Betrayal Foretold: Descended of Dragons, Book 3 (10 page)

“Abia Pike is an unconventional choice, to be sure,” he said. “Forster suggested her?”

“Yes. Said she’s incredibly knowledgeable, and meets my specific needs because she’s one of the only omnies he knows, besides you.”

Gaspare laughed nervously and snuck a look at Emelie.

What is
up
with them
? “Which got me thinking.
Are
there any more omnies? The only ones I’ve ever heard of are you, my father, and Gresham.”

“And you,” Gaspare added.

“Right. Me. So? What do you think? Do you know this Abia? Is it a good fit? Is she as weird and scary as everyone says?”

“She’s neither weird nor scary,” Emelie said with a frown. “She’s misunderstood. People fear what they don’t know, and she lives alone on Topaz. It’s more fun to spread a spooky story than to spread the truth. She’s a kind but tough lady who lives alone on the island. End of story.”

My interest was definitely piqued. “You’ve met her?”

Emelie’s eyes shot to Gaspare’s in a distressed plea.
Again with the insider info.

“Stella,” Gaspare said in an overly-nonchalant tone, “let’s you and I visit Topaz tomorrow. You can decide for yourself.”

T
opaz was a long
, relatively thin island with steep, cragged cliffs on one side and wide, smooth beaches on the other. In the middle was a wooded slope. Gaspare traced us to the edge of a cliff at the most level point of the plateaued terrain, where a narrow waterfall plunged into a pool of fresh water below.

“Stella, I haven’t been completely honest with you,” he said and took a hesitant seat on a nearby boulder.

“What do you mean?” My heart rate didn’t even spike. Sadly, I was growing far too accustomed to surprises.

“I know you came to this world only ever knowing your mother as your family. And then of course you met the Drakontos side. Then me. I’m sorry you’ll never know your father, or grandfather. But you have a living grandmother besides Bay.”

That
did it. If a heart’s pounding could bruise a chest, mine certainly suffered contusions. I sped through the implications of his words. If Bay was my maternal grandmother, the only other possibility was my father’s mother. And as my father’s brother, Gaspare must be referring to his own mother.

“Your mother’s alive?” I asked in disbelief. “Where?”

“Here.”

“Wait,” I said, jerking back in disbelief. “No. This Abia Pike is my grandma?”

He nodded.

“Why haven’t you told me before now? Is she evil? Crazy? Have you two had a falling out? Ohhh…” I breathed. “Did my father know she was alive?”

“Of course your father knew! We adored our mother. I still do. She’s not evil or crazy, and Topaz isn’t haunted. But there is an explanation. And a long, sad history here.”

“What is it? Wait. Do I have more family? Does she know about me? What’s she like?”

Gaspare laughed at my enthusiasm. “Let’s go meet her. We’ll get to all the answers in due time.”

* * *

“
M
other
,” Gaspare called as we stood behind the rock wall surrounding a thatched roof house. The home’s thick walls were constructed of the same rocks comprising the border wall around it. The wall, the house, the roof—they were all shades of brownish gray. A bit dreary. Not run-down so much as impossible to dress-up.

“Mother?” he called again, but there was no answer. Gaspare stuck his head into a small storage shed and backed out again. “Ah. She must be diving. Let’s go find her.”

“Diving?”

A sly grin began at Gaspare’s mouth and spread all the way to his eyes.

“Get ready. You’ve never seen anything like Abia Pike before. And you never will.”

Curiosity sent my mind racing.
Was she some kind of sky diving granny? Did she leap from cliffs? That made sense. The island’s rocky terrain fell into the ocean.

On our walk to the beach, not a word was uttered between us. I tried to relax, to free my mind of any bias caused by what the Tremaines and Forster had said. I wondered what Gaspare’s mother—my grandmother—would look like. God only knew how old she was. If Gaspare was old, she had to be ancient. But age worked so differently in my new world and it was hard to know.

The air was thick with the briny smell of the ocean. I licked my lips, savoring the salt that weighed down the ocean breeze.

From the blue waves of the sea, a head emerged. I squinted to see. The eyes and nose were covered by a wide glass mask. Her body— it was a her—was covered in a thick black wetsuit, and a high-pitched wheezing bounced across the water to us.

“That’s her,” Gaspare said. “That’s Abia. That’s your grandmother.”

“Is she sick?” I asked.

“Sick? No. Oh, you mean that sound. It’s a breathing technique. She’s diving for shellfish.”

