Page 4 of Microburst

I’d won a lot of favor with people understanding that.

“Read some and set yourself at ease,”Iris said gently when I kept spinning out and was about to tear through all the bookshelves to see what else I could find.

Right.

Smart.

Logical.

Except what I read did anything but put me at ease.

It broke my fucking soul.

2

Sagan

At first it was gossip about this ball or event. I skimmed it as I finished eating. There was some good insight into how the elders pressured them and I was relieved I could get answers as to how they’d let them end up in so much debt.

I was disgusted when she wrote about feeling bad for someone on the castle staff who was being harassed by an elder and all she did was transfer the woman instead of handling the problem. She didn’t even tell Father because she didn’t want to cause trouble.

Pathetic. My mother was seriously embarrassing.

It was like the twentieth entry that made my heart race. The first line written differently even, clearly in anger.

“I hate her.”

I read it over and over again and somehow knew.

Iknewwithout having to continue.

How horrible was that? How absolutely horrible was my life that I knew my mother meantmewithout even reading more?

That’s why the woman deleted the texts. Others knew she hated me.

“No, she wouldn’t have been so careless or others would have already leaked it and come for you,”Iris argued but didn’t sound so sure.

Eloise just seemed scared, like she sensed something—maybe how bad this was going to be for us?

I set down my food and wiped my hands, fully focused on finding out my mother’s true feelings about me. Ignoring my dragons trying to comfort me that maybe it wasn’t about me, I reread the first sentence and went on.

“I hate her. Gods help me, but I do. I hate my own daughter. I hate what she has cost me. Everything was perfect before she was born. No, it wasn’t her birth. It was the moment she lost the black hair of babies and it was replaced with the dark pewter hair that had TWO colors of streaks to show she was a mistake. A mistake I birthed, and my mate never forgave me for it.”

I choked on a sob and looked up at the ceiling, hating the gods in that moment for doing this to me. Why make me so different and live this way?

I immediately apologized to Eloise because for a moment I blamed her, but it wasn’t her fault. Everyone blamed her because being a fire dragon was normal, but my parents said my orange streaks came in first but… By days? Who knew how it happened when I was born with both dragons?

I would have had a more normal life if I’d only had Eloise. It was having two dragons that cursed me to this fate.

“No, it was bad parents, not us,”Eloise defended, already crying.

She was right and I said as much, having the image of Iris comforting her. I apologized to them both and told them I loved them. I was just…

I didn’t think there were words for what I was right then.

What was the emotion for finding out that your mother hated you and thought you were amistake?

“Finish it so we can heal,”Iris demanded, just as upset.