Crouching down next to Leera, I ran a hand over the mark on her forehead. "Are you okay?"

She continued breathing deeply.

I hoped her mind was in 'one piece,' but I didn't know how I'd tell. I'd heard riders could sense when their dragons were hurting or well—and sometimes, they could even tell their dragons what to do using this mental bond. But I didn't sense much of anything from Leera. Maybe something was wrong with her, or maybe we hadn't joined right. I kept flashing back to what Mother had said—that I'd wish I were dead. Maybe she'd known all along that there was something wrong with me, that I'd never be able to properly bond with a dragon.

Leera stirred, and I stood, backing away a respectable distance. Joined or not, I was still a relatively fragile biped, and she was a huge, armored carnivore with wings. I didn't want to startle her after her experience with the mind-jinking.

She opened her eyes and lifted her head off the ground. When she stood, she look normal enough. I waved, and she followed the movement with her eyes. At least she wasn't in a permanent coma, but I still needed to figure out what Mother had been talking about.

I held up my hand in a 'stay' gesture. "Stay."

She cocked her head to the side for a moment before huffing and laying down.

"Good. I'll be back in a minute."

When I reached my family, my parents were bleary-eyed, and Ashyr glared at me like I'd broken her wand into a million pieces right in front of her. Mother pulled me aside, walking me to a small grove of trees out of earshot of the party. Her hands were clenched so tightly that her knuckles had gone paper white. She'd overreacted over trivial things before, but something told me that now wasn't one of those times.

"We lied."

It was hard not to roll my eyes. She was going to have to be a bit more specific than that. "About what?"

She took a shuddering breath. "You weren't left in a box on our front porch."

What, had they kidnapped me or something? No, that didn't make sense. No one would kidnap a deformed talme, even if they were desperate for a baby. "Then where did I come from?"

"Sixteen years ago, a friend of mine came to the door and gave you to us. He told me he was your father and that he couldn't take care of you at the moment." She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment before shaking her head.

"So what if my father left me in person?" I crossed my arms. It didn't change anything, not really. My birth parents had still abandoned me. I guessed it made them mildly better people for leaving me with a trusted friend instead of with a stranger.

"I wish I didn't have to tell you this, especially not here and now, but it can't wait anymore. You need to be prepared."

"I'm listening."

"Ella... my friend was an elent."

That was why Father seriously thought I could use Ashyr's wand. How dumb was that? "Obviously, he was lying. I'm a talme. My birth father couldn't be an elent."

"Honey, you have the same blue eyes. I've never seen another talme with blue eyes. And paltors usually have physical mutations, similar to your tail..."

Every word was true, but that only made them hurt even more. It just couldn't be possible. I would've noticed by now if I was half elent. I uncrossed my arms and held them out as if they could shield me from her words.

"I'm not a paltor." I backed away. "I'm not a monster."

"Just because you're a half-blood doesn't mean you're a monster." She stepped towards me.

"I'm not a half-blood," I shouted. "I'm a talme, end of discussion." She was crazy, absolutely insane. How had she come up with such a ludicrous idea?

"Ella, calm down before you hurt yourself." She reached for my hand.

I couldn't calm down, and I didn't want to. If I did, I would have to think about how maybe, possibly, she was right. No, I couldn't think about that. The air was scorching, burning my lungs as I tried to reason with what was going on.

The next thing I knew, I was soaking wet, and Mother was panting.

I wiped the water off my face. "Why did you do that?" She wasn't exactly young. Why had she wasted her energy just to get me wet? It hadn't exactly calmed me down, just surprised me.

"Look down."

I did, not knowing what to expect. The ground around my feet was scorched beyond recognition, and my clothes were filled with countless smoking holes. It hit me then, really hit me. She was right. I was a paltor, a freak, a monster.