by L J Andrews
Liz sniffled and nodded, slowly lifting the lid to the box. “There are no infant pictures of you, because I don’t have any. Seventeen years ago, I was heading with a friend to a teaching conference. We stopped in Wyvern Willows overnight.” She sucked in a breath and gently lifted a green and gold blanket I didn’t recognize and an envelope embossed in gilded seams. “The next morning, you were outside my door. A little boy, with a smile for days—your sharp eyes were filled with wonder. Almost like magic, you had a hold on me instantly. Without a word, you gave me this.” Jade had her hands over her mouth when Liz handed me the envelope. I felt sick. “Read it, T. Then I’ll explain.”
With slow movements, I lifted the flap. The paper was beautiful. I could even see bits of bark behind the swooping, neat writing. I read the letter out loud, wanting Jade to hear, but found it harder the longer I read.
“I know you are good. You have no children. I offer my son for your care and guidance for the next ten years. At the end of such time, he will be returned to this spot and I will take him into the protection of his family.
“He is unique, and there is no other like him. I ask that you allow him to grow and learn, do not stifle his curiosity. Encourage and direct with firmness and understanding, though you may not understand him, and that is expected. It is only because he is so exceptional. I am leaving him in your care, and that comes with a great deal of trust.
“His name will be known as Teagan Ward. It is crucial for his safety you address him with this name.
He will grow slowly, do not be alarmed.
Until we meet again.”
Aunt Liz dabbed her eyes when I finished, and she averted her gaze to the fireplace. A knot was blocking my voice, so no one spoke for a long while. Jade hugged her middle, her eyes brighter as she filled with her own emotions. Finally, I dropped the letter back into the box and paced in front of the sofa. “So, I’m not your nephew,” I whispered.
Aunt Liz released a pent sob and held the pillow against her chest as though it would ease the pain. “I couldn’t tell you,” she croaked. “How could I tell you someone dumped you in such a heartless way? My friends thought I was insane for taking you, but I loved you instantly. I thought…I thought it would be better for you if you believed your parents died, leaving you with a family that loved you.”
“You never took me back,” I snipped, feeling a wave of frustration rolling through my chest. “You were supposed to take me back.”
“No,” Aunt Liz said with just as much intensity. “No, they didn’t deserve to have you. Leaving you alone, practically demanding how you were to be raised. I wasn’t going to listen to their demands. Why would they leave their son? Why? Then ask for you back when you were grown into a young man and what, no longer a child that needed nurturing? Ridiculous. I loved you, I raised you, they couldn’t have you.”
Aunt Liz was breathing heavily as she shot from her seat. I wanted to tell her it was fine, but it wasn’t fine. I was angry. Angry at Liz, angry at my mystery parents who had callously left me. They didn’t even instruct her to tell me I was loved, no, it was just important I wasn’t stifled in my differences.
“What does it mean…I will grow slowly?” I hissed.
Aunt Liz sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “I can’t explain it, T. You looked like a five-year-old child for years. I kept you back in school because you were so small. Over time, you grew faster. I spoke with doctors, and no one found any reason for it. They just said you were small. Until you were around fourteen. Then you became,” she opened her palms, signaling to my entire form. “Well, you became what you are now.”
“I don’t remember being small. I don’t remember any of this.”
Aunt Liz dared take a step closer toward me. “I can’t explain much of what has happened since bringing you into my life. You are special, you are exceptional, just as those people said. You’ve always had a special soul, but I couldn’t help you channel your frustrations. Your anger. All I could do was hope you would find your way.”
Linking my fingers behind my head, I glanced out the window. I shouldn’t be angry. I’d come here expecting a different story of my past, but now that I knew it was true, it wrenched my heart into a coil. “You kept me from knowing my family,” I muttered darkly. Jade met my eye and slowly moved toward me. I wasn’t so sure I wanted to feel calmer if she touched me. “I’ve…I’ve always been different, you don’t understand how important it is to know who I am right now.”
