Dragon Witch ✔️

67 - Secrets Revealed

Feet crunched in the ice near my head. "Come on, Lilly. Let's get you by a fire."

It felt like I was floating, carried by a swarm of noisy bees. I let my eyes drift closed. I was so tired, so cold. So hungry.

***

I awoke to shouting. Heat and shouting. What wonderful heat. I edged so close to the fire that it almost caught the edge of my clothing. Eva was fluffed up in the middle of the fire and preening herself.

The shouting interrupted my enjoyment.

"How could you not tell me something like that? I'm your twin, for crying out loud."

"I thought-" Nissa huffed. "I couldn't just tell you I'd died."

As reluctant as I was to move my face away from the fire, I rolled over. Kyton and Nissa were about two inches apart, shouting into each others' faces. Piper watched them from on top of a nearby rock as she ate a sandwich.

Kyton flicked his tail back and forth. "Why couldn't you tell me? Why does everyone think they have to lie to me?" He threw his arms up. "Piper knew about Lilly before I did. Lilly knew about you before I did. Am I that untrustworthy?"

She paused, hands on hips. "You're saying this doesn't bother you?" She let her glamour fall, revealing all of her shadowy glory.

He took a step back. "Of course it bothers me. Both of you bother me." He glanced my way, paling when he saw I was awake. He looked back at Nissa. "You are what you are. I can't change that, but I have a right to know if the people around me want to suck my blood."

"I don't suck blood." She crossed her arms. "I eat meat."

He was quiet for a long minute, obviously mulling over her statement. I couldn't help but mull it over myself. There wasn't any humane way to get magic-imbued meat unless you went to a lab that imbued magic into dumb animals, like they did for the OPSA cafeteria. Kyton had no idea about OPSA or any of that, and he had to realize from Nissa's personality change over the last few months that she'd been a shade for a while. She had to have eaten magical meat. In his mind, that meant intelligent humanoids or true magical animals like Eva.

I sat up and hurriedly explained about OPSA before he could get the wrong idea.

"Right." He shook his head at me. "Another lie you two cooked up. And the boyfriend on the roof story? What really happened?"

I told the story, leaving out most of the details that would make him more angry and emphasizing the ones that would make him proud of his sister for trying to protect him. It was obvious by the scowl on his face that he didn't believe a word of it.

"You both tried to kill each other, then you lied about it." His scowl drooped into an exhausted disappointment. "Is anyone else lying about something important that could get us all killed?"

Piper and Nissa shook their heads, and he turned his gaze to me. Hunger burned in my stomach, roaring like an animal as the breeze carried his scent to me. I shook my head. The last thing I should expect him to do right now was give me his blood.

With a sigh, he trudged off down the hill. "I'm not going far. Just leave me alone." He disappeared behind a boulder some thirty yards away.

Piper slid off her rock. "I'm just going to check on him, try to get him to calm down." She trotted over to the boulder and disappeared behind it.

Nissa stormed to the edge of the cliff. I thought she was going to fly off, but she just punched the air. An arc of electrified shadow flew off her fist. It cut through a protruding section of cliff, sending tons of ice, snow, and rock tumbling down the cliffside.