But that doesn’t explain why she would keep something so important from me.
“Why did she not tell me?” My heart tremors, aching for a mother who was stolen from me. She should be here right now, answering my questions. But she’s gone, her eyes forever vacant, her breath forever stilled in her lungs.
Nothing I can say or do will bring her back to me.
“To her…” Father says, his voice low, empathic, as if he understands the sorrow building like a wave inside me, “…she was your mother. She felt no need to tell you.”
Didn’t I deserve to know, though?
After all, I am not only Kyanite. I am Bloodstone too.
I deserved to know that. No. Ineededto know that.
I suck in a quick breath, searching for calm,needingcalm. I’m not pottery. If I shatter, there is no putting me back together. No connecting the pieces. No gathering up anything. I would be scattered, lost, abandoned.
“I want to know what happened.” My voice cracks, fracturing as I plead with him. “Please.”
He runs his fingers against the rim of his terracotta goblet. “I was ordered to kill you because of a prophecy that said you would have the serpent mark and you would bring back Bloodstone magic, but I couldn’t...” Again and again, he runs his fingers against the edges of the goblet. Maybe it eases his nerves. “So, instead, I brought you to your mother, who had just lost a daughter. Nobody knew what I had done.”
“Who ordered you to kill me?”
“The Kyanite chieftain.” Father’s eyes shoot to the door before drifting back to me.
My chest constricts as I shake my head. “How did you know I was the one who would have the mark when it didn’t appear until I was ten summers old?”
“Because of the way you stared up at me when I plucked you from the cradle next to your twin sister. There was something in your eyes, even then. Something that spoke to me, called to me. I knew you were her, and I knew I had to protect you.”
My twin sister?
Shock rocks through me as my mouth falls open. “I have a twin sister?”
“Yes.”
Everything in me wants to process that, to evaluate it, but right now I need to focus on my next question. “Why did you make me hide my mark and tell me light cannot abide darkness?”
“I told you to hide it, so the chieftain wouldn’t discover your secret. You were living among the very people who wanted you dead.”
I swallow. “What about the light and darkness?”
“I’m sorry,” he says, his voice brimming with regret. “I should have never said those words to you. I allowed my bitterness and hatred for the Bloodstone to overcome me.”
Even though his words stung when I was a child, I cannot fault his reasoning behind them. After all, I have carried that blade of vengeance inside me before. I have felt the anger it wields.
“Are you my father?” I ask, my voice quavering with the hope that he is my father.
Sadness deepens the edges of his mouth. “No. I’m sorry.”
I clutch my hands to my head, trying to make sense of all of this.
Mother wasn’t my mother.
Father isn’t my father.
Then what am I?
Who am I?
Am I an impostor with the blood of some unknown people flowing through my veins? The gods dug this serpent into my flesh. They didn’t ask me if I wanted it. They just branded it there.
