Page 27 of The Dragon's Perfect Omega
I nodded. She was taking a lot of shit for that. The general belief was that, since we had so few females on our island, all of them should have multiple children so our tribe wouldn't die out. I wasn't so convinced. Women should have the right to decide how many children they wanted, dragon or not.Legallymy mother had every right not to procreate, but in the court of public opinion, things were different—especially since my parents were very faithful, and so were most of their friends. For a faithful dragon lady, not having a ton of children was simply unheard of. "You used to tell me it was the Gods’ decision to have only one child."
I knew the truth, though. A long time ago, when I'd been just a child, maybe seven or eight years old, I'd overheard a conversation between my parents. They'd been talking about me, and mybiologicalparents.
It had taken me a couple of minutes to figure out what they even meant by that. At that age, I'd only ever heard about adoption on television. When the truth finally struck me, I didn't know how to react. I didn't confront my parents, because they sounded so sad when they talked about it, and I never wanted to see my mother sad.
So I didn't say anything.
I kept spying on them too. When they thought I was sleeping, I'd sneak down the stairs to listen in on their conversations. To my disappointment, they didn't' talk about me all that much. I had to wait a long time before I could glean more information. Finally, I figured out that I'd been adopted from the shrine.
"I already know what you're about to tell me," I said to spare my mother the pain of putting it all into words. She'd always treated me as if I was her biological child. There was no reason this whole adoption thing should stand between us. Honestly, I had no idea why she was even bringing it up now. I'd kind of made peace with the fact that she never would.
"You know?" My mother looked at me with wide eyes.
I nodded. "I overheard you and dad. You adopted me." To take the edge out of that statement, I smiled at her. "Thank you for that."
My mother bit her lower lip. Not a characteristic move. "I can't believe you knew... all this time..." She shook her head. "I was always wondering whether or not I should tell you... whether youdeservedto know... but you never showed signs of..."
"Signs of what?" I asked.
"Magic." She looked me in the eyes. "I kept watching you for it. Your biological mother, she's..." My mother took a deep breath before ending that sentence, as if it pained her to say it. "She's the high priestess."
The high priestess? My eyebrows shot up. No, that couldn't be...
But it made perfect sense.
"You know the high priestess is not supposed to... engage in carnal pleasures," my mother said. "She confided in me that she was tempted in a moment of weakness."
"And that resulted in me?"
"It had to be a secret."
I inhaled, trying to process all this new information. "Why didn't she just get an—"
"Abortions are sin."
Of course they were. I dragged the heel of my hand over my face. "Why are you telling me all of this now?"
My mother gave me a long look. I could tell there was something she wanted to ask me, but she didn't know how, or what answer she wanted to hear.
I was just as lost. I'd planned to kick back for a day or two before preparing for the solstice. Having this kind of conversation had not been anywhere on my radar.
Finally, my mother spoke. "Do you have any gifts that you've kept hidden from me and your father?"
For a moment, I simply closed my eyes and breathed, trying not to panic. She already knew, didn't she? It was all in the way she was asking. She knew about my magic. But how? Was it hereditary? Had I been fooling myself thinking I could hide this forever? "My powers are pretty weak," I said, hoping that might change things in my favor.
"But you do have them. You can read people’s minds by seeing their auras?"
"It's... not that easy." Mindreading made it sound like I could simply look into people's heads. In reality, it was more like I was standing in the entrance of a library, but the books I needed were always lost or checked out. "I can hardly read anything. I can interpret colors and pick up on some strong emotions, that's about it."
My mother wasn't satisfied yet. Whatever the reason she was asking, it had to be important. Her strongest emotion right now? Fear. I could tell by the bright strands of siren-red that wrapped around her. Moments like this, I wished I didn't have any powers at all. Telling myself that everything was going to be all right would have been easier if I hadn't known exactly how distraught my mother was.
"What about visions?" she asked. "Of the future?"
"I can't see the future," I said. "Not exactly. Real visions are rare. Usually I just get these... flashes of images or scenes. Sometimes they're things that are going to happen, but I can't tell when. Sometimes they're things that already happened. Most of the time I can't even tell which is it. It's all so random." But it seemed the better I knew someone, the more I'd get visions centering on them. My bonds with the people around me certainly influenced what I saw.
They weren't always pleasant things, though.
My mother sighed. "I'm sorry you're burdened with this, but you know these gifts are important to our people. You shouldn't have hidden them."
