Page 60 of Dragons Of Shadow and Sea

My mom starts crying in earnest, which is my undoing. A strangled sob gets stuck in my throat.

As ever, my dad does his best to keep it together. "We missed you, too."

"I don't know how this is happening," my mom says, pushing past the tears.

"It doesn't matter," I tell her. I don't even know how I'd begin to explain. "All that matters is that I found you. I'm setting you free."

I don't know how this magic works, but I'm certain of that much. Somehow, I released them from the Soul Spheres. I'm keeping them with me for now, but I can feel that it's temporary. They're going to drift away, and that's good. They've earned whatever peace is waiting for them on the other side.

My dad's brows draw together, though. "But we were..."

"Captured." My mother's eyes widen, as if she's just remembering, and maybe she is.

My throat tight, I nod. "By the Shadow Dragons."

My mother flinches, but my father's mouth sets itself into a grim line.

"I tried to fight them off," he tells me.

Mom looks to him. "I tried to rescue you."

"I know." He squeezes her tight, but his gaze remains trained on me. "We tried so hard to get back to you. To warn you--"

"I hid you," my mother promises me. "Before I left. I gave you every bit of magic I could to keep you secret from them."

I knew I felt her presence. Even in my darkest hours, when I was lost in my teenage angst, abandoned and alone... I knew. "It worked. They didn't find me. Not until..."

There isn't time. Even now, I can feel them beginning to slip away.

And there isn't any possible way they can deduce the entire saga I've been through these past couple of months, but something in my father's face tells me that maybe he can guess enough.

"They didn't find you until they did," he says quietly. "And they told you..."

My throat locks up, and the hairs on the back of my neck rise, my fingers and toes starting to tingle. "What, Dad?"

"No," my mother starts, but my father shakes his head.

"You're the Shadow Queen's heir."

The tingling eclipses my whole body. My ears ring. I can hear King Erembour denying exactly that, but there was a desperation to him as he insisted that I was an imposter. Why would he have ever accused me of not being something so insane in the first place?

Unless it was true.

"We didn't know it would happen." My mom is straining against the invisible barrier separating us, that wall between the souls of the living and the souls of the dead. "It wasn't part of some grand scheme or anything. I met your father..."

"And it was magic," my father says, finishing her sentence, pulling her back in against his side.

"Fate," my mom agrees.

"We had no idea..."

My mother trips over her own words, struggling to explain. "All the old kingdoms used to flow, one into the other. The great dragon families even tried to create heirs to the Grand Throne." She shakes her head. "Once upon a time, my family claimed with pride that we were descended from all four kingdoms, but I never imagined it was true." With one hand, she cups the wrist of her other arm, stroking her thumb down the lines of her veins. "That I had the blood of Air, Stone, Fire and Water."

"But the old kingdoms didn't know," my father says gently. "They didn't realize--"

"That they needed Shadow Dragons, too," I finish for him.

He nods. "The Grand Throne is for the ruler of all dragons."

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