Origin Exposed: Descended of Dragons, Book 2 (6 page)

I
’ve just returned
from dinner with my newfound fam…

“Pia?”

“Yes, Stella?”

“Is this journal private?”

“In what way do you mean?”

“I mean,” I said, and rolled my eyes. “Is what I write in my Student Journal kept between you and I, or is it uploaded to some Radix cloud somewhere? Is there a chance that someone besides you and I read it?”

“Oh, there’s always a chance of that, Stella. Best not write down what you don’t want seen. But you know that.”

“Mph,” I grunted, suddenly nervous. “So, are you saying that anything I’ve written in my Student Journals already isn’t private? That it’s subject to inspection or something?”

“I do not think there’s anyone out there scouring Student Journals for deets on your love life, if that is what you mean.”

“That is not what I mean.” I huffed out an agitated breath. “Why the hell isn’t what I write in my journal private? And did you really just say ‘deets?’”

“It’s a Student Journal, Stella. Not your super secret diary.”

“You really get on my nerves sometimes.” I made a face at Pia, fully aware that I was conducting an argument with an electronic device.

“Is that so?” she replied. “I think you are just a peach!”

“Is that sarcasm, Pia?”
Maybe I could
accidentally
drop her in the toilet.

“Affirmative. What is your concern, Stella? Is there something you wish to keep secret?”

“Oh. Ah, no. That last journal entry just included some things I’m self-conscious about, that’s all. No big deal.”

I breathed deeply and prayed for patience. It was totally a big deal. I had laid out a first-hand account of the existence and continued transgressions of the Drakontos dragons. On top of that, I had stated very clearly that I possessed a dragon form. I revised the old entry at once, hoping against hope that nothing had or ever would come of it.

“
W
ho sent you flowers
?” Gresham asked when he picked me up from my room at Sabre Hall.

At his question, the tiniest of pangs plucked my little heart.

“Oh. I don’t know,” I said. “No message, just my name on the card.”

His brows drew together in disapproval. “No idea who sent them?”

“No. I…ah… I really thought they were from you.”

“Hmph,” was all he said.

A
emon Lochlain lived just outside
of town in a small craftsman-style cottage. I had expected him, a small person, to live in a proportional home, but his could have housed any family. He welcomed Gresham and I into a den that at some time over the last century had drowned in books and papers. Though we were expected, he nonetheless scraped piles from a sofa to accommodate us.

“I made tea,” he announced as he rounded the corner with a brass tray. The contents rattled and clanked as he looked over his glasses, scouring the sitting room for a flat surface.

“Thank you, Professor Lochlain,” I said as he sloshed my tea into a ceramic cup. His small hands made every regular-sized thing he handled seem colossal by comparison. It was difficult not to stare, so I forced my attention to the titles of books strewn about the room.

Once he’d filled his and Gresham’s cups half full he hefted a bottle of golden-colored liquid and topped the two off before offering it to me.

“Oh… Ah… Thank you. What is it?”

“What is it? Drambuie, child, of course.” His thick brows knit in disapproval.

Gresham must have seen the incomprehension on my face. “Drambuie is a liqueur made from Scotch, heather honey, and spices,” he said. “It’s a delicacy here from your world. Try it. You’ll never see tea the same.”

“All righty.” I nodded my approval before adding a dollop of Drambuie to my own cup with great ceremony.

Scotch had never been my thing. I know I would be a lot more cultured and refined if it was, but to me it was like liquid fire. And maybe that’s the point.

But Drambuie…dangerous. It warmed me from the inside out, like tiny fuses had been wired from my belly to my extremities, and when those fuses were ignited the liquid fire ran the length of my body. Instant comfort. I breathed a bit easier, relaxed just a notch.

Perfect
. Just perfect for a serious conversation with a scholarly gnome and my enigmatic older lover about my fate as a wolf-dragon love child.

