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Over the next few weeks, word spreads through the hybrid communities. More and more step forward and join our coalition. Ideas morph and new ones hatch as we plan a historical march on every capitol. The realm leaders will hear us, the purebloods won’t be able to ignore us. Our demands will echo through every nook and cranny of each realm.
Provence’s overnight expansion hadn’t gone unnoticed as day traders showed up the next day to find it was twice the size it had been. Shoppers stopped and took note. Few complaints were muttered, but many questions were raised. Not a single realm leader stepped forward with an answer. The only ones capable of such a momentous task are the realm walkers. Everyone knew it, but not a word was uttered from anyone’s mouth but my mother’s. I assumed it was fear keeping their mouths shut or the realm leaders were plotting against us.
At home, tensions mount until my mother snaps, “You are barely nineteen years and haven’t yet learned the most basic tennets of what it is to be a realm walker. You flash magic, grow Provence.” Her nostrils flare. “I know that was you,” she seethes.
My lips involuntarily grow into a cocky grin as her eyes flash in anger and hate. “I knew from the moment you were conceived that I’d made a grave mistake. You are why realm walkers aren’t allowed to have children together. You are a mistaken product of such a union!”
The hate in her eyes vanishes, replaced with fear, and my smile drops like a large stone. It hits the ground and sinks into the dirt as my mind immediately processes her flaming, hateful words. She’d spoken words not meant to be said out loud, words she’d held secret even from me. “You said the quiet part out loud,” I croon. “You were the one that gave in to weakness. Don’t blame me.” She didn’t need to tell me who my real father is. There was only one childless adult realm walker, only one I called when I needed help in London and only one who took me to Drakonia and hid me, lied for me.
Betrayal shakes through my core, rattling every bone. My father, the one person at home I care for, rely on for his guidance, isn’t really my father. Does he know? I look at her face with disgust and flash out of the living room in teal light to a spot I can have peace from her to gather all the thoughts spiraling in my head.
Metford sits on the edge of the cliff, his legs dangling over the side. He is the closest thing I have to a friend. “It wasn’t a good day for me either,” he says without looking to see it’s me. Who else joins him in a flash of light? I’m the only person in all of Thraves that portals. The blue flash of light is a dead giveaway.
I crash beside him and, without another word we sit together, mulling our own destinies and paths in life for a long time before his gaze flicks my way.
I feel his swirling eyes on my cheek. “I’m listening if you need to get out what’s eating you inside.”
I suck in a deep breath of the chilly air and breathe out steam, then turn my head and stare into his eyes. “There are some things better left unsaid.” I wish my mother understood that.
He nods. “True,” he says and lifts his legs onto the cliff and stands. Leaves and rocks crunch as he walks away. Someone else joins me. I hear a few words spoken, but I don’t have the mind to care who it is. I learned something I’ve always known, somehow, somewhere inside me. A truth I never spoke, and as long as it wasn’t spoken then it couldn’t be. My mother squashed my bubble with a hammer and punched it into oblivion and I am left to face it. I want to walk off the edge of the cliff and stand above the valley.
A voice speaks, filled with love, his words clear and the fuzz in my brain washes away like mud after a rainstorm. The man who I’ve always called ‘Dad’ sits down beside me. His long legs dangle over the side and I think that’s what hurts the most. He is my dad, the only person in my home I connect with, and the truth of my paternity means he isn’t my father. “Beautiful view. I figured I’d find you here,” he says, pressing an arm over my shoulder as he sits. “Getting up and down isn’t so easy when you get old.”
The sun sets, painting the sky in brilliant hues. “This is only a taste of what dragons see when they fly high in the air. Imagine seeing the world from the top instead of the bottom.”
“I’ve always wondered what you see when you portal or open the matter surrounding you. Is it another realm us purebloods aren’t privileged enough to see?” Only my father would think of something like that. How did my mother ever find someone like him?
His arm around my shoulder offers a familiar comfort, one I melt into. “You know.”
He nods. “I’ve always known, but it wasn’t my place to tell you. You’re my son, no matter what. I know you. You have this incredible connection with everything. Nothing escapes you. You can transform yourself into a dragon right now and take that flight above the mountains.”
“No, I can’t... I don’t know how to fly.”
My father chuckles.
“And it would cause problems for the dragons if the harvesters spotted a dragon in their realm.”
