took that in. As far back as I could remember I had a love of building things, but even more than that, the love of taking things apart to see how they worked. It never occurred to me that desire might stem from a special ability I possessed.

“It’s a rather rare Dome-ni in Ethia,” my mother said as she continued. “Your birth father has it, and when he found out you carried the same ability, he was eager to train you and have you follow in his footsteps. Michael, he wanted to make you his official Heir, his successor.”

That hung there for a minute.

I wanted to laugh. The very idea of it seemed hilarious to me, and if my mom didn’t have such a serious expression, I would have thought she was trying to pull one on me.

“You have to be kidding me,” I said. “Yeah, hard pass.”

“That’s the thing, Michael. You didn’t have a say in it. None of us did. Your father had made up his mind. Even though he’d been training one of your other brothers to take over for while, once he found out about your ability, that didn’t matter anymore. He wanted you, and that was it.

“So yes, part of why we left was because of your brothers, and your dad and I didn’t think you would be safe anywhere near them. But it wasn’t the only reason.

“We had been so happy before everything came out about your Perception Dome-ni. None of us were ready for the changes that happened afterward. It scared us, but even more than that, we just wanted things to go back to the way they were, when you and I were cast off from the Emperor. So I guess, Arie and I were being selfish in that aspect. We didn’t want to share you with the Empire.”

The truth of her words rang in my ears and down to my soul. It was like in that moment I could feel it all. Her frustration. Her anger. Her desperation. Her heartbreak. In that moment, I found it hard to think, hard to breathe. It was like my heart and lungs had suddenly given up trying to work. The world around me started going black. I was losing myself to the crushing tide of emotion.

I felt a hand on my shoulder, and I heard my mother’s words as if they were coming from a long distance. “Breathe, Michael. Don’t think. Don’t feel. Push everything away except for your breath. Focus on that.”

It felt too hard, too encompassing, this turbulent ocean of emotion I found myself in. Only her voice anchored me, as it has always done throughout my life. It took awhile as I sat there breathing deep inhales and exhales, but I could eventually sense the tide turn as I came back to myself.

I opened my eyes to see the smiling face of my mother. “There you are. You are getting better at that.”

I couldn’t help but smile back. “Thanks, mom.”

She nodded. “And this leads me into the other reason we left Ethia. Yes, you have the Perception Dome-ni, but you have another as well. It’s not actually very common for people to have two dominant abilities like you do. That’s why the Perception Dome-ni wasn’t diagnosed until you were five, because it was obvious you already had the Dome-ni of Empathy.

“That’s why you sometimes get overwhelmed. You call them panic attacks, but what’s really going on is that you are picking up emotions from others and sometimes even confusing them as your own. It becomes too much and you start to shut down. I’ve done what I can to teach you to refocus in those sort of situations, but true control of the Empathy Dome-ni can take decades to master.

“Unfortunately, the Emperor wasn’t willing to take into account that of your Empathic Dome-ni. He thought that your Perception superseded everything, and you would just get over your empathic abilities. I disagreed, and tried to tell him that even though you did have the same Dome-ni as he did, that your empathic side made you different, and that needed to be addressed, or your Perception would never be developed properly.

“Between your father’s inability to listen to reason and the attack by your brothers, Arie and I deemed it necessary to take you away from all that. We understood that you needed different things than what your father planned for you in order to succeed. So as we raised you, we tried to do everything we could to help you in that aspect.”

My mother spread out her hands as if giving an offering. “And that is all of it. All the reasons we took you from Ethia, all the reasons we kept the truth from you, and all the reasons Arie must do as he is doing. And I will not apologize for any of it.

“You are my son, Michael. I love you, and as your mother, it is my job to protect you, especially since your birth father didn’t seem to be doing a very good job of that. I am just eternally grateful that Arie chose to step up and take on that responsibility with me.”

My mother placed her hands neatly in her lap and looked to me, waiting for my response. But for the moment, I had none. It felt overwhelming, and I wasn’t sure I really understood it all. It was like I was tied up in knots, uncertain what to do or say.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

It was so silent, I could hear the ticking of the kitchen clock. The steady tick tock a reminder that time was running out. I looked over to the rooster analog clock hanging over the sink. The black hands showed the time, and I quickly calculated that it had been nearly thirty minutes since dad had left. In just an hour and a half he’d be gone, and completely out of our reach.

That thought sat there for a moment as I really digested it. Dad would be gone, and from what I gathered, he’d never be coming back, and possibly in a permeant manner. That thought didn’t sit well with me, not at all.

Yeah, I was definitely angry at him and mom for keeping such big secrets from me, and I’d have to deal with that at some point, but it didn’t make me want bad things to happen to them. They didn’t deserve that, because I do believe they were only doing the best they could considering the circumstances like any real parents would do.

In spite of all the anger and mistrust rolling around inside of me, they were still my parents, and I loved them very much. That hadn’t changed, and honestly I wasn’t sure they could do anything to change that. The clarity of that strummed through me as something important clicked into place for me. I felt a resolve solidify inside me as I met my mother’s gaze. I knew what I had to do next.

The steady ticking of the clock made my pulse race as I realized just how quickly I was running out of time.

“I have to stop him,” I breathed in a rasping panic. “I have to stop him,” I said again, but this time with more determination.

Mom shook her head as new tears began to fall down her cheeks. “You can’t. You have to stay here with Emmaline and me. This is where you belong, Michael. This is your home.”

Home. What a word. Until an hour ago, it seemed like a simple, yet firm idea fixed in my mind. I knew with absolute certainty where I belonged and where my home was. This house. This planet. I had known nothing else. Correction… I had not remembered anything else.