Professor Lochlain—I had never received permission to call him Aemon—clasped the arms of a green suede chair with knobby fingers before hefting onto an ottoman and backing into the seat with a grunt. “Stella, Gresham has told me what happened at the crater. Your wolf. Your dragon. Your discovery that you’re an omni.”

My stomach bottomed out before rolling into a hard knot at his casual declaration of my circumstances. I didn’t speak; didn’t know where to start. When I began to fidget Gresham cut in. “Aemon is a trusted friend, Stella. He and I have worked together to find you from the beginning.”

“I know,” I squeaked and took a long breath before directing my attention at the gnome. “Professor Lochlain, Gresham told me you’re wise and level-headed and will be a great resource in determining my way forward. This is all just very difficult. And terrifying.”

“Aye, I know it is,” he said with a sympathetic nod. “But we’re here to help you. And to do that, we need to lay all of our cards on the table. We must try to consider the facts without bias so we avoid mistakes. The more honest you are with yourself, and the more realistic we are about your situation, the better this will all work out in the end. The road ahead is going to be tough for you, Stella, but we’ll help you find your way.”

“Thank you,” I croaked, both gratitude and fear producing a lump in my throat.

“Don’t thank me yet, child. We’ve a ways to go.” He took a long sip of his doctored tea before continuing. “Now, let’s first consider the primary problem: public perception as it relates to your safety. We know that the public fear of dragons, any dragon, is visceral and not linked to rationale. Certainly anyone that knows you understands you would never be a threat to Thayer.”

I nodded, pleased by his synopsis of my character. “My thoughts, exactly. Can’t we just tell people, show them that I’m not a danger? That I didn’t grow up in Thayer and had no knowledge or interaction with those dragons that attacked?”

He sucked a breath before twisting his mouth in regret. “I’m afraid publicizing you’re an outsider is probably not the best course of action right now. And as to you not having contact with the Drakontos dragons, well, that’s not exactly true, now is it?” His glance turned pointed. “Edina, the most infamous and feared of the dragons, raised you.”

“Yes, but..but” I sputtered. “She wasn’t Edina Drakontos. I knew her as Elena Stonewall. I’d never even heard her real name until a few weeks ago. I sure never knew she had such a horrifying history.”

“Further,” he said as he cocked a furry eyebrow, “you recently freed three of the dreaded Drakontos, who willingly endured humiliating mutilation at the hands of Brandubh rather than betray you.”

“No.” I groaned and shook my head. “It’s not like that. In the end they helped Brandubh set me up anyway, despite having their wings clipped.”

“I know that,” he said. “And you know that. Gresham, too. But everyone else will see you as one more dragon with very close ties to Thayer’s most hated enemies.”

“You know what I don’t understand?” I said, my voice rising with each word. “Dragons didn’t kill people. Brandubh killed people. He’s the one who enslaved the dragons, he’s the one who manipulated them and used them as his own personal weapons of mass genocide. The Drakontos were victims, too.”

“And now she’s a dragon sympathizer,” Lochlain said and nodded smugly to Gresham.

“Oh, screw you,” I spat before I remembered I was working for a letter grade from the gnome. At that moment, I didn’t care that he was my teacher. “Why haven’t you people been able to find and prosecute Brandubh? He’s the real enemy, and you know it. You’ve had hundreds of years, but he’s still out there and here we sit, trying to establish a defense to something I haven’t even done. What exactly am I guilty of? Being born? If you two hadn’t sought me out and dragged me here, I wouldn’t be facing this nightmare in the first place.”

Gresham’s jaw ticked with irritation, with anger. As Thayer’s director of defense, he was certainly the man who shouldered the responsibility for Brandubh’s extended freedom.

Professor Lochlain’s weathered face held a goofy grin as he looked back and forth between me and Gresham. I suspected that he had provoked me to anger in order to see if I would defend the dragons, and I’d played right into his hands.

