I blinked.
This could not be happening.
My father could not be here. I was surely dreaming.
A hand on my lower back told me I wasn’t.
“Are you okay?” Darcy whispered his breath warm in my ear.
With a shudder, I brought my attention back to the present and to my reality—the fact that my father was here to take me back to the world I thought I’d left behind forever.
“Father…” I managed, stepping forward. I had to play it cool and show him I wasn’t afraid. For this was the man who had shown me what fear was. “How long has it been? One hundred, two hundred years?”
“It has been over three hundred years in this realm, but only three in Dragontopia. It has been far too long for your mother. I’m afraid she remains heartbroken over your disappearance.” My father brushed a hand over his velvet hunter green cloak and shiny chainmail armor. He stood near a table that was already set for dinner. He picked up a wine glass and studied it, rolling it around in his hand, and peering through it like a telescope before setting it back on the table. I cringed. How dare he bring my mother into this! I hated leaving my mother in the hands of his cruel, cold heart, but I had no choice. I couldn’t stay in that place a second longer.
“I had no choice but to leave. You left me no choice.”
He sighed. “You were always such a disobedient child. I waited for your return, but I grew tired. Your mother grew tired. I have come to bring you back because, frankly, our people have lost hope, and I am getting too old, your mother too frail. They tolerate me. Come back and save your kingdom, Emmaline. Your people need you.” He looked up at me, and I could see in his eyes that his words were clearly tinged with lies.
I shook my head and step backward, leaning into Darcy. When my father saw the way Darcy looked at me, cared for me, the way he touched me, his eyes turned dark. His face began to turn an unsightly shade of red—the color of rage.
“This… don’t tell me, this… this creature is the reason you never returned?”
I clenched my fist as rage bubbled within me. How dare he call Darcy a creature! I stood before Darcy and pulled up a protective shield around us with my magic. My father walked toward us swinging his longsword around in an arc over his head before bringing it down. I let out a scream before I realized my shield would protect us. But I was too used to my father’s rage. I was too used to the blows of his sword. I was too used to hiding my head in fear. After all those years, the memories resurfaced as if they had happened yesterday.
I am a little girl in the castle running to her bedroom to hide under the bed because she had just stolen a cookie from the kitchen… or caught my father kissing a woman who was not my mother…
The moment the sword collided with my magical shield, my scream, raw power, and the impact of the blade against the magic shield propelled my father back through the air. He landed heavily on the other side of the nightclub floor. He didn’t stay down, though. He got to his feet, but he wasn’t angry, which surprised me. I was so used to his rage. His rage was a normal part of my life for so long.
“You have become so powerful, my daughter. Too powerful. Power like that is dangerous to humans. You must return at once with me so we can deal with it. It will be okay.”
Once again, I am the little princess in the castle who, after being caught by her father and scared by his sword, was being lured out by her father’s hypnotic, charming voice. He used to do this every time he punished me. He used to compel me to him and make me forgive him. He used to make me feel like I was dangerous, unhinged, and that he could fix me if I came to him.
But I wasn’t that little princess anymore. I shook my head.
“No! You will not make me feel like I am the crazy one anymore. I made a decision all those years ago, and I stand by it now. I will not be going back with you. I’m staying here with Darcy.”
I looked up at Darcy, and he smiled down at me. I smiled back.
My father screamed in frustration before a magic portal appeared behind him. With eyes wide open, I look to Darcy to see if he had anything to do with it, but he looked just as confused.
“You have made a grave mistake, my daughter. For that, you will pay.”
The portal shimmered as a figure shrouded in shadow approached the portal and stepped through. I gasped in shock. I recognized the woman immediately. Her billowing long white hair and her black, white, and gray magic are as familiar to me as my own father.
I dropped to my knees.
“Mother!”
She never used to be this strong. For years, my father, who had to be the most powerful being in the kingdom, suppressed and banned our magic. He felt threatened by the magic my mother and I possessed. We used to practice our magic together in secret. I always remembered her physical manifestation of her magic as white—the color of purity and goodness. But over time, as my father controlled her more, my mother’s magic began to take on darkness. It began displaying gray and black streaks as well as white. Over the years, my mother stopped practicing. Right before I ran away, her magic had almost stopped working completely. What had happened in the wake of my disappearance?
“Mother?” She was looking at me, but she wasn’t talking. I kept calling out, but it seemed no one was home. I turned to my father.
“What have you done to her?” I got to my feet. I wanted to run to her, but something deep within me warned me to stay away. Something wasn’t right. Darcy’s grip on my arm solidified this.
“Emma…” he warned.
“Emmaline, for far too long you have taken your immortality for granted. This has made you careless, reckless, and promiscuous.” The latter my father spat as if it were poison.
I would be offended if it weren’t for the fact that he was from a completely different era, and to him, revealing even the slightest bit of skin or a woman wearing pants was a sin.
“You have lost all sense of dignity. You are not fit to be Queen. For that, you must be punished.”
“Emma!” I could hear Darcy’s warnings, but somehow, I couldn’t move from the spot. I was frozen, cemented to the ground.
“Since you’d rather remain here, you will live out the rest of your days as one of the creatures you care about so much.” My father nodded to my mother, and my mother waved her hands in the air and began chanting something in Latin.
“Emma! Emma, run!”
One of the creatures you love so much. Could he mean a vampire? I tried to run, but I was stuck.
I was paralyzed. Why couldn’t I move?
Darcy dove for me at the same time my mother threw her magic toward us. It surrounded us and plunged our world into nothing.