Page 57 of Dragons Of Shadow and Sea

And I could lash out. I probably should. My talents for offensive magic are limited and barely formed, but if I could blindside him, I might be able to take him out.

Something stops me, though. I'm struck with that niggling sense of familiarity again. Like I've met him before--maybe in another life.

"What are you doing here?" I blurt out.

Another hint of surprise flashes in his eyes, and he cocks a brow. "I could ask you the same question."

Yeah, okay, that's fair. Apparently, I'm not going to attack him, but I'm on high alert now, ready to throw up a protection spell at the tiniest hint that he might be about to unleash some sort of Shadow Dragon magic on me. Nothing about his posture speaks of aggression, though.

If anything, he looks...tired. There's darkness hanging under his eyes, and his regal posture is just the tiniest bit slumped, compared with the last time I saw him. The word that leaps to my mind is grief. Old and scarred over. But grief all the same.

My gaze goes to the two orbs he's standing in front of. I swallow, and pain echoes in the hollow of my chest.

They're the source of the light. Even now, they're shimmering--a stark contrast to the black, dormant orbs to either side of them.

"What are those?" I ask, my voice flat. My ribs feel like they're cratering.

"These?" Lord Rook gestures around expansively, but he knows what I'm talking about. I can tell by the way he glances at the two spheres behind him. "They're Soul Spheres, of course."

The crushing pressure on my chest cracks something within me.

Of course.

My knees want to buckle, but I keep myself standing. I almost collapsed earlier, too. I put my hand to the wall to steady myself, and Lord Rook was aghast. He warned me to touch nothing.

And now I know why.

"I thought they were a myth," I croak. "Another scary story people told their kids to keep them in line."

My parents never went in for that kind of stuff, but I heard it enough in the Air Kingdom. Be good or the Shadow Dragons will come and gobble your soul.

One corner of Lord Rook's mouth curls up into a dark echo of a smile. "Most stories have their root in truth."

That's what everybody keeps telling me. Rhiannon and High Priestess Fang and now this man.

"So you--what. Just take one of these and." I mime holding a big ball of evil up to my head. I tap the imaginary sphere against my temple and slump my head to the side, crossing my eyes.

"It's a bit more involved than that. But yes. Basically."

Fresh tears spring to my eyes, but I blink furiously. Those two spheres... The lights in them are dancing even more brightly now, and I feel the overwhelming sense of my parents' presence beside me.

Because they're here. Or at least a broken, evil remnant of them is.

My parents were here. And they were murdered.

I can't breathe. I put my hand to my chest. I knew it. All this time, I realized that they had to be gone. Somehow, it was easier to tell myself that my mother had abandoned me. That she was still out there somewhere, and that someday, I'd find her and take her by the shoulders and shake her. How could she leave me? How could she not come back? She was my mom. My touchpoint in this world.

My dad...

A hot tear spills down my cheek.

I don't remember the night he disappeared, but there are flashes in the deepest recesses of my mind. A bloody handprint on the wall. A cloud of darkness and a cold so harsh it seeped into my bones.

I knew something terrible had happened to him. My mother was so sure he was still out there. As his fated mate, she would have been able to sense it. She couldn't live without him.

Not even for me.

So she left me. She went off to rescue him.

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