“I get your point, Professor,” I conceded. “I’ll never be seen as unbiased. I’ll never be trusted.” I couldn’t help but add a mumbled, “Even though I’m right.”

He nodded and picked the conversation back up before Gresham and I lost our tempers. “The unknown here is Brandubh, of course. In addition to being seen as a dragon, a dragon sympathizer, and an outsider, as long as he’s still on the loose you’ll be viewed as vulnerable to his machinations, just like your mother and her family.”

“But I’m not. I proved that when I was able to change to wolf and attack him.”

“Exactly. I’ve given this some thought, and I have come up with a two-pronged offense.” Professor Lochlain used the chair arms to push himself back in the worn seat. “First,” he ticked a finger, “pursuing the dissemination of knowledge that you inherited your father’s thayerenthropy is key. We must show people that you have multiple forms…before they discover that one of them is a dragon.”

“Thayerenwha?” I asked.

“Thayerenthropy.” He grunted his disapproval of my ignorance. “It means, literally, mankind of Thayer. As people who can manipulate any form, omnis are known to be the most evolved of us.”

Oh, wait’ll I tell my friends I’m so evolved,
I thought and let out a hysterical giggle. Gresham’s gaze shot to mine conspicuously, and I worked to wipe off the grin and sit up straight.

“Okay,” I said at the same time Gresham added, “Yes, Aemon, very good.” He turned to me. “I can help you with that.”

“Okay. That’s a start. What’s the second prong in your plan?” I asked.

“You must come out strongly against the Drakontos dragons. You must condemn their heinous and violent history. And when you help Gresham capture them, I believe, the Thayerian public will no longer see you as a threat, but as a valued citizen.”

“When I
what
?” I screeched.

“Wait, Stella,” Gresham interceded with a sharp look in Professor Lochlain’s direction. “This is something we can discuss in the future. When things are clearer. When you’ve had time to sort out your feelings about your mother and the other dragons.”

I jerked my arm from Gresham as he tried to calm me. “I’m never going to help you capture them, Gresham. You can forget that right now. Could you promise me they’d get a fair trial? That the truth of their role in the Steward Massacre would come out and be seen objectively?”

When he said nothing I knew he couldn’t. So this was their plan. For me to betray my own blood. My stomach roiled with disgust at the thought of assisting in the capture of my newfound family.

I was so mad I could've breathed fire. And I really thought I might. I had to calm down. Or get out of there. Or both. My heart thundered at such a pace I decided calming down was the first priority.

“Can I use your restroom?” I blurted in the general direction of Professor Lochlain.

“Of course,” he said, startled at my biting tone. “Just through there.”

I pushed open the creaky bathroom door and tripped on a wooden stool that sat just under the sink. I let out a string of curse words as my shoulder hit the hard wall.

“I’m all right,” I announced to deter them from coming to check on me.

I splashed cold water on my face and made an effort to slow my erratic breathing. My head throbbed in time to my racing heart, so I leaned against the wall and took several deep breaths to regain my composure. It was when my heart finally slowed, when the ringing stopped in my ears, that I caught parts of Gresham and Lochlain’s muted conversation.

I couldn’t catch what Gresham had said, but Professor Lochlain was less discreet. “How did Gaspare react when you told him she’s his own niece?”

My breath hitched on its way down my diaphragm and it was a struggle not to cough to better hear Gresham’s reply. It was faint.

“He wants to meet her, of course, though I’m hesitant for obvious reasons.”

“I imagine she wants to meet her father’s people, too,” Professor Lochlain said. “That could certainly help with the first portion of our plan—a unified front. Gaspare could make a show of teaching her the ways of an omni.”

“I haven’t told her,” Gresham mumbled.

Lochlain gasped. “You haven’t told her?”

“Quiet,” Gresham rasped.

It was too late. The ringing in my ears was back. Worse, darkness crept around the edges of my vision. I knew what came next: stars. I was on the verge of passing out. Damned if I would do it in Professor Lochlain’s squatty bathroom.