“I knew something would happen if you went back to that place,” Liz said. “I’ve waited every day for a call, or message that you were gone. That they’d taken you.”
I shook my head and leaned against the wall, my fist pounding the wooden boards. Jade didn’t come to me, instead she moved toward my aunt. “Was there anything else left with him?” she asked gently.
Liz pulled out the blanket. “Only this.”
Jade smiled when she took the blanket from Liz’s hands. There was something embroidered on the front. Though I was tormented inside, everything filtered away when I saw Jade’s face fall as she studied the blanket. It was the innate need to protect her in every way that moved me across the room to bring her comfort during distress. Liz eyed us curiously through her puffy eyes.
“What is it?” I asked.
“This,” Jade whispered, a glistening, steamy tear rolling from the corner of her eyes. She was pointing to a gold emblem in the quilt that looked a great deal like the seal across my back. There were markings surrounding the seal, abstract symbols embroidered in gold. It was remarkable and beautiful. “This is the family of jade’s seal—formed after my grandparents’ union. It’s surrounded by the same markings, Teagan. It’s a seal for the mage, I know it—to mark of the wyvern family they protected. My family. Your family, we were…always connected. It’s different too though, look at these symbols.” She pointed to wispy ribbons of gold that looked a lot like dragon heads. “It’s beautiful, but these look like wyvern symbols, not mage. It’s unique and a symbol of your connection with my people. I feel it—like someone always wanted you to know where you belonged.”
I gaped at Jade for a silent breath. The golden thread did look like the seal on my back, but I noticed the differences, the combination of both languages. Her words, someone wanted me to know where I belonged. Well, then…where were they?
“What are you saying?” Liz asked, dabbing her nose with a tissue. “I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”
“I can’t explain everything, Aunt Liz,” I muttered. “Something did happen when I went to Wyvern Willows, and something is still happening. We need to go. Aunt Liz, may I take these things?”
“Teagan, no—you can’t leave,” she pleaded. “We need to work this out. I can’t just tell you these things and then you leave.”
“We will talk soon,” I said wrapping one arm around her neck and squeezing her tightly. “I just can’t stay, or I will be in trouble, and you’ll have to follow through on your threat to toss me in prison.”
“T, tell me what…what you’re thinking. You must believe me when I say I did everything because I loved you, I still do. You are my son in every way that matters.”
I rubbed her back, feeling my frustration ebb into oblivion, and now I feared I might cry along with her. “I love you too. You’re my mom,” I said smiling. “You are. Nothing will ever change that. This is a lot. I think I need to process, okay?”
Liz nodded, her chin crinkled in emotion as she kissed my cheek. “I hope you can forgive me. Please call me when you get back. I love you. So much.”
“Love you too,” I whispered.
Jade was bold, and I loved it, when she hugged Aunt Liz tightly. Aunt Liz seemed to relax in Jade’s embrace. She patted Jade’s cheek when they pulled apart and offered her a watery smile. Jade held the box with the letter and the blanket. Once we were back in the car, I sunk into the seat, my knuckles pulling white as I clutched the steering wheel.
“Teagan
,” Jade said softly. Her hand rested on my leg, and I embraced every ounce of support she was pulsing into my body. “Your aunt was telling you the truth. Every word, I sensed her goodness just as that letter said. She did what she knew to protect you. Don’t be angry with her.”
I started the car, my jaw pulsing. “I am angry,” I admitted. “Everything about me is a lie, Jade. Am I so stupid no one can trust me with the truth? Am I too unpredictable, or what? All I want is the truth. From Eisha, from Sapphire, Mini—from my family! Everyone lies.”
“I’ve never lied to you,” Jade whispered, her fingertips tracing the armor.
Taking a deep breath I met her eye and smiled. “No, you haven’t lied to me. You are the only sane place in this entire mess.”
“Your aunt did what she thought was best. She couldn’t have known who you would become. She loves you. Can you understand why she did what she did?”