Abia Pike emerged from the water with a pouf-shaped buoy slung over her back and a fishing net at her side. She lifted the mask to reveal an aging but lovely face and a crooked smile.

“Mother,” Gaspare nodded and offered his arm as she exited the water.

She looked at his arm, at his face, then pointedly back to his arm. “What am I supposed to do with that?” The sienna skin of her face scrunched into a cackle before smoothing back to its serene mask.

“And who’s this?” She looked me up and down, and then sharply back to Gaspare. “You and Emelie don’t have children. She vowed not to until there was a way for the others. This one has your coloring. Your mouth. She has my hands, Gaspare. Tell me she’s not what I think she is.”

“What? No, Mother. This…this is Stella. She’s Gabrio’s.”

Abia fell to her knees in the sand. She reached for my hand and I gave it to her, sinking down too. Walking on knees toward her, I let her wrap me in a very tight, very wet hug. She pushed my frizzy, saltwater-dampened hair from my face with shaky hands. Her eyes lighted on every square centimeter of my face, like she was memorizing it.

“I didn’t know,” she whispered fiercely. “I didn’t know about you. My Gabrio’s child. Where have you been?”

W
e told
Abia everything over cups of very bold tea in her thatch-roofed home. She was too tough to cry, but her eyes brimmed with sadness, then with joy, with hope, with love. She asked me questions about my childhood, about my dreams. She was starved for details.

Then it was my turn to ask questions.

“You’re nothing like everyone said. Why do you live here alone? Why does everyone think this island is haunted? Why do they think you’re crazy?”

Abia took a breath so deep she coughed up dust from her soul. “I’ve been here a very long time. I could not leave, you see?”

She recounted a story from a time so far removed it hardly seemed like a time at all. As she weaved the faded tapestry of her story, it felt like a faded memory, a thought difficultly remembered.

“Three thousand years ago, omnies were as common as any other forms. As wolf forms, as birds,” she looked at me sadly when she said, “as dragons.”

“Our families were large and we were happy. But after a long, bitter battle, a young new omni became leader of Thayer. He was powerful, but also vengeful, vicious. A villain in every sense of the word. I knew him well. We were childhood friends, and in fact I once saved his life.”

“Saved him how?” I asked.

“We were young, in our twenties, exploring in the woods when we became caught in a wildfire. It approached from all sides, the smoke making it difficult for us to see, to breathe. Talbot froze. I screamed for him to change into a bird and fly—anything, but he just stood there as the fire licked at his feet. When I realized he was incapacitated by fear I mimicked a dragon form, grasped him with talons and flew us to safety.”

Abia took a sip of her steaming tea. “After that he changed, his paranoia and some irrational fear overriding any goodness within him. We never again spoke of that day.

“Time passed and he worsened. He used his power to rise through the ranks, all the while suspecting everyone was out to get him. Once he became ruler, he barely left his home, surrounding himself with the largest guard ever assembled.

“Only another omni would be powerful enough to defeat him. And it was a poorly kept secret that his trusted advisor had had a vision in which Talbot was killed by another omni. After that, Talbot began killing omni families. First, those that opposed his rule, and then simply those he deemed had become too powerful. He framed families, pitted them against one another. By the time anyone figured out who was behind it all, he’d done too much damage for an effective defense. Those that were left, including my own family, were eradicated.”

“My God!” I’d clenched my fists during her story and they had cramped. I stretched and wiggled them. “I’m so sorry. How did you survive?”

“He let me live.”

“What do you mean, ‘let you live’?”

“I was alone, gathering wood for our fire when I heard a disturbance at the house. I ran toward it, but Talbot jumped from a hiding place and held me around the waist. I screamed for my mother and father, for my brothers, but he covered my mouth. I tried to change, to use what little magic I knew, but his power had become too great. He prevented any move I tried to make. He held me from behind, his forehead pressed to my shoulder while I cried and fought, while I screamed through his hand, while I watched the smoke of my burning house cloud the sky.

“After a while, he released me. ‘It’s over, Abia,’ he said. ‘They’re gone.’ I tried to fight him, to kill him, but it was pointless and I sank to the ground and mourned my family, everyone I’d known and lost. He leaned against a tree, catching his breath and watching me disintegrate.

“I’ve never hated anyone like I hated him at that moment. ‘What are you waiting for?’ I screamed at him. ‘Get it over with!’

“He pushed off the tree and approached me gently, like he’d comfort me. ‘I can’t kill you,’ he said so softly. ‘You’re my friend. You saved my life. Killing you would be like killing a part of myself.’

