Chapter 66 Blood doesn't lie

Chapter 66 Blood doesn't lie

Sera's Pov

"Who should we be worried about?"

Wren looked at me carefully. Like she was choosing her next words, one placement at a time.

"Before I answer that," she said, "you need to know how I found him."

"Then tell me fast." I was getting impatient.

"My mother found him first," she said. "Your father was in a cell. He wasn't in a holding room, or a guarded chamber. He was in an underground cell. They had been torturing him for days." She paused. "My mother got him out before they finished."

The room went so still I could hear the lanterns.

"Who is your mother?" Damien asked.

Wren looked past him, and straight at me.

"Her name is Gia," she said. "And the truth she carries is not mine to tell." She tilted her head slightly toward the far end of the chamber. "It never was."

And then everyone turned. But I turned last because I knew who was standing in that corner.

My mother was standing in the entryway.

She had been standing there long enough, from the look on her face. Long enough to have heard everything and to have made peace with the fact that there was no version of the next few minutes that would be easy.

She looked the same as she always had. Same face, same hands, same way she held herself like she was braced for worst. And she was watching me the way she always did when she knew something was coming and couldn't stop it.

"Mom," I said, stepping forward. "Who is Gia?"

She closed her eyes briefly. "She is my sister."

The word dropped into the room like something physical.

"You told me," I said slowly, "that you had no family. You told me you came from nothing. That there was nobody alive who shared your blood."

"I know what I told you."

"Then explain the gap," I said. "Between what you told me and what is apparently true."

She stepped fully into the chamber. Her eyes moved briefly over the faces around the room, and then came back to me. "Can we do this somewhere private?"

"No, I dragged everyone out here. They might as well here it too."

"Sera, calm down for a moment."

"No." My voice stayed level. I was proud of that. "These people have bled for me. They have fought and planned and lost things for me. Whatever you're about to say, they deserve to hear it too." I crossed my arms. "So say it."

She held my gaze for a long moment. Then she parted her lips.

"I was a witch."

Caden moved slightly behind me. Damien went very still.

"Not a small one," she continued. "I came from one of the oldest covens in the region. My mother was High Witch before me. My sister Gia was meant to follow her. I was the one who was supposed to hold the bloodline, carry the title, and lead when the time came." She paused. "I didn't want it. I wanted none of it."

"A full blown witch?" My eyes widened in shock.

"Yes, but I left. But Gia stayed," she said. "Gia became everything our mother wanted her to be. Powerful, careful, political." My mother paused. "She never forgave me for leaving."

"But she saved my father."

"Because of you," my mother said. "Not for me. She did it for you."

I stared at her. "She doesn't know me."

"She knows what you are." Her voice dropped. "She's known since before you were born."

"What does that mean?"

My mother pressed her lips together. “I will explain.” When she spoke again, it came out careful and even and rehearsed.

"When I left the coven, I took nothing with me. No title, n artifacts, no position. I walked away clean." She looked at her own hands briefly. "But there are things you cannot walk away from. Blood is one of them."

"Mom." My voice came out sharper. "Stop building to it and just say it."

“I had to be fully human to leave everything behind. So, that's what I did. I became fully human, Sera. But that is a death sentence in the coven.” She looked up.

The lanterns flickered.

"The power went dormant," she said quickly. "When I left the coven, when I chose your father, when I decided to be done with all of it, the active power faded. I couldn't cast anymore. I couldn't feel the lines. For all practical purposes I was human." She exhaled.

“That is how dad met you?” I asked.

“Yes, I had to embrace my life as a human, your father also knew a little about my past. But not everything. He chose to give up his title to marry a commoner like me.”

I turned away from her.

I couldn't look at her face right then. I stared at the far wall of the chamber and breathed through my nose and tried very hard to keep everything that was rising in my chest from coming out of my mouth in a way I couldn't take back.

"People keep lying to me." I said it to the wall. Then I turned around. "Everyone I love keeps looking me in the face and giving me the version they decided I should have. My father. You. People who were supposed to be on my side." My voice rose despite my best attempt to keep it down. "I drowned. I came back. I went through so much, and still I don't even know who my parents truly are.”

"I was protecting you—"

"From what?" I said. "From knowing who you actually are?"

"From being hunted before you were ready to fight back!"

The room crackled between us.

My mother's composure had slipped. Just slightly. Just enough for me to see that whatever calm she'd walked in with was costing her.

"If the covens knew what your bloodline carried," she said, lower now, "they would have come for you before your first birthday. The wolf bloodline alone was enough to make you a target. Add the witch blood and you become something people go to war over." Her jaw tightened. "I made a choice. I stand behind it, at least now you know you're not a witch!”

"You made it for me, the least you could have done was tell me the truth." I said.

"You were a child—"

"I'm not anymore." I took a step closer to her. “If Wren hadn't showed up today, would you have told me the truth?”