Mara’s eyelids flutter. “Daddy…” she mumbles.

Opening her eyes, she blearily looks around the room, disoriented. Expensive-looking pillows and blankets cradle her on top of an Egyptian style futon in silver and blue colors. A dresser and vanity nestle in one corner next to an open door leading to a toilet and old-style bath with a shower nozzle. On the other side of the room, a sliding door remains tightly shut. Dimly glowing orbs float over their stands, reminding Mara of some lights she had seen in an ad just the other day. Something about reverse magnetism keeping them afloat or something; it had advertised them as being the ‘new future for lighting rooms.’

She frowns. Where am I? This isn’t a hospital… Voices outside the door draw her attention.

“… spoke Xharos, so she didn’t understand it.”

Mara frowns, focusing on her mother’s voice. Sha rose? She repeats the unfamiliar word phonetically, not recognizing it. Is that what Bryce had been speaking?

The next to speak is Aeserast. “So that bullet was meant for you.”

Startled, Mara glances at the door. She prods her side gingerly, looking for bandages. She doesn’t find anything.

Sitting up in bed, she nearly misses Ezra’s next words as she yanks the unfamiliar shirt up to examine her side. “Most likely. It had neivir shards in it just like the one that had killed Shokain.”

Stunned, Mara stares at the two-inch-thick scar running horizontally just above her hipbone where the bullet wound should have been. It looks more like she had been stabbed instead of shot. What’s neivir? What does it have to do with Dad? Staring at the scar, her mouth goes dry as a more important question runs through her mind. How long have I been unconscious?

Mara nearly does not catch another man’s hanging question due to the sound of her pounding heart. “Does Mara know about…?”

Mara remembers her mother’s face when she had explained the situation to the eleven-year-old Mara. You were always keeping something from me, Mom, she thinks, holding her breath as she waits to hear her mother’s answer. She hopes her suspicion is wrong.

“No, and I want to keep it that way.”

Her mother’s statement makes Mara’s heart drop. They tell one another everything; there are no secrets between them. Now, though, she just learned that the woman who had raised her had kept the biggest secret imaginable.

Surprisingly, her mother continues. She had sighed, Mara knows intuitively. “I don’t know if that will be possible, though, since both of our Sources are no longer being repressed and hidden. The paro’ki will be able to find us so easily now – and I’m not sure we can survive another assassination attempt.”

Assassination. That word rings in Mara’s head, and she connects the dots despite the unfamiliar words and terms. Dad was assassinated. But… why? He was just a creative goofball who had started up and taught self-defense classes in a small Tennessee town.

She misses the next part of the conversation as a spark flashes in her peripheral. Startled, she glances to her right in time to hear a crackly noise by her ear. Passing it off as static electricity, she takes a deep breath to steady her nerves.

She needs to figure out what is going on. Why did Bryce attack them? Why didn’t he recognize his own son? What did he say to her in that weird language? What was that hole in the air? How did Aeserast just… appear like that? What was up with that giant curved blade?

Aeserast doesn’t even look a day older than five years ago – earlier, even. She takes another deep breath to keep her emotions in check. He has always had lavender hair, but why does he have those weird ears and purple eyes?

The door opens. Aeserast and Ezra walk in, a man and a woman following close behind them. The man has dark, grey-streaked hair and brown eyes while the woman has exquisite yet soft features that compliment her honey-blonde hair and blue eyes. All four of them look as though they had pulled an all-nighter, complete with drooping eyes, messy hair, and exhausted expressions.

Ezra rushes to Mara’s side and sits on the edge of the bed, clasping the girl’s hand. Despite her tiredness, she forces a reassuring smile on her face. “How are you feeling, sweetie? Do you hurt anywhere?”

“I…” Mara touches her side, a bit overwhelmed by everything that had just happened. “No…” I wonder what she would do if I just ask her about Dad, she wonders, and decides against it. Instead, she opts for safer questions. “Who are they? Where’s Justin?”

Ezra’s smile is a little stronger. “This is your Uncle Jonan and Aunt Surana. We’re going to be staying with them for a while. Justin… will be all right.”

“It is good to see you made it through the surgery well,” Jonan says roughly, looking a little embarrassed at being called uncle.

