Page 41 of Dragons Of Shadow and Sea

My mother lost her mate and her sons, but I lost my father and my brothers. I lost my future; I lost the world.

Or at least that was what I thought.

Then Ember appeared out of nowhere, and everything changed.

"You don't know," my mother hisses, lashing out.

Something in the way she says it stops me cold. I stand up straight, dropping my hand. "Mother..."

She drums a hand against her own chest. "I had to make the impossible decisions. I have to make them still." All at once her face crumples. "I'm so sorry, my beloved boy. My dearest son."

On the beach below, the tide rolls out. It leaves the sea floor below exposed.

"Mother," I say again, my throat burning. "Mother, what did you do?"

She looks up at me with eyes ringed in midnight. "What I had to. To protect you--to protect all of us." She pulls roughly at her locs. "You wouldn't understand. You were a child."

My head reels. "When I was a child?"

"To end the war," she says, voice suddenly hollow. "To save our kingdom. There was no other way--they were the only ones who would help."

"Who?" But in my heart, I know.

The ocean roils, the sea crashing back down over its bed in dark, pulsating waves.

My mother only confirms it. "The Shadow Dragons."

I take a step back. "But they were our enemies. They were the ones who killed Father. Who murdered Amir and Bazel."

"Renegades. A faction."

History as I know it is fracturing before my eyes. Can this really be true?

"The others--their king--he offered us a way out. Permanently."

My stomach turns. "That was how you and the Witch found the magic."

"They only leant us a bit of their power. But it was enough."

"And what did it cost?"

"Nothing. They were happy to help."

Happy to remove us from the playing field of the war, perhaps.

All this time, I thought my mother's rage and grief were the fuel of our exile. She made the decisive stroke, removing us from the conflict and from the world.

But what if we were the pawns.

Her confidence wavers, and that shine is back in her eyes. "Only..."

"Only?"

"Only they knew," she confesses. "They knew where we were. How to pierce the veil."

How I berated Ember when she arrived. She was being chased by Shadow Dragons. Could she have led them right to our door?

Little did I know. They were already here.

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