Landing in New York, my two worlds came crashing together. JFK was such a familiar airport, and yet, it was strange to be there without my dad.
Getting on the subway to my apartment was like second nature. I was contemplative and quiet, but so was Ashe. Taya didn't speak much, either.
Everything I'd been looking forward to over these past months, all my plans were coming to fruition. But, dread settled inside me, waiting like a coiled snake, preparing to bite.
Who would I find in the apartment? My loving father, who had taught me to read and showed me the world or the criminal who was an enemy of the Dragonborn?
I knew the truth lay somewhere in between, I only hoped with all my being that it could be something that I could live with.
Ashe could sense my apprehension and gripped my hand as we sat in the subway car as it rocked. Taya shifted uneasily, looking around at the other passengers.
"Have you been here before?" I asked both of my companions, trying to take my mind off the events to come.
Taya shook her head. "New York City? Nah, I've been to upstate New York before, though. You used to live here?"
I bit my lip. "Well, for a few days here and there. When dad's not working, he liked to travel… or said he did." I hadn't realized that he had been running from anyone. I shook my head, breaking eye contact with the guard.
The world had been flipped on its head—up was down and down was up now.
Had I liked to travel? Or was it just something my dad did? Something he said he liked?
Was all that a lie? Was he just trying to get away from them? Keep me away from them?
Aaraeth stirred after a long time of being silent.
Deep doubts, deep wisdom. Small doubts, little understanding, she told me enigmatically.
Are you quoting me fortune cookies now? I asked drolly.
No. Ancient saying.
I recognized where we were and stood to get off.
"We're almost there," I muttered to my companions, forcing myself to take slow and even breaths.
When the train jolted to a stop, I led them out of the subway and onto the sidewalk. A knot had formed in my throat, and I doubted I could speak if I had to.
The short city hike stretched out before us, and emotion filled me to overflowing.
I stopped automatically in front of the building and hesitated, trembling.
Ashe turned me toward him and stared into my eyes. "Is this it?" He asked me before turning to Taya, "Do you feel that?"
Taya glanced around. "Shit. Wow. It's been a while. Is that what I think it is?"
I whispered, "What? Feel what? What are you talking about?"
Ashe nodded and scanned the street around us. "Sydney, reach out with your mind. Do you feel it? Emptiness... Someone who's not human but Dragonborn without a dragon."
Taya shook her head. "I don't like this. We need to get out of here. I want nothing to do with anyone that has had the stygian ritual done to them."
Ashe's head spun to the short guard. "Hold on."
"What's going on? What's the stygian ritual?" My grandmother had mentioned that before, months ago.
Aaraeth lay coiled inside me, ready to pounce. I held onto her with a tentative grasp.
A visible shiver ran through Taya before she whispered, "The stygian ritual is a ritual that removes your dragon. It's only done on people... Dragonborn who..." She glanced up at my Ashe.
"It's a punishment, only criminals receive that ritual," Ashe said, pushing me behind himself as he surveyed the space.
The wind swirled leaves around on the ground, car traffic, honks, and voices took on a menacing quality. A skateboarder passed us, the wheels thump thumping over each crack in the sidewalk.
I searched out with my mind, reaching up in the building, bypassing humans - humans everywhere. Then I found him.
"I think that's my dad. My dad's in there. I feel him." I whispered, trying not to overthink the hollow feeling inside him.
Taya squinted against the sunlight. "This is a bad idea, Sydney. It's actually illegal to associate or communicate with anyone who's been punished like this."
I scoffed, angry that we'd come all this way, and yet the two of them were trying to stop me.
Ashe gripped my shoulder. "Stop for a moment and think about this. George Miller…"
I cut him off, "My dad."
"Is a known enemy of the Dragonborn. Listen to us. He could kidnap you…"
Again I cut in, holding my hands up in exasperation. "He's NOT going to kidnap me! He's recovering! He's been in a coma in the hospital! The man should be more afraid of us!"
Ashe swallowed, closed his eyes, and reached out with his mind.