Aunt and uncle? Mara stares at them. She saw no family resemblance between the supposed brother and sister. That’s right… she’s adopted, Mara remembers. Mom always said we didn’t have enough money to visit. How did we even get here? Why did she evade my question like that?

“How long was I out?” Mara asks instead as she brushes her hand over her side again. She wonders if she missed her birthday; an illogical thought in a time like this, but it is better than focusing on some of the other things she overheard. “The wound…”

Ezra takes a deep breath. “Mara, you… you were shot yesterday.”

Mara stares at her mother. The light globes in the room flicker. “Quit joking, Mom.”

Aeserast kneels next to the bed. “She is not joking, Mara.”

Mara stares at him. She remembers him walking through the warped oval and then pulling the giant crescent-shaped blade out of thin air. “How did you appear like that?” she asks, her voice shaking.

“Mara, you need to calm down,” Ezra says simply, as if that one single phrase holds all the answers.

Mara stares at her. “Calm down?” she repeats, incredulous. “Bryce attacked us. He didn’t even recognize Justin. Dad’s friend appears out of nowhere and you…” She shakes her head. “You had me break a rock and fed me a blue flower.”

“Mara, I can explain – ”

“Why didn’t you tell me Dad was murdered?” Mara interrupts, a tear slipping down her cheek.

Ezra’s hand flies to her mouth as she stares at her daughter in shock. “You… heard us…”

“Yeah.” Mara glares at her, an old anger rising to the surface. However, this time, it is directed at her mother. “Why would you keep something like that from me?”

Ezra’s face crumples. Jonan steps up and rubs Ezra’s shoulder, giving Mara a stern look. “Your mother was only trying to protect you, Mara.”

“From what?” Mara cries, frustrated. “Who’s trying to kill us?”

Everyone is now staring at Mara. “Do you want to tell her, or should I?” Aeserast asks.

“Oh, please do,” Mara snaps, her temper flaring. The lights blink in and out. “Just like all of your other stories.” She knows her words are hurting them, but she can’t stop. She is nearing her patience level. If there is much more beating around the hedges of questions, she might punch something.

“Mara Ariela!” Ezra snaps, glaring at her daughter. Oops, Mara thinks, cringing. “Do not talk that way to him. Apologize right now.”

Mara doesn’t meet Aeserast’s eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“It is quite all right.” He gives her a kind, forgiving smile. “You were always so fiery when younger, too. I can’t believe how much you have grown.”

Mara’s cheeks flush a faint shade of pink. Despite always thinking of him as family, she can’t help but be a little charmed by his ethereal beauty.

“As for your question… your father somehow incurred the wrath of the paro’ki, or tyrant, of Saheir.” Aeserast says this with a straight face, not faltering once in his kind, gentle expression.

Mara’s eyes narrow. “What is… Saheir?”

“A continent. It is one of five major ones on Blazhreia, this world,” he explains simply. “We are currently in Veera, one of the easternmost cities to the capital.”

Mara opens her mouth to berate him, but a flicker of silver catches her attention. She glances down at her lap, her breath catching in her throat. Silver lightning bolts dance across her hands.

Freaked out by the light show, she moves as if to rub off the sparks.

The flickering light globes shatter at once.

Aeserast grabs Mara’s sparking wrists as Ezra slips off the bed, ducking and shielding her head with the others. She sees him wince as the bolts shock his hand, and she tries to pull away. “No – ”

A wave of calmness washes through her. She gulps one huge lungful of air after another as if she had been holding her breath underwater until now. All the tension and frustration from the conversation washes away and she feels lightheaded from the sudden change in her.

“Nnngh,” she moans, slumping forward.

“Whoops, too much.” Aeserast quickly catches her before she can fall off the bed and leans her against the headboard. She stares up at him, dazed and sleepy.

“Wha’ did you do to me?” she slurs as he perches on the edge of the bed, now holding only one of her hands. A silvery spark flashes across her freed right hand, marking the end of the light show.

Jonan, Surana, and Ezra slowly sit up, glancing around the room. The only light comes from the door into the hallway. “I’ll get more globes,” Surana volunteers, carefully picking her way across the glass-covered floor.

Jonan and Ezra glance at Aeserast. Seeing that he had calmed Mara, Ezra begins clearing away some of the bigger pieces of glass as Jonan opens the curtains next to the bed, letting in some early morning light. They murmur to one another as they work together.

