Ride the Wave

14

My mates sat around the table and none of them looked happy to be there. Jasin glared at Doran while loading a plate with food. Slade leaned back and crossed his arms, his face stony. Auric spread his journal and quill out on the table and prepared to take notes. Reven sat beside me and watched Doran closely, but his face was paler than normal. This morning I’d told them all about my time being held captive by the Dragons, and about how Nysa had stayed alive so long, and they weren’t particularly pleased with Doran right now. Doran began shoveling food into his mouth, ignoring the suspicious looks the others gave him. I watched him for a long moment, studying his face, still shocked to be sitting across from my true father. My father, who had done nothing to stop Nysa for years.

“Is it true?” I asked, my throat tightening. “All those children before me?”

His face turned grim and he set down his fork. “It’s true. Every thirty years Nysa bears a daughter, who should become the next Spirit Dragon if the cycle was allowed to continue. Except Nysa drains their life and their inherent magic to keep herself alive, along with the rest of us.”

“And you just let that happen?” Jasin asked.

“For a long time, yes. It’s not something I’m proud of, but for many years I thought it was necessary. It was only when Kira was born that I realized how corrupted Nysa had become, and how she’d tainted the rest of us through our bond with her.”

“Why was I any different?” I asked. “And how did I survive?”

Doran’s eyes met mine. “You survived because, for the first time in all our years, Nysa had twins.”

His words slammed into my chest, knocking me off balance. At first I couldn’t speak, too stunned, trying to make sense of what he’d said. Finally I whispered, “I have a sister?”

“You did,” Doran said, his face darkening with pain. “It had been many years since I’d sired a child with Nysa. All of us traded off to ease the burden of watching our own children be sacrificed, but it was eventually my turn again. I wanted to stop Nysa, but the bond makes it difficult for us to act against her, and we’d all resigned ourselves to the fact that we could do nothing.” He drew in a long breath before continuing. “When I learned Nysa was having twins, I realized I had a chance to save one of them. Your sister was born first, and Nysa drained her immediately. She never even got a name, as most of them didn’t, but I called her Sora, after my mother. While Nysa was busy with her, I named you Kira, after my sister, and switched you with a baby who had died only hours before during childbirth. A servant rushed you out of the palace and to safety, while I informed Nysa that her second child hadn’t made it.”

Tears welled up in my eyes at the thought of the twin sister I’d never known, and anger filled me knowing Nysa had killed her and Doran had done nothing to stop her. “Why didn’t you save both of us?”

“I wanted to, more than anything, but it wasn’t possible. Nysa needed a sacrifice to keep herself alive. If I had taken both of you, Nysa would have scoured the earth until the two of you were found. She wouldn’t have stopped until you were both drained, making her doubly powerful.” He stared at the plate in front of him, his voice low. “Your sister’s sacrifice allowed you to live. If I could have done it any other way I would have, and I’ve spent the last twenty years trying to make sure Nysa never found out you were alive, so that your sister’s death wasn’t in vain. But I still mourn Sora every day, along with all the other daughters I’ve lost over the centuries.”

Slade reached over and took my hand under the table, and Auric did the same on the other side. I gripped their hands hard, fighting back tears as heaviness filled my chest. Sora, my soul called out, searching for this missing part of myself. I hadn’t known she’d existed before this day, but there had always been an emptiness inside me I’d never understood. Maybe all those years I’d spent running, searching for a family, and longing for someone to love me was my way of trying to find my lost twin again. But I wasn’t sure there was anything that could fill that void.

I pushed my plate away, my appetite gone. My mates stared at me, and I felt their sympathetic worry through the bond. There was nothing they could do to help with this though. It had been bad enough knowing Nysa had killed my sisters for hundreds of years, but learning she’d taken my twin too…

By the Gods, I was going to make her pay.

I wanted to rush back to Soulspire and take her out this instant, but I couldn’t let anger drive me into doing something foolish. I had to learn more before I could do anything, and I still had a lot of questions for my father.

I drew in a deep breath to steady myself and focused on one of the other questions. “The people who raised me…who were they?”

“Your mother was my great-granddaughter, the result of an affair I had long ago. She was the last of my descendants, and she took you in and swore to protect you.” Doran’s fist clenched around a biscuit, turning it to crumbs. “I’ll never forgive Sark for what he did to her.”

That explained why we looked so similar, except for our hair color. My adopted mother’s hair was long and blond, which I realized now was the same shade as Doran’s hair.