But I had another home. Another place I once belonged. A whole other galaxy where I had been born. Just because I didn’t remember it didn’t mean it wasn’t still my home, my place of origin. And for the first time since my dad’s revelation, the truth of it really sunk in.

I might be living on this planet, but it was not where I was from. And the two people I thought I could trust the most were keeping me from knowing any of it. It stung, but I pushed that aside. There were more important things at stake than the bruised relationship between me and my parents.

“I want to know. Tell me exactly what they are going to do to him,” I demanded from my mother in a cold tone, because at this point it was the coldness that kept me anchored in the task ahead of me.

“You don’t want to know,” her voice cracked on the last word.

“Yes, I do,” I said with as much cold venom as I could muster.

“Tell him, Mom. We want to know. We deserve to know.” Emmaline spoke up from her bar stool. Her face as white as a sheet, but I could see the determination in her face as well. She was angry too. I could feel it, and I took a moment to digest that.

I could feel her emotion. This wasn’t me just imaging things or thinking Emmaline might be feeling a certain way because of the way she looked or me projecting my own assumptions onto her, this feeling was real and it wasn’t mine and it didn’t need to be mine. It was just a product of me having something that mom called a Dome-ni, and in making that simple realization, it was like an invisible barrier had immediately erected between us. I could still sense Emmaline’s emotion, but I wasn’t influenced by it like I had always been before.

I blinked in surprise. Holy shit.

I opened my mouth to tell Em and mom of this amazing discovery, and maybe ask my mom some questions about it. But my sister’s face was burning bright and the emotion coming from her seemed more distinct somehow like it had its own presence. It felt like my sister was a hot tea kettle ready to explode any moment, but I was completely uneffected.

My mother looked like she was going through her own breathing exercise to get herself to calm down. So I stayed silent as I watched them intently, enjoying the sudden calm that had come over me. Something had just shifted. Something important. And it felt good to sit here for a moment and appreciate it.

Finally, my mother managed to calm herself enough to speak. But she refused to meet mine or Emmaline’s gaze.

“They will take him to Ghar­­––the Emperor. They may or may not start the torturing before they get there. It depends on whose commanding the ship, but it’s probably one of Ghar’s most trusted commanders, so that means it will probably start right away. His men are quite loyal and ruthless. It’s a long trip to Ethia, so…”

She trailed off for a moment not wanting to continue, but I wasn’t going to let her stop. I needed to know it all.

“And what about when he gets to Ethia?” I said quietly.

“There will be a trial, but it will just be for show. Everyone knows what he did. Arie didn’t even try to cover his tracks. Ghar will want to make this process as painful and as humiliating as possible, so it will be very public and a very degrading experience. You have to understand, Arie––your dad was a very respected man in Ethia before all this happened. A lot of people looked up to him, trusted him. Ghar will make sure all of those people know of your dad’s treason, and the cost of it too. When Ghar is finally satisfied your dad has had proper humiliation, only then will he kill him.”

I nodded after my mom went silent. Thankful she wasn’t holding back, even though her words were starting to make me sweat. I looked to Emmaline; she looked like she might throw up any moment.

“Thank you for telling me the truth,” I said in the uncomfortable silence.

I didn’t like it, but there it was just the same, and it only made my determination stronger. I knew I had to do something. I couldn’t allow all that to happen to my dad. Maybe he had done something wrong in the eyes of the Ethian Empire. Maybe he had done wrong by me by keeping this all a secret way past the time he should have kept it a secret. But he was still my dad. The man who raised me. The man who had loved me and sheltered me. The man––that for the majority of my life––I had looked up to. There was no way I was going to let it end for him like that. He deserved better than that.

I looked to my mother with a deep sadness of what I was about to do, but the resolve was already there and it was building, growing, expanding into the strength I needed to follow through with my conviction. I slid off my bar stool and went to my mother. I held her for a long moment. And then I kissed the top of her head.

“I love you.”

“Oh Michael, I love you too,” she sobbed into my arms.

I let her cry a little, and then I pulled myself away. I then turned to Emmaline. She was crying now too. I held out my arms. She rushed into them and I held her close. I could feel my heartbreaking, but my resolve kept me cold and kept me determined to what must be done, and my newfound barrier wasn’t swayed an ounce by any of their emotions.

“It’s going to be alright, little sis. I’m going to make this alright.”

After a moment, I pulled her away from me and I looked deep in her eyes, trying to tell her what I was about to do without actually telling her. I couldn’t let them know, they’d never let me go.

“I love you forever, baby girl.”

She gave me a small smile at our little catch phrase we’d been using for as long as we both could remember. “Love you forever,” she said back to me.

I nodded to mom. “I need you to look after her for me. Can you do that?”

My sister nodded.

“Good.”

I then turned toward the garage door, and spotted the first stage of my plan––mom’s purse. It was sitting on the small table right next to the house door that led into the garage like it almost always did. At least this part would be easy.

I strolled toward the table, making sure my back was between the bag and my mom and Emmaline as I dipped my hand into the large tan Coach. It didn’t take long to find what I was looking for. It was the biggest thing in the purse. I pulled it out careful to keep the item in front of me and out of sight as I slipped over to the door to the garage.

“Where are you going?” Emmaline called out.

I didn’t turn or stop. Complete determination was driving me now to see this through no matter what. My dad’s life was a stake.

“To right a wrong. Take care. I’ll be back when I can,” I said as I opened the door and stepped out of the house without a moments delay.