"Wh…"
"Shh!" He stopped me. "I'm checking the area."
Taya twisted her lips. "Only Ashe can do it because he's a Prime."
I slouched, impatient to go inside, and irritated with their delays.
Ashe opened his pale blue eyes and nodded. "It's just him. He's the only Dragonborn other than us that I can sense." Focusing on me, he cocked his head to the side. "All right. Let's go in. But for God's sake, Sydney, do what I say. I'm trying to protect you. Okay?"
I smiled innocently.
"No. I'm serious. This is life or death right now. It's not a joke."
"Fine. Okay. But I know my dad." I shrugged his grip off my shoulders and walked the steps to the entrance.
Taya shook her head, frowning. "Ashe?"
"Taya, just be on alert."
She nodded, and the two followed me up the steps to the building's entrance.
Standing outside, I buzzed the apartment and waited.
"Hello?" Lori answered in her Scandinavian accent, sending relief flooding through me.
"It's Sydney, will you buzz me up?"
"Yes, yes, of course!"
When the door clicked, I pushed my way inside.
My soldier motioned to Taya and brought up the rear.
We didn't even need to wait for the elevator because the doors swept open quickly after I'd pressed the button.
Cramming into the small space, my two companions exchanged a glance.
As the elevator slowed to a stop, and the door slid open, I sped toward the apartment.
Lori stood there in the doorway wearing an apron like a housewife and smiling. But I wasn't here to see her. I was here to see my dad, check him, make sure he was all right.
"Hello, Hello? Dad? It's Sydney." I called out as my feet ate up the short distance from the door to his tiny bedroom.
What would I find?
Who would I find?
Would my father still be my father?
My dragon senses led me to him, but I stopped in the doorway, afraid to enter. The window was open and cold air blowing in made the curtain dance in the breeze. Cars, music, and sirens made up the familiar soundtrack of this apartment, easing me somewhat.
"Dad?" My word came out almost like a sob.
He lay propped up in bed, his eyes closed and hands resting on top of the covers. I'd never seen my father look so old or so weak.
"Dad?" I breathed again.
With the second word, his eyes shot open.
"Sydney," he murmured, struggling to sit and holding his arms out to me.
I flew to him, sobbing and trying to hug him as carefully as I could.
He held me for a long time, and when we both pulled back, his eyes were full of tears like my own.
"I've missed you, darling," he told me in his British accent, cupping my cheek.
"Are you okay? I've been so worried! So worried! How are you? Lori says, you're recovering? Did you know I was emailing you? Did Lori tell you I was emailing you?" Taking tissues from his nightstand, I wiped at his tears and then my own.
He patted my hand the way an elderly person would.
"Lori is taking good care of me. I'll be back on my feet, but I've got to do the work. As far as the emails, she's been reading me yours, but..." He tapped the side of his head. "I had her write you back. I'll be right as rain soon. You'll see. You'll have your good old dad whole and hearty again!"
I gave him a watery smile.
Then his expression went cold, his lips pressed into a thin line. I followed his line of sight to where Ashe stood, hands on the door frame above his head watching us. Taya stood in the hall behind him, her expression alert while Lori hovered trying to figure out what was going on with the two strangers.
"Your kind aren’t welcome here," dad spat sharply, his accent extra posh. Then my father's gray eyes swung like a pendulum between Ashe and me, and he shouted again, "Bloody hell! You've got to be fucking kidding me!"
Dad threw the covers over and attempted to stand, but trembled and fell back to the bed.
Both Lori and Ashe rushed forward to help, but my father, red-faced, swatted at them shakily. To my soldier, he spat, "Don't you fucking touch me. I want you out now! I need to talk to my daughter."
Turning to Ashe, I pulled him to the doorway. "Can you wait outside? Like in the hallway? Taya's here with me. Then when he's calmed down, I'll bring you back inside."
Examining the room and my father over my shoulder, Ashe nodded once. "Fine. But if I hear anything or even think I hear anything, I will break that door down."