I rested my cheek against Jade’s palm, though I kept my eyes focused out the window. “She’s not my aunt.” My voice cracked, but I quickly cleared my throat to hide it.
“Teagan…” Jade began, but stopped when I met her eye.
“No, she’s not. I’m angry, I’ll probably be upset for a long time, but whoever wrote that letter is not my mother, or my father. I mean it when I say Liz isn’t my aunt—that woman inside that house is my mother. In every way.”
Jade smiled, her emerald eyes glistening with steaming tears when she kissed my cheek. With Jade sitting as close as possible, the box of my past in the back seat, we sped out of my childhood back toward Wyvern Willows, which had certainly become a critical piece of my future.
Chapter 25
In the pit of my stomach festered an angry ball. No one could understand the ache of not belonging. Many times, as a boy, I remembered crying to Aunt Liz at how lonely the world seemed. How friends came and went—always leaving because I was simply too different. Never once had she told me my life story, she’d just watched me hurt. My knee bounced and my neck was sore from the tension. Jade wasn’t holding my hand any longer, and now I yearned for her calm as I thought back on my life. I was just the boy who acted out, that was all I’d ever been. The boy who spent more time in the principal’s office than in class. Then I became the teenager who rebelled, the trouble maker, the lost cause. After my trial, I’d heard I was voted the one most likely to go to prison—I think a former classmate even won a bet when I was sentenced to Wyvern Reform. Through it all I was alone and bitter, all while Liz knew there was a missing piece of my life she was keeping tucked in a shoebox.
Then again, I loved her even more for her reasons. She hid the truth—the truth that I was abandoned and unwanted—to keep me with the belief I’d always been loved. She was incredible for taking in a child under such odd circumstances. I’d left quickly. I knew I should have stayed longer tonight, but I’d been so sure I’d lose my mind if I’d stayed in that house a moment longer. There was the hope that soon we could speak again, that I could find a way to explain what had happened to me. The idea of having someone I loved understand why I was so different was a peaceful thought that soothed the ball of bitterness. Until I glanced at the passenger seat.
Jade was quiet once we pulled out of town with only the long stretch of highway spread before us. The prickle of unease tingled across my arms. I wanted to stop the car—I didn’t want to return to Wyvern Willows yet. It just meant more questions, probably a good scolding from Sapphire, and the confusing feeling of finding where I belonged would only build.
“Is something bothering you?” I finally dared ask when the silence started choking me.
Jade gnawed on the inside of her cheek. It wasn’t often Jade didn’t have a smile on her face, she was always calm and patient, but in this moment there wasn’t even a flick of a smile. Her fists were even balled in her lap. It wasn’t clear when we’d put so much distance between ourselves after starting so close when we’d left Aunt Liz’s house.
“I think I know who your parents are. I could be wrong, but if I’m right, I don’t know what it will mean,” she said softly.
My heart quickened like a drum, and my grip tightened on the steering wheel again. “Who do you think they are?” Jade leaned her head against the window, gnawing on her cheek so hard I feared she would draw blood. “Hey,” I said, unfurling one of her fists and threading my fingers in hers. “You can tell me.”
“That seal on the quilt, I know it’s my family seal. Don’t you remember what I told you about the High Priestess? Eisha told me if you were a jade mage you would have to descend from the High Priestess.”
I glanced at her. “You think she’s my mother?”
Jade shrugged. “It’s what I believe. Perhaps no one knew about you. She could have kept your birth a secret. There was a war after all, maybe it was her way of keeping you protected. But if I’m right, that means…”
She didn’t answer, and her fingers tensed in my grip, sending a painful wave of nausea through my middle. Jade was upset, and I was feeling every little piece of her emotions. Slowly, I pressed her hand against my lips. She closed her eyes, finally a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “What are you thinking?” I whispered.
Jade eyed me sympathetically. “If the High Priestess is your mother, from what I’ve read, there’s really only one mage who could be your father. The High Priest.”
