Page 54 of Dragons Of Shadow and Sea

"Was she here?" The words come out choked and rough.

"Who?" Mariutza asks, uncurling by a fraction.

Delaynie shoots me a glance of warning.

Treading carefully, I say, "Faltine."

"Oh, dearie, she never left. She and your father both. They're right upstairs."

And that's impossible. It's been a decade. There's no way they could be right here, safe and sound.

They would have come back for me.

Unless... Unless they didn't want to.

No. I've accused my mother of abandoning me in my head enough times, but in my heart, I can't imagine it. If they ended up here, it was as prisoners.

Maybe there's another level of cells.

My heart pounds in my chest, a dangerous bubble of hope daring to rise within me, but I squash it down the best I can.

"Where?" I ask, gripping the bars again and giving them a good rattle. I couldn't pry them open earlier, but there's a new rawness surging through me. The lights in the hallway flicker, and my bracer glows darkly on my arm.

"Can't you feel them?" Mariutza asks.

And that's...

A really good question, actually.

I've never been able to sense anyone except my mates, but even as a child, I had an awareness of my parents' presence. After my mother left me behind, I felt a tug, leading me south. Did that have anything to do with her? Or was it the lure of Unity and the friends I would someday find there; the mates who I would meet. The destiny, waiting for me in the middle of the desert.

Tentatively, I reach out with my senses. The rock around me is still dead and dormant; the water and fire distant at best. I can't feel my mates.

But there are two flickering hints of presence

"Mom," I whisper. "Dad..."

Darkness obscures my vision, pooling around me. I swear I can feel my parents, but nothing about my perception of them is clear. Are they really there? Am I imagining things? Drunk on misplaced hope?

Or deluded by Shadow Dragon magic? Misled.

"I can't see you," Mariutza complains. She comes over to the bars and raises a hand.

Suddenly, the shadows in the space around us ease away.

An unbidden shiver travels up my spine, and my eyes widen. "How--"

"Light to shadow, shadow to light," the old woman recites, like I'm a child who's being obtuse.

"Gran practices the old magic," Delaynie inserts quietly. She shrugs. "It's part of why we're in here."

I shake my head. "I don't know what that means."

"Of course you do." Mariutza flicks her fingers and a little ball of glowing purple light gathers in her palm. It's faint but there, soft and warm and comforting somehow.

Deep in my chest, my dragon gives off a gentle sound... Almost a purr, and my stomach sucks in. I'm hit with the sudden, lost memory of my father doing the same sort of magic, conjuring tiny animals out of purple light to scare away the darkness, and for a moment, the world threatens to tilt away beneath my feet.

"Go to them," Mariutza tells me.

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