"I'll be fine. I promise."
"Don't promise me things you can't guarantee."
Our gazes locked for a moment before he slipped through the doorway. Lori had returned with water for my dad, passing Ashe at the door. Lori backed up against the wall to let him pass.
My dad was nothing to be scared of. His hands trembled as he watched my would-be mate disappear into the hallway.
Reaching my senses to my father, I looked for a dragon inside him, but all I felt was a void where a dragon should be. My dad was definitely Dragonborn, but as clear as day, his dragon was gone.
Lori gave me a wary look before helping to situate my father in his bed again. "George? Are you all right?" She asked before glaring back at me. "I bought you a ticket. A ticket for you to come, not your friends. Why are you trying to upset your father?" Reaching my senses out to Lori, I felt nothing—she was a mundane—an ordinary human.
She had reached over him, adjusting his pillows and helping him sit up. When she turned back to me, gray hairs had escaped her blond ponytail with the effort, and her brown eyes looked tired.
"Sydney, who is that man?" She asked.
Ooooookay, now we get to the awkward part. "That was Ashe. He… he's… uh…"
"They look like police. Are you in some kind of trouble?" Lori raised her eyebrows at me.
Taya shifted against the hallway wall, watched us and shrugged.
"He's... my boyfriend." I grimaced, turning to my dad, trying to gauge his reaction. "Or you might be familiar with... bondmates."
My father threw his hands up and shook his head. "For God's sake Syd, how old is he? I leave you out of my sight for two months." Turning to the slight blond woman, he motioned to the exit. "Lori, will you kindly close the door and leave us for awhile?"
We both watched her go after she shook her head and gave me a strange look. Closing the door, she left me alone in the room with my dad.
The flimsy curtain snapped in the breeze, playing on the moat of dust that hung suspended in the ray of March sunshine. A crack in the faded blue paint ran up to the corner of the window, ending halfway to the ceiling. I gazed upward at it, unable to look my dad in the eye. My brain swam in an emotional cocktail of disbelief, anger, frustration, and several feelings I had yet to figure out.
When dad didn't speak, I decided that I would. "You knew about the Dragonborn all this time, and you never said anything to me."
I couldn't believe that he could betray me in such a deeply profound way.
"What on earth are you even talking about? What's this about dragons?"
"Stop it!" I growled.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he replied, hands up as he gazed around the room.
"Don't lie to me. I already know that you're Dragonborn and wh... where is your dragon? What happened to your dragon?"
He refused to meet my eye, fussing with items on the rolling hospital tray. He dumped a few pills into his hand before swallowing them with the water Lori had brought. "Stop talking nonsense. Dragons! Hmph…"
"Really? This is how you're going to be? You're just going to stonewall me?"
He gave me a strange look. "Sweetheart, I have no idea what you're talking about."
Aaraeth swirled, and hummed, He'ssssss lying.
I know, I told her back.
"So, are you even my dad?" I asked, anger rising up inside me.
"Of course, I'm your father. It looks like you've been taken in by some kind of brainwashing—a... a... cult maybe? I warned you about this. We've seen it before in our travels."
I scoffed. "DAD! Stop lying. Stop doing this! Just answer me."
His eyes flew back to mine, and as hard as I tried to force my face into a neutral expression, I couldn't betray how much it hurt to have him deny everything I'd been through in the past few months.
"Really? You believe in Dragons now? Don't you understand how crazy you sound?" He sputtered, his face full of pity. "Honey, I know of a special hospital that we can put you in nearby. I can help you. We can make you better. Just tell your friends that they need to leave. Go on."
He motioned to the closed door.
For several seconds, I questioned my own sanity… examined the past few months through this new lens. Questioned myself. I was tempted to do as he said.
Had I been brainwashed? Was it even possible?
Thankfully Aaraeth spoke up inside me. Show him. Let me free.
Shaking those ridiculous thoughts from my head, I wasn't sure what to do. But Aaraeth pushed to escape me, and I struggled to let her go. Finally, she slipped my hold and stood crouched in the narrow space between the bed and the door.