“He professed to love me, though he was set to marry another. He flinched when I dry-heaved at his words. ‘I’m sending you away,’ he said with finality. ‘I cannot kill you but you cannot be here. I won’t take that risk. An omni will kill me someday. It’s been foretold. You cannot return—I’ll make sure of that—but you’ll be alive.’

“Then, and for years after, I wished he’d killed me. I survived, but barely.

“Luckily for me, he didn’t know there were natives on Topaz. It took a while for them to warm up to me, but once they saw I intended to live, they taught me how to survive. They taught me to dive for shellfish, like I was doing when you arrived. They showed me how to build a hut. Through their kindness, I learned how to provide for myself. I even had friends, of a sort. It wasn’t a life I chose, and it was tough, but it was a good life.

“But,” I interrupted, blinking as I tried to comprehend, “I thought Topaz was uninhabited. Where did these people go?”

Abia's head fell forward and I lost sight of her eyes. She continued her story that way, with her head down, gaze cast to the floor. “Talbot was furious the first time he saw evidence I wasn’t alone. I was afraid, and I hid from him. He became enraged. I never imagined,” her voice cracked with emotion and Gaspare moved to stand beside her. “I never imagined he’d destroy them, too. Every last one of them. Even the tiny children.”

I closed my eyes, bile rising in my throat at the events of so long ago. Abia turned away from us, as if in shame, but went on with her tragic tale.

“Why do people think I’m crazy?” she asked. “Why do they think this place is haunted? Because every time someone stumbled upon Topaz after their boat went aground or they thought it would be fun to explore, I scared them away. I knew what would happen if Talbot discovered I’d made friends again. He’d destroyed two sets of people I loved before my very eyes. He would have done it again without pause.”

“But,” I sputtered. “Well. How did my father and Gaspare come to be? You had to meet their father…my grandfather?”

Abia’s eyes softened at the memory. “Now that’s a story I like to tell. I was diving one day like the natives did—topless, with only a cloth around my middle and a knife at my side. It wasn’t long after Talbot had killed my friends, and to tell you the truth, I stayed under the water longer than was good for me. I thought about giving up. I thought it would be easier and sort of lovely if I took my last breath under water. But self-preservation is a powerful instinct, and I couldn’t do it. I rose to the surface, coughing and gasping for breath.

“I heard a splash and turned toward the sound, to see the legs of someone diving into the water. To save me. Only, he’d worn his boots and jacket, and his weapons, all of which combined to weigh him down. He swam toward me, but tired quickly.

“I caught my breath and asked just what he thought he was doing.

“‘Saving you,’ he answered with confidence.

“I told him in no uncertain terms that I didn’t need saving, that I was perfectly capable of providing for myself.

“‘I see that now,’ he said with a smile.

“He had the most beautiful blue eyes I’d ever seen. I was instantly infatuated with him, I admit it. I agreed to let him take me ashore, and when I pushed myself from the water into his boat in only my loincloth, he nearly swallowed his tongue. He tried not to look, but like me, he was instantly enthralled. He offered me cover, and we sailed ashore.

“Just a bit longer
, I kept thinking. I was so lonely.
Just a bit longer. I’ll make him one meal for his trouble
. Then the rain came and he couldn’t sail safely home for several days.

“The rest, as they say, is history. Philippe and I lived for months together so happily. So free. So in love. It was when I became pregnant that I began to worry.

“We worked hard not to leave a trace, in case Talbot visited again. But when the boys came, I knew they had to go back to Thayer. If Talbot found them I’d lose them, too, and I loved them far too much for that. Philippe and I fought about it so many times. He wanted to fight Talbot, but had never seen up close the evil Talbot was capable of. It simply wasn’t possible.” 

“I’m sorry,” I interrupted her reverie. “I don’t understand. How did Gaspare and my father become omnies if you were the only one left?”

She smiled slyly at me. “It only takes one, dear. Philippe was a tiger, but together our offspring were omnies. That’s how it works.”

“I see,” I mumbled. “That’s so strange.”

“What’s strange, dear?”

“Well, it’s strange that an omni and a tiger, or an omni and a dragon, for example, can produce children, but a tiger and a hawk, cannot. What is it about an omni that makes it possible?”

“It wasn’t always so,” she said, her eyes lost in the distance of memory.

I sucked in a shocked breath. “What do you mean?”

“Talbot was the one who forbade procreation between species. People were jailed, and worse, for it. He espoused for years the necessity of “proud and pure” lineages. And when that didn’t work, when people continued to love who they loved, he prevented it.”

“Prevented how?” I gasped. “How’s that possible?”