“Star…” Mara murmurs, leaning her forehead against his shoulder. She fights to keep her eyes open. All he did was touch me… Maybe I’m dreaming. That would kind of make sense.

“Hmm?”

“I’m sorry for yelling at you after Daddy’s funeral.” She closes her eyes, taking another deep breath. He smells of mist and darkness, along with something sweet.

Aeserast chuckles, reaching over and patting her head like he used to do when she was a little girl. “It is quite all right. Are you feeling better now?”

“Yeah… what were those little silver lightning bolts?” she asks, raising her right hand. Nothing abnormal about it.

“It’s your Source,” he explains simply. “Do you remember that story I told you about the chemical spill on another world?”

Feeling a little more awake, she sits upright, blinking. “Yeah,” she finally says, watching her mother create a pile of broken glass. She racks her brain, thinking back to that story. She had been… nine. Aeserast had even drawn diagrams. That was when she had fallen in love with science. “Something about the biochemical affecting the people’s genetic makeup…”

“Yes.” He lets go of her hand and pats it gently, shifting around so he is facing her. “The biochemical had altered the people and fused with their genetic code.”

Mara mulls over this, frowning. “Did the people ever manage to get it out of them?”

Aeserast chuckles. “No. They learned to use it. They call it Source.”

Mara takes a deep breath as she connects the dots, feeling her anxiety slowly return. “That’s crazy. I don’t have anything like that.” She clenches her jaw, staring hard at Aeserast. “What did you do to me? How did I suddenly get so calm?”

“I helped your body mass-produce serotonin and dopamine until you calmed down.”

Mara giggles at this ridiculous response and suddenly stops, realizing that’s exactly what it feels like. Suddenly alarmed, she looks down at her hands, seeing tiny silver sparks igniting over her hands.

“If this… Source stuff is real,” she begins warily. Ezra pauses, glancing over in surprise at her daughter’s words. “Why couldn’t I use it earlier?”

Why didn’t it work when Daddy died? This is what she really wants to ask. When she was younger, she had been like any other kid who had believed in magic. However, when her father had died, she had tried the ‘healing spells’ he had told her about. Not even the one that causes flowers to grow had worked. Ever since that day, she has been convinced both her father and Aeserast had lied to her, telling fictional stories to a little girl without explaining that they weren’t actually real. She had rode on that anger, using it to mask her grief at losing her father.

Aeserast sighs and glances at Ezra. “I will leave this one to you,” he says, standing up and helping with the shattered glass.

Ezra sits back onto the edge of the bed, chewing on her lip. Mara recognizes her mother’s habit and is instantly suspicious. Silver lightning bolts play across her hands. “What did you do, Mom?”

“Ah…” She stands up and carefully brushes off her hands, procrastinating. “Well… when we went to Earth, we needed to hide our Source, as Naiya could have tracked us that way. So we… blocked and repressed your Source.”

Mara stares at the lightning bolts. So… those stories were real, she realizes, her vision blurring. If it hadn’t been blocked, maybe I could have saved him.

Ezra lightly touches Mara’s shoulder. A tear spills over and races down the girl’s cheek. “Don’t blame yourself,” Ezra murmurs, hugging her. “You wouldn’t have been able to do anything.”

Mara wraps her arms around her, allowing the hot liquid to pour down her face in the safe, hidden confines of her mother’s embrace. “I miss him,” she breathes, barely audible.

“I miss him, too,” Ezra admits, stroking Mara’s hair. She closes her eyes, trying to keep her own tears at bay so she can remain strong for her daughter.

“Codi, Mom told you not to barge in!”

“Is she awake?!”

Mara’s head whips around at the two new arrivals. The one who had spoken first is a girl with honey-blonde hair and sky-blue eyes. Her smooth features and thin frame look like Surana’s, although she does not seem like an exact carbon copy of the older woman.

As soon as Mara sees the boy who had demanded to know if she is awake, her breath hitches. Despite the growth spurt, lack of baby fat, and a five-year timespan, she recognizes her adopted brother. His messy, wavy black hair is cut and styled nearly exactly the same way as five years ago, and his moss-green eyes expose undisguised concern. He had never been able to hide his emotions well.

“Codi?” Mara’s voice breaks on the last syllable. “You’re… alive.”