My father cried out as she loomed over him, staring into his eyes. His resolve to ignore her was terrible acting. But as her wingtip scored the ceiling, and her tail pushed the hospital bed fully against the wall, my dad finally gazed up at her.
"Tell me again? I'm brainwashed? You aren't Dragonborn? Where is your dragon? What happened to Celine? Were you even married to my mother? Are you really my dad?"
Lori knocked at the door, "George? Sydney? What's going on? Is everything okay?"
Aaraeth completely blocked the only entrance to the room, but I could see the door open an inch and stop when it hit the bulk of my dragon.
"Sydney! Let me in this instant!" Lori commanded.
"Lori, give us a minute!" My dad yelled back.
He pulled on the blanket and adjusted his bed to sit up higher, trying to move away from the elephant-sized dragon. His hands shook, and his jaw worked to speak, but no sound came out.
"You're still not going to answer me?" I asked, swallowing in disbelief.
He stared but didn't say anything.
I ducked my head with anger and disappointment. When I gazed back up at my father, my eyes were full of tears again.
"Fine. I'll talk. So… you were just going to keep me in the dark for my entire life? Forever? You are a Dragonborn, you should've prepared me! You haven't prepared me for shit! I should have gone to school! I should have known about the Dragonborn! It could have saved us both a lot of pain, saved me a lot of suffering. I could have kept us both safe—IF I HAD KNOWN!"
I sank back into Aaraeth and allowed her to join me again.
I couldn't believe that he could do this. My chest hurt with the betrayal of it all.
I can make him talk, hissed Aaraeth into my mind.
I stared at my father before pacing the spot my dragon had once been.
How? I asked.
Do what dragons do. Get into peoples' minds: humans, Dragonborn, even him without his dragon.
I stared at my dad, and for a moment, I think realization lit his features.
"Tell me," I spat harshly. "Answer my questions, or I will make Aaraeth answer them for you."
His eyes went wide with fear before he fell back into the pillow with a resigned expression. "You can already do that?"
I nodded. "Are you my dad or not?"
He wearily blinked his eyes, gazing into mine, pleading with me not to make him talk.
Hands on hips, I shook my head in anger.
Finally, he nodded as if reconciled to the fact that my dragon could crack his mind.
"In all the ways that matter, I am your father."
"Stop tiptoeing around the subject! Are you my biological father or not?"
He shook his head sadly. "No, I am not."
I gulped, my mouth dropping open and bottom lip trembling.
I'd actually thought there’d been some mistake. I had truly and honestly believed that George Miller was my dad. I was such a fool! Everyone had told me, warned me, even the books I'd read confirmed that this man couldn't be my father. But I'd been stupidly blinded by my love for the man. A man who'd betrayed me, hurt me, kept me from my real life—from my destiny.
I gazed at the broken man in the bed and tried to make it sink in that he wasn't my dad. He really wasn't.
My traitorous heart tried to protest, but I pushed it away. He'd said it himself, he wasn't my father. There was no more explicit way to understand it.
My brain seemed to freeze, trying to explain or reason away, but I knew there wasn't.
Stumbling backward, I fell into the wicker chair that Aaraeth had pushed up against the wall. "I... I can't believe this. Who was my mother to you? I assume that Celine is my mom."
"I protected you. I kept you away from the people who hurt her."
"So everything… the travel, the work… had it all been a lie?"
He shook his head. "No, my work is real, you should know that. But yes, I took that job to keep you away from them. It's what Celine would've wanted. The Dragonborn are dangerous, darling."
I huffed out a breath. "Don't call me that! I'm not your daughter! Who are you? Were you ever going to tell me the truth?"
The corner of his mouth had curved up into a smile of triumph, like the times he'd beat me at chess or won at a game of cards.
No, he wasn't going to tell you. And now it's too late for me to get answers, Aaraeth hissed.
Why? What happened? I asked.
She snorted, he's clouded his mind with poison.
