A Fifth Daughter [Book 1: The Dragon Rider]

Chapter ~ 15

~ Chapter 15: When You're Tired and Want to Sleep but Your Family Wants to Ruin Your Life – Know that Feeling? ~

Finally the day before the wedding I coral Mom in the garden in Stormchaser.

"I'd like the truth!" I announce entering with Cai behind me as moral support. Allied Green looks up from picking potatoes and just stares at me, a reprimanding look in her eyes for yelling. "Preferably now."

So maybe yelling at her isn't the best way to go about this. Especially when I don't even tell her what truth I want.

"It's good to see you too, Smoke." Mom says, standing and shaking dirt from her apron. "Is there something you'd like to talk about?" In other words, don't yell!

"Yes," I ground out, keeping my teeth clenched in an effort to hide my snarky attitude: Her eyes narrow and I can tell my efforts are futile.

"And that'd be?"

"Why have you never told me about your mother, about your past, your sisters, your brothers, and my future?"

"Smoke," She sighs like this is something she wished she didn't have to deal with. "You weren't ready to hear any of that, and you're not ready now. So, excuse me."

She moves to walk around me, but a quick squaring of my shoulders and raise of my chin has her pausing. "Because of you keeping secrets I'm having to deal with a weight on my shoulders I finding myself hating more and more. So I'd like some answers. And now."

She watches me, her eyes scrutinizing for any doubt that I'm not ready to hear what she has to say. She relents after a heavy moment and moves to sit on a bench in the shade of a tall oak at the garden's edge. "Ask away," she says, waving a hand.

I breathe deeply and sit cross-legged on the ground in front of her, controlling my emotions and actions in precise movements. Once my thoughts are clear I begin. "Why did you move away from Fiction after Ry and I were born?"

"To protect you."

"From what?"

"From a life under that horrid crown."

My brow shoots upward. "Is that why you tried to kill your brother, to be disowned from the throne?"

She scoffs. "I tried to kill my brother because his future was plain and black, death was prepared to follow him like a lost puppy. I tried to save him from it."

"Like you were trying to save Ry and I?"

"That's different."

"How?!" I snap. "Because you didn't try to kill us?"

Mom's jaw works and her eyes blaze. "Everything I have done for you, for this family, has been to protect you, all of you. To make sure my children have a happier life than I did. To make sure you could have a choice in how you lived your life."

I huff. "Choice? What choice do I have in anything concerning my life?"

Mom droops. "I was hoping I could spare you from it. I even told Rayn you died and I moved because of grief. She didn't believe me. But for sixteen years she left me in peace, left you alone, until the day before you left for Legend." Her gaze lifts and there's a knowing, mischievous glint to her violet eyes. "I know you were eavesdropping that night. I tried to get her to leave, but the deed was done and even if you didn't understand anything you heard, you were there to hear it and think it over, and later come to understand it."

Her hands come forward, as if to touch me, but they drop back down before she can complete the action. "I was hoping Dragonmage would keep you safe a little longer, but that pesky dragon took you right to her."