“Lyria,” she says with a foreign softness. Everything about her is foreign now.
“No.”
I know what comes next. But it shatters me anyway.
“The child was you. You’re the Heir of Evermore.”
very thought in my head falls silent.
I stand up, but I’m not sure I’m in control of my body anymore.
“I know how difficult all this is to process,” Mother says quickly, “but you don’t have to rush into anything. There’s a Mage here in Ruin—a teacher, who is prepared to help you master your power. You can take time to train. You don’t have to join the rebellion right away; this can happen on your timetable.”
I can’t get a breath in. I’m so confused and distraught, I can’t even look at her anymore.
Kidnapper. Liar. Manipulator. Fraud.
I’m tempted to throw something at her head.
I don’t know this woman. I don’t understand her. I don’t know what I’ve been fighting for.
I need to get out.
I stumble to the door and start yanking open the locks.
“Stop, Lyria!” Mother shoots to her feet. “You can’t leave here! It’s not safe!”
I ignore her, fling open the door, and run.
I don’t know my way through the streets. I can just focus in one direction: Toward the lake. Toward the water. Soon I hear Cygnus’s footsteps behind me. My Talent marks his desperation, his fear, but none of that trumps this raw betrayal roaring through me, the maelstrom threatening to swallow me whole. I don’t look back as I hurtle to the city’s edge and the black-pebbled bank of the lake. I dive in and let the water rush over me.
And then I can finally scream.
I let my Talent burn and burn. I let myself feel all that I have warred to suppress: the rage and the terror, the confusion and bottomless, infinite pain. I let it rise and flood through me, until I become the agony. Then I send the energy blast out of me and through the pressing blackness. The water absorbs it all. My screams, my pain, my Talent, I yield it all to the lake. When I’m aching for air, I kick back to the surface. Then I submerge again, and again. Over and over, until the worst of the fury has seeped out of me, and there’s just that raw, swirling vortex within. The mother-size hole in my heart.
Slowly, shakily, I drift back to myself. It’s a long time before I let myself float to the surface, where I roll onto my back and gaze up at the darkness. Cygnus waits on the shore. I’m hazily aware of his distant figure, sitting with his knees tucked to his chest.
I don’t know why he followed. Surely my usefulness has expired.
When I finally wade back to the shore, he asks roughly, “Are you all right?”
“No,” I say simply. The truth. “I have no idea what’s real anymore. I don’t even know who she is. Everything I knew—” My throat closes, and I cut myself off.
There’s no noise for a moment, except our heartbeats and the lapping waves.
Cygnus breathes steadily. “Lyria, your mother had good reasons for concealing your identity. She didn’t do it to hurt you.”
“She shouldn’t have concealed it fromme!”
I feel like a fool.
Swallowing hard, I gaze back at Cygnus, recalling his expression when my mother announced me as the Heir of Evermore. He seemed unfazed by the news. Stoic as ever. Cold rushes over me, and my skin prickles.
“You knew,” I whisper.
“What?” Cygnus maintains the mask; his expression doesn’t flicker. But he pales, just the tiniest degree.
“You knew about the prophecy,” I say more firmly. “And somehow, you’ve known all along it was me, haven’t you?”
