"Are you okay?" I murmured. She didn't move or make a noise. I hoped her mind was in 'one piece' as the wizard had put it, but I didn't know how I'd tell. Supposedly, riders could sense some of what their dragons were feeling. Though, at the moment, I didn't sense much of anything from Leera. Maybe something was wrong with her, or maybe we hadn't joined right. I kept flashing back to what Mother had said- that I'd wish I were dead. What would she know about dragons and riders, anyway?
Leera stirred, and I stood, then backed up to a respectable distance. Joined or not, I was still a relatively fragile biped, and she was a huge, armored carnivore with wings. She opened her eyes and lifted her head off the ground. When she stood, she look as she always had in the stable. I waved, and she followed the movement with her eyes. Now that I at least knew she wasn't in a coma or something, I wanted to figure out what Mother had been talking about.
"You do whatever, and I'll be back in a little while. I just want to talk to someone, okay?" I asked. She cocked her head, and I felt silly for almost thinking she'd be able to understand. When I didn't say anything else, she turned and went to lounge with the other dragons, who had been left by their riders to hang out inside the stones. I hurried to where everyone who'd stayed was dancing, drinking, and making merry with the new riders.
It wasn't hard to pick Mother, Father, and Ashyr out. None of them looked happy. Mother and Father seemed distraught, and Ashyr was glaring at me like I'd broken her wand into a million pieces right in front of her. When I reached them, Mother pulled me aside while Father stayed with Ashyr. She didn't stop walking until we were standing in a small grove of atkiln trees near the edge of the field, out of sight of the revelers. I waited for whatever terrible news she had for me. Her hands were clenched so tightly that her knuckles had gone paper white. She'd overreacted over trivial things before, but something told me that now wasn't one of those times.
"Ella, we lied," she finally said. I managed to stop myself from shrugging. She was going to have to be a bit more specific than that.
"About what?" I asked. Another long silence.
"You weren't left in a box on our front porch," she answered. What, had they kidnapped me or something?
"Then where did I come from?" I didn't know what she could possibly say that would change the fact that my original parents had abandoned me.
"One night sixteen years ago, a friend of mine came to the door and gave you to us. He told me he was your father and that he couldn't take care of you at the moment," she answered, eyes squeezed shut. She lifted one hand to her brow and held the other at her waist.
"So what if my father left me in person?" I asked, arms crossed. It still didn't change anything, not really.
"What I'm about to say will change everything, but you have to know now. You have to be prepared for what will happen." She threw her hands down and looked me straight in the eye.
"I'm listening," I replied, trying not to roll my eyes.
"Ella... my friend was a wizard."
"Then he was lying," I snapped before I knew what I was saying. "He can't be my father." I couldn't be a paltor. There was no way.
"But you have the same blue eyes. I've never seen another talme with bluer eyes. And paltors usually have physical mutations, similar to your tail...," she said. Every word was true, but that only made them hurt even more. It just couldn't be possible. I would've noticed by now if I was half wizard. I uncrossed my arms and held them out as if they could shield me from her words.
"I'm not a paltor," I insisted, backing up, "I'm not a monster."
"Just because you're a half-blood doesn't mean you're a monster," she protested, stepping towards me. I jumped back, out of her reach.
"I'm not a half-blood!" I practically screamed. "I'm just a talme." Every strange fire that had randomly started around me over the past 16 years now made sense, and I hated that she might be right. I couldn't stand the idea of being a monster from nightmares.
"Ella, calm down before you hurt yourself," Mother insisted, reaching out for my hand. But I couldn't calm down. The air was scorching, burning my lungs as I tried to reason with what was going on. Suddenly, I was soaking wet, and Mother was panting.
"Why did you do that?" I asked. She wasn't exactly young. Why had she wasted her energy just to get me wet? It hadn't exactly calmed me down- just surprised me.
"Look down," she instructed. I did and couldn't believe my eyes. The ground around my feet was scorched beyond recognition, and my clothes were still smoking, small holes burnt through them all over. It hit me then, really hit me. She was right. I was an aberration, a freak, a paltor.
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