Poison? I asked her.
Yes, the white circles he ate.
I straightened, the pills he took?
Yes. He has purposely taken the poison to cut himself off from us.
I tried to grab the bottle to see what he'd taken, but he thwarted me, sending the orange vial flying and the tablets scattering to the floor.
George gave me a disappointed look. "Now, why did you go and do that?"
"You know why. You're trying to avoid answering my questions. That's why you took those pills…"
"Darling..no…"
"Just stop. You've ruined my life, and I can never forgive you for what you've done."
"Sydney, you don't understand…"
I stood, not wanting to hear any of his excuses. "I don't care what you have to say anymore. It's done, and I'm going back to the Academy... At least they're honest with me."
"Darling, sit back down."
Shaking my head, I frowned. "Where is your dragon, dad? Why did they give you that ritual to take it away? Did you kill my mother? Did you kidnap me?"
Lori barged into the room, distressed. "What is going on? Sydney, why are you yelling?"
Taya followed her in, "Sorry, Sydney, I held her off for awhile."
"I'm not hurting him," I told the older woman and pointed to George. "This man, this man isn't even my real father. Did you know that?"
"No," she whispered in denial, gazing around at the open space Aaraeth had made in the middle of the room.
"Yes. He just admitted it!"
"Stop this. That's not true. Look, you're upsetting him!" She bent down to pick up the small white pills.
I picked up the bottle, read the label—Alprazolam—before I handed it to Lori to put the pills back in.
"What is this?" I spat.
She tsked at me before capping the orange container. "You can't talk to him like that. He's still recovering. Why are you trying to upset him? You need to leave." She yanked on my arm and tried to shove me out of the room. However, I was done anyway and didn't fight her.
"I think this visit is over anyway," I told her bitterly.
Aaraeth? I want my answers! Look into his mind.
Aaraeth hesitated for a beat before answering, I... I can't. He's gone beyond my reach.
I shook my head and blew out a breath before turning to the woman who stood there, hands ringing a tea towel, her eyes furious at me.
Shaking my head, I scowled at him. "I thought I could trust you, but you're too damn afraid to tell me the truth."
My dad… George, not my dad, turned his head to look away from me.
I could feel Ashe's presence in the hallway, our connection tugging at me with worry.
"Let's go," I told Taya.
It felt dead here.
This man was a liar, a murderer, maybe even a thief of my mother and me. I was disgusted.
His comments about my mom brought more questions than he'd answered! Was he just trying to sway me to his side with his 'the Dragonborn are dangerous' comment, or was he truthful for once?
I took a last long look at the man who'd been my father for sixteen years. He lay there, eyes closed, and gray hair disheveled.
"I'm leaving, Lori. George," I said, turning to my dad, his first name strange on my lips. "I need some time, but we'll talk later, you owe me some answers. I'm going back to school where I belong. You've done enough damage in my life."
Turning away, I held in tears and ducked through the doorway to leave.
I refused to allow either of them to think he'd swayed me or made me second guess the Dragonborn, Ashe and everyone back at the Academy. But the truth was that he had planted a seed of doubt, and it made me hate him even more.
Red-hot anger burned like a fire inside my chest, making my vision go red as I left the apartment. I kept quiet until the elevator doors closed, and then I broke, falling into Ashe's arms while Taya tried to ignore us in the small space.
"He's not my real dad," I told him thickly as I leaned into his body and wiped my stupid tears.
My entire life had been a lie. The father I'd once trusted was nothing more than a liar.
He'd taken my life, my real life, and I wondered if I'd ever be able to reclaim it.
However, now I was beginning to figure out the truth.
I would get to the bottom of my story, of my mother's story and her death.
Because the truth will find a way out.
Thank you for joining me for Cracked Open. The story continues in book 2, Over Easy: The Dragon Born Academy, book 2
Will Sydney and Ashe complete the bond? Will they figure out what happened between Celine and George? Find out in Over Easy!
A taboo romance, destiny revealed and secrets uncovered.
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