Now I understood her discomfort. The acid boiled in the back of my throat as I stared at the winding, dark asphalt. “The mage who betrayed your family,” I said darkly.
“I don’t know if my theory is right, and it wouldn’t change how I feel about you,” she said quickly, but for the first time I wasn’t so sure.
“What you’re saying makes sense. Why else would I be left in a quilt with the seal of your family. I must come from the mages responsible for defending your family. The ones responsible for killing…” I couldn’t even finish.
Jade’s face was contorted in her own pain when she spoke. “Perhaps your mother was hiding you from the High Priest—”
“Jade, think about it, unless I’m actually ninety years old, if he’s my father it would mean the High Priestess is still messing around with the bad guy right? The war happened before I was even born.”
She considered everything I was saying, but slowly nodded. “Yes, it was many years ago. But Teagan, you must be older than you are. Aunt Liz said she took you as a boy when she found you—seventeen years ago. Do you suppose it’s possible? Mages do age differently than humans. Look at Mini.”
The thought sent my stomach tumbling. Clearing my throat, I rolled my grip over the steering wheel. “I guess, but I don’t feel decades older than I am. I feel like I’m seventeen.”
Now Jade was biting her lip. “Well, I do in many ways too. My body at least; my mind is older of course. I don’t know, Teagan. If I’m right, what does that mean? What would your mother want with you after ten years of living with Liz?”
“Probably wants me to switch to the dark side,” I said bitterly. “If they are my parents, it doesn’t mean anything to me. I’ll fight them until I’m nothing but dust if they ever tried to harm you, Jade.”
She smiled and scooted closer, her shoulders relaxing slightly. “I know you would, but it still breaks my heart at the thought. If I’m right, you are your own parents’ enemy. No matter who they are, I still ache for you.”
I did stop the car then. Clicking my seatbelt off, I held her face between my hands. “Don’t ache for me,” I whispered, inching my face closer. It was intoxicating drawing her lips so close to mine, but never closing the gap. I listened to the way her breath caught in her throat, and it only added to the tension. “Don’t hurt over this, Jade. Not for another second. No matter what, I will always choose you.”
Jade’s eyes were bright when she put her hands carefully on both sides of my neck. “Is it just the bond?” she whispered. “Is that what makes you say those things?”
Tracing my thumb over her lips, I shook my head. “Not
a chance. You are more than a bond to me. I love you,” I said, realizing it was the first time I’d said the words out loud—at least directly.
I’d never seen Jade cry—really cry—part of me had wondered if dragons could cry. Her breath shuddered, and any distance between us was soon obsolete. When she pressed her lips against mine, her hot tears soaked my face. Jade had a strong grip she’d clasped behind my head when I pulled her from her seat, curling her on my lap—as best I could with the tight quarters. Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to take a little more time getting back.
The white house was dark when we pulled up along the drive. Jade studied the windows and carefully got out of the car. The air was chilly, the first signs of autumn breathing into the night. Stepping at her side, I wrapped my arm around her waist. “We need to face them eventually, right?”
Taking my hand in confidence, she nodded and pulled me toward the door. The moment we stepped onto the porch the lights blinded us and the door practically ripped off its hinges. Sapphire was fuming in the doorway, but he said nothing. He simply leaned against the door frame and pointed inside the house. Jade kept her chin high and marched regally inside, though I found myself shifting away from Sapphire’s black gaze.
“Sit down,” he growled in a deathly slow tone.
“What do you think you were doing?” Mini’s shrill voice screamed from across the living room. I ducked when she tossed her knife—yes, her knife—at my head. All my anger from the night built like a throbbing cancer in my chest. I gripped the hilt of the weapon once the blade had lodged deep into the wall and pulsed my fury into the silver steel. Mini gaped when the metals crumbled under my touch. I didn’t know I could do that, but it brought a certain amount of pleasure when her eyes flashed with such malice I was positive we were about to duel. Ready—yes, tonight I was ready to fight. I was ready to unleash the boil of fury, and if Mini was the target, so be it.
