Inheritance

Chapter 24

"What do you mean you didn't tell her? Isn't that why you went to her room last night?" Jord states coldly as she stomps into the room, Rex almost on her heels. "Well the girl had just been kidnapped, teleported and thrust into a world that she didn't know anything about! Excuse me for wanting her to settle a bit before we rip the last bit of rug from beneath her feet! Besides, I wasn't supposed to be the one telling her in the first place!" It's almost comical, Rex looks a bit flushed an a whole lot of frustrated yelling at the back of Jord's head, while she has a near-emotionless expression on her face. Only the slightest flare of her nostrils give away any emotion. "Besides, don't you think it's better that Monés and Kidé are here when we break the news?" As if they were waiting for Rex to announce their entrance my parents follow behind the squabbling pair. "Mom! Dad!" I crush my parents in a bear hug, I can't even remember how I got to the other side of the room. "Kat, oh honey. Are you okay? Did you get hurt?" my mom asks stroking my hair. "Why didn't you call us? Thank goodness you're alive!" Well, there are two types of parents it seems. "I'm okay. I don't actually know where my phone is, sorry?" My parents disengage the hug and give me a silent once over. Silence? I look around me, suddenly very aware of the absent arguing. Rex is looking at his shoes and Jord looks away as soon as I make eye contact, but not before I can see a longing in her eyes. What's that about?

"So, who's going to tell me what I have to do with this weird-as-wonderland world?" I ask, desperate to break the awkward silence settling in the room. My dad's hand comes to rest on my shoulder as he steers me towards a couch off to the side. "This is going to be difficult to hear, and you might be angry at us, but remember, we love you so very much, and we only want the best for you." He's using his work-voice, the one he usually uses to keep a hysterical mother as calm as possible while her child is carted away to a hospital. He guides me to the only one-seater in the room and goes to sit next to my mom and Gen. Jord and Rex come sit too, placing themselves as far apart as possible while still technically sitting on the same couch. The tension is so thick you can probably knit a sweater from it if you tried. The adults are all looking at each other, looking like they're silently arguing about who has to tell me about this thing that has my dad reassuring me they love me. Maybe I'm some kind of demon-/nightmare monster and they want to break it to me softly? No, they wouldn't have put me in a room so close to other kids if I was, but, then again, Alia is technically the one that showed me to the room... Ugh! Will they just say it already! My imagination is running rampant! Oh! Maybe I'm a mermaid and they're gonna tell me I need to move to the coast! That could work! except...

"Oh fine! I'll tell her. You scaredy-cats!" My mom breaks my train of thought, scooting forward to take my hands in hers "Katei, honey. Monés and I, we... we aren't your real parents. We're guardians tasked to protect you since you were six years old." They can't be serious? "What do you mean you're my guardians? You're my parents! Who else could my parents possibly be?" I'm frantically flicking me gaze over my parents, who are now, both, avoiding eye contact. "That would be us." Jord states in that cold voice of hers, indicating towards her and Rex. "Impossible! There is no way I'm the daughter of the ice queen, and when I say that I mean the original Hans Christian Anderson one, not Elsa!, and the wannabe man-child! Besides the two of you can't seem to stand each other, something that might make it difficult for you to have a child! Next thing you know you're all going to tell me I'm not even seventeen yet!" In an ironic turn of events, it's Jord who visibly flinches at my outburst and Rex who keeps a straight face. "Katei, just think about it for a moment, can you remember anything solid of the first six years of your life? Are there any baby photos of you back at your house? Any pregnancy photos of Kidé? You're my daughter. As much your mother as you are me. Power and unconditional love." I wreck my brain trying to sort though childhood memories, desperate to find anything to disprove them, but apart from a faint recollection of running and laughing with a blond boy in a field of flowers, I can't remember anything. "And, for honesty's sake, your real birthday is only next month. I look up at who I had believed to be my parents for over a decade, my blood beginning to simmer with betrayal, "So, my whole life is a lie? Is my name even mine or is it just another made-up piece of my identity? You know what? I don't care. All I want to know is why?" This time it's Gen who answers my question, "You were kidnapped. once we retrieved you we realised it wasn't safe for you in our world, we had a traitor in our midst and the council decided it was better for you to be raised elsewhere." My head's pounding and it seems like air-conditioning must've kicked in, because it's getting mighty cold and breezy right now. A slightly hysterical laugh escapes me. "The Council, hey? Who is this council? Who were they to think they had the right to do that to me?" I'm not sitting anymore, I'm not even sure I'm standing, all I know is I'm really, really mad. "I'm the one that proposed you be raised among nonikás," my coolly mother states.

Then all of a sudden the world goes dark and my anger dissipates as I hear half s dozen voices call out my name.