He sighs. “You’re not wrong. Silly isn’t it? All these centuries later and the realms are still divided.”
“Would it be better if they weren’t?”
He shrugs. “Times were bad, but that was a long time ago. Could everyone work together for peace now?”
It is nice to have a conversation with someone on the same page. All these months planning and I have a growing number of hybrids and five realm walkers, six if I include Preston and seven if I include Ryel as a realm walker instead of a hybrid, working to organize the first ever protest in the middle realms. I have no idea of the outcome but I can’t not try it. “I think it’s been long enough.”
His arm moves and his large harvester hand presses against my back. “Whatever you are planning, I’m with you, but remember not everyone likes change. Some purebloods are enshrined in their customs and expectations passed one generation to the next. The realms have grown and developed but some beliefs remain unchanged. You have a gift, an incredible connection to magic. I don’t think your conception was a mistake. You were meant to be. A realm walker to move the realms into the future.”
Prickles work over my legs and arms with his words. He has faith and confidence in me, in my skills, and understands on some level I have a larger purpose than the menial tasks. I am the future and I will change it. As with all our discussions, he leaves me with much to think about. He is the father who raised me, but I am Preston’s child. Something lashes at my mind, stings it, leaving a welt of clarity. I am more powerful than any other realm walker, not in pure strength or magic but my connection is stronger and I’ve always been more aware.
Ryel’s blonde bouncy curls and chiseled features push all other thoughts away. I have more pressing matters than my pathetic mother or my heritage or a biological realm walker father who hasn’t openly supported my plight. I’ve been helping Ryel connect with her magic in other realms besides Canida. Tonight is Verboten.
In her tight jeans and hooded half-shirt she hugs a large gemstone at my request. The lights of the atmosphere filter like an aurora, shining and changing. The gemstone twinkles beneath the showy sky.
“Can you feel its energy?” I ask.
“I feel like an idiot,” she responds, her tone lifting an octave.
“An idiot whose eyes are reflecting the green in the stone,” I say.
She narrows her eyes, arms still around the large gemstone. “This isn’t working.”
I sit cross-legged on the ground in front of her and the gemstone. “Absorb its energy. Let it flow inside you. Feel it warm you.”
She presses herself to the rock. “I think maybe, no...yes.” Quickly she throws herself back and the gemstone shoots into the air. Her mouth opens into an O as she pushes me backwards. It all happens in a flash and we roll together a couple times. Her strength is as amazing as everything else about her.
The gemstone crashes to the ground where I’d been sitting. Her face lights up and she bursts out in laughter.
“You almost killed me and think its funny,” I say, our chests crash together and dance between her laughter and my words.
“I know. It hummed.” She laughs more, her lips brush against mine as her sniggers dry up. Her eyes close and her mouth presses into mine. Her tongue escapes and mine captures it. Sensations bloom inside me and spread. What I feel is more powerful than all the magic I possess. I slide my hands from her back into the pockets of her pants and push her curves against me. Only thin clothing separates us.
My eyes close and I lose myself in the moment, wanting more of her, all of her.
All the time we’ve spent together planning and exploring her connection to magic and showing her mine. Our pent-up, raging teenage hormones in check. I roll her to her side, showering her neck and chest with kisses, sliding the neckline of her shirt over her round, full breasts. My tongue and lips begging for more. My fingers circle her pointed, hard nipples.
Her hands move over the front of my jeans and I don’t want to stop. An annoying voice starts as a murmur I ignore then climaxes, not the kind I want, and I grab her arm. “I can’t.” I want to. Every part of me screams, but I can’t do that to her.
Her eyebrows lower. “You’re a buzz kill. Why not? You want it. I want it.”
Catching my breath. Yes, I want it, more than all the power of every hybrid, pureblood and realm walker combined, but I know the consequences. I’m the product of those consequences. Turning her away is physically the hardest thing I’ve ever done. “I’m a realm walker. It’s part of the curse. The first time we do it we create another to take our place and so the cycle continues.”
She sits up, my arm dropping to her lap. “Oh. Not ready for all that. I think you have it worse than us, at least we can get our shimmy on.”
I let out a strangled breath, feeling every bit of her frustration. I don’t have words when she rises, brushes off her pants, and walks away. I can’t let her, yet I don’t stop her. My heart and body is a liquefied puddle on the ground.