“No one knows, though it’s most certainly magical. Gaspare’s Emelie has worked for many years to reverse it. She’s studied and experimented with both the magical and biological sides. Though she’s still not found the answer.”

“But, I thought interspecies procreation had
always
been impossible. That’s how it was explained to me.”

“Three thousand years seems an eternity, even to our kind. Talbot removed all historical references to omni creation. And as leader he commanded textbooks be rewritten to reflect this altered, inaccurate history.” She huffed a hopeless breath. “After a while, people forget the truth. Talbot died, and the truth died with him. There aren’t many left as old as I. Not many left to remember. Perhaps there are none. Perhaps I’m the last.”

“I think it’s the diving that keeps you young, Mother.” Gaspare looked so lovingly at Abia my eyes pricked at the corners. It wouldn’t take much with these two to move me to tears.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I still don’t understand why he did it. Why prevent procreation between species? What does that have to do with omnies?”

Abia’s quirked eyebrow indicated I had missed something. “That’s how omnies are made, dear. When two species create another, an omni is born.”

The breath left my body in a rush and my mind worked overtime to file all of the new information. I resolved to talk to Emelie about her efforts, to volunteer to help, if she’d have me.

“Okay, so how did Talbot die? If he’d eliminated all other omnies and prevented the creation of any new ones, who killed him? Was it an omni like in the vision? Who?”

Abia’s eyebrows drew together as she slipped back into the memory. “One day Talbot did come back. Philippe had taken the boys to a small pool to play while I stayed back. I knew the moment he traced outside my hut. Evil seeped through the mudded mortar of the walls. Of course, there were clues in the house of the children’s existence. Of Philippe’s. I raced outside, but Talbot knew I was hiding something. He hit me so hard I fell back into the cooking pit. My skirt caught fire, which I quickly patted out, but flames had also spread to a nearby bush.

“Powerful as he was, Talbot froze. It was then I realized he was deathly afraid of fire. I picked up a branch and held it in front of me. He screamed and raged at me. He was furious. Wild. But he left. And I knew his secret.

“After that scare, I forced Philippe to take the boys away. We made it work. They visited, but lived permanently on Thayer and we worked hard to leave no trace here on Topaz.

“My boys could escape, but I could not. I tried to leave, but it was impossible. Many years passed, and the boys became men. Talbot never came near me, or the island to my knowledge, again. Whether he feared I’d use fire against him, or he thought himself better off leaving me here to die, I don’t know.

“But the wondering, the constant worry, the uncertainty—those things got to Philippe. They got to the boys. They certainly got to me.

“Conditions had gotten worse in Thayer with Talbot as leader. As if murdering potential enemies and their families wasn’t bad enough, paranoia had finally driven him completely insane and he ruled with an iron hand. He withheld resources from his people. Though many tried, there was no one strong enough to defeat him, for there were no known omnies left, and Thayer continued to decline. We—Philippe, the boys, and I—developed a plan to overthrow Talbot, and to kill him.”

“No kidding,” I breathed.

Abia nodded once and went on. “Throughout their childhood, the boys never revealed their heritage. It was assumed they held the form of their father, a tiger.”

“Until, of course, our time at Radix.” Gaspare had been silent for some time, allowing his mother to tell her fantastic tale. “Once we enrolled there, it was near impossible to disguise our nature.”

“Oh, it was possible,” she argued. “You two just thought yourselves invincible. You could’ve ruined everything.”

“But we didn’t. In fact, it’s what saved us.”

“What saved you?” I remembered bits and pieces of a discussion I’d had with Gaspare about his time at The Root with my father.

“Revealing ourselves as omnies is what started—what grounded—our friendship with Rowan Gresham. We could never have defeated Talbot without Rowan’s help.”

“Go on,” I said, anxious for more details of this history. Of Gresham’s history.

“As I told you before, Rowan, Gabrio, and I were inseparable. Our friendship was a rare one. We trusted and loved one another immediately. When Rowan went home for the first time, he asked his father why he’d never met other omnies, why we were the first.

“Of course Talbot was petrified to learn we existed. Rowan pressured his father for the truth, which he was insane enough to reveal. The lies, the murders. Somehow, Rowan Gresham has always had an exceptional heart. A good heart. Disgusted with his father, and keenly aware of Talbot’s mental instability, Rowan joined our side, where he’s stood ever since.”

“Holy. Shit.” This news was the info bomb of all time. “Talbot, the evil ruler who killed all omnies except Abia and his own son, is Gresham’s father?”