Page 61 of Dragons Of Shadow and Sea

I shiver, a sudden chill passing over and through me. "And you're a Shadow Dragon."

Darkness flashes in his eyes. "I was."

My insides sink, but the truth of it is undeniable.

All this time... After the Shadow Bracer chose me... After I started collecting mates from all of the royal families...

I still tried to pretend that I was nothing. No one. The fact that my best friend and her brother were half Shadow Dragon shocked me--it terrified me.

But maybe there's a reason Amy and I got on so well. Maybe there was something in me that spoke to something in her.

My voice echoing in my ears, I admit, out loud and to myself, "Which means I'm a Shadow Dragon, too."

"All the stories they told us about Shadow Dragons were lies," my mother tells me.

I want to laugh--almost as much as I want to cry. "I just met a whole pile of them that are as stereotypically gross and evil as every single monster story ever made them out to be."

"King Erembour," Dad deduces.

I nod and swipe at my eyes. "In the putrid, rotting flesh."

My father stands up straighter, one hand curling into a fist at his side. "He does not speak for the Shadow Dragons."

"Try telling him that." I roll my eyes.

"I did." Sighing, my father casts his gaze upward before smiling at me once more. "Shadow Dragon magic is about harnessing the power of the darkness around us and inside us. But there's more to it than that."

"Shadows are just the places where the light doesn't fall," Mom adds. She looks up at Dad adoringly. "Move the shadows, and you reveal the light."

Is that what Mariutza was talking about, back in her cell?

"I wish we had time to teach you," Dad says. "I wish we had been there for you to Emerge. I bet your dragon is beautiful."

She is. She will be.

I shake my head, my emotions threatening to get the better of me again. "I can't--I have been able to--" I swallow hard, bracing myself, ready for my parents to show their dismay. Their disappointment. "I can't access my dragon. I can hear her, but it's like...like, she's stuck."

To my surprise, my mom and dad share a knowing look.

"We were afraid that might happen," my mother admits.

My eyes fly open wide. "Really?"

"We should have told you." My mom wrings her hands. "But you were so young. We thought we had time. I'm so sorry you had to go through that alone."

Me, too. A pang shoots through me. All that time I thought I was a reject, defective. And my parents knew but never prepared me.

So I had to face the flames, over and over, my dragon locked within me. My hope dying every time I failed.

"You are a Shadow Dragon," Dad tells me, firm, "but you're also so many other kinds of dragons. No one has ever shared five kinds of magic before. Your dragon may need help."

My stomach sinks. "What kind of help?"

There's that look again. They glance at each other and then back at me.

"Once we knew who you were," my mother says carefully, "we tried to find out everything we could about the heir. We travelled the globe."

"I remember." My hands and feet are tingling again. I thought our adventures were just that--adventures. My family loved exploring and immersing ourselves in other cultures. But are they trying to tell me it was more than that?

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