Suddenly, I couldn't breathe. I had to get out of the room.
I pushed myself up on unsteady legs and ran for the door. I had to get out before I got into a hysterical fit.
What would my parents say if they heard this. They would laugh and call me a silly kid for even getting upset over something so stupid and so outrageous.
Whose kid could I possibly be, barfing up milk on my perfect and pristine mother so many times, and pulling on my father's long perfectly groomed hair with fat clutching infant fingers.
I stood—barely—supported by the wall and breathing rapidly.
Calm down your heart beat, Nana, I reminded myself. You are a mage. You know how to control your heart beat.
Slow down your thinking.
Slow down your breathing.
Slow—down—your—heart—beat.
That's right. Breathe darling. I am right here beside you.
Connor!
I opened my eyes and saw the twins through a shimmer of liquid. They were hovering over me, concern written all over their faces.
Corwin said nothing. He simply touched me and sent wave after wave of warm gentle soothing magik, wrapping it around me like a comforting blanket.
All of a sudden, my eyes were weeping big fat tears, and I didn't know why. My shoulders shook as huge bursts of emotionless tides hit me over and over.
I certainly did not feel like crying. I wasn't sad or anything, so why were my tears falling?
I tried to tell the twins that I wasn't truly sad, not sad at all. Perhaps something was wrong with my tear ducts…
But the twins were not listening to me. They simply folded me into their arms and allowed my strange silent tears to fall, heedless of my confusion about the reasons why.
"I don—don't understand," I sobbed into their shoulders, my arms curling around their necks and hanging on for dear life.
"I don't look anything like tha—that woman in the picture."
"Of course not," Corwin murmured into my hair. "You have hair the color of rich sable. Your gentle soulful eyes are a bewitching hazel, and your sweet lips are soft and pink. You look like no one but yourself."
And you are perfect. I love you just the way you are, Connor added.
"But Doctor Montblanc said that woman is my m-mother…and he says he's my father. How is that possible?" I wailed.
"She disappeared over a hundred years ago, and I am barely seventeen!" I could not grasp the incongruity of it all.
Corwin sighed. "It's come to this, and although I would prefer that we not be the people to tell you this, but we don't want to hide from you what little we know about you."
"Part of the reason Connor and I were assigned the task of watching over you was because of your…odd circumstance."
I stared at Corwin in horror. What else was there that they knew about me that I did not know about myself?
Connor nodded. "We don't know the full story, but what was revealed to us the last day we were in Topaz is that Chloe Belladonna gave birth to you and then left you with her older brother seventeen years ago."
"Her brother?"
"Yes. The man you call Father, Harrington Imara, is actually your uncle."
Uncle. Should I be grateful that at least, Father was a blood-relative of mine?
But that would mean that Mother had no genetic connection to me at all. She was simply a woman who adopted me and cared for me during my pre-adolescent days.
"Your uncle and aunt had five sons, two hundred years before you were born. They had no daughters so they jumped at the chance to raise you," Connor revealed.
I scowled, avoiding his brilliant blue eyes. "Two-hundred years ago?"
I started laughing. "I knew none of this was true and you're just making fun of me!"
Corwin reached out to touch me but I batted his hand away.
"Don't mess with me, you evil men. I told you not to make jokes like that. Tell me the truth!"
"We are telling you the truth." Corwin said.
He sighed. "It's actually a relief to be able to clear some of this confusion up with you, because back at the Academy, we weren't allowed to say anything."
Connor's eyes were insistent. "Babe…you're very unique. You don't know how unique. Our top priority assignment was to observe you two years ago, and it took us a long time before we realized why."
"Wh—why?" I asked.
Connor grabbed my arms. "Because YOU are the only known half-blood to have been born in Topaz this entire century!"
No.
My mind went blank.
There is no way.
I blinked. Then I giggled.
The giggle turned into laughter. The laughter became wild and uncontrollable, something that burst forth without any conscious request from me.
It came from somewhere inside that I had never known existed, that strange otherworldly presence within me that had always been with me, unnoticed and unknown.
I sank down to the floor, my legs no longer able to support me. The twins sat down next to me and just held me without saying anything.
For how long, I couldn't say, but as I sat there, laughing in fits and crying in spasms, Connor and Corwin both held onto me.
They were the only stable forces in my life at that moment, because everything had all of a sudden turned topsy-turvy.
I sat there, hearing without listening, absorbing without comprehending, understanding the words but not the underlying meaning.
I waited for them to jump up and say, "Joke! All a big fat funny joke!"
But they didn't do that, and they didn't say that.
They just sat there and gazed at me with their sad eyes.
"Liar!" I shouted, lashing out at them with my fists, even though they had said nothing to me the entire time I was there in that hallway, trying to hang onto my sense of self.
How dare they destroy my world and my family! How dare they destroy my identity and my life!
I wanted them to defend themselves against my pummeling fists.
They were such strong wizards! They could have wiggled a single finger and I would have been subdued with no effort at all.
But Corwin and Connor just sat there and took the physical beating without even flinching.
And then, to my utter embarrassment, I burst into tears—real ones this time, huge sobs and strangled cries that wracked my body and squeezed the breath out of me.
And they let me cry until I had no tears left to cry. And I clung onto them like a child, needing the comfort of adults who were there to shoulder the pain and responsibilities.
And then my eyes grew weary, my head throbbed, and my heart ached.
They gave me water, some small brown pill, and then they took me back to my room, laid me down onto my soft cool pillow.
And then they left me alone to rest.