Free Soul Blaze by Aprille Legacy

he has no life there. So they
exiled him to the North.”
    I breathed heavily through my nose. The rage that was
rising inside of me was beginning to overpower even the
desire for my magic.
“So we fought to keep him here, out of his step-father’s
clutches, and now they’ve exiled him.”
“Yes.”
“But he came back,” I recalled the rose garden. “And
said he’d see me again soon.”
Jett smiled.
    “Well, he was apparently full of confidence in our
ability to get you back. He tipped us off about you, what
they were making you do, what they’d done to you, and
then he returned to Orthandrell.”
“Why?” I asked, completely baffled. “Why would he
return to the place he was trying to run from?”
    “These questions are best answered by those who know
more on the subject,” he replied. “There will be a few
people arriving in a couple of days to help us sift your
magic from Iain.”
    “Okay,” I could use a few days of peace to let this all
sink in. But there was another matter weighing heavily on
my mind. “Je-Dad... could I contact my mum? Is there any
way to do that?”
    “I can have a letter delivered to her,” he said, his voice
suddenly taking on a strange quality. “What would you
like to say?”
    I sat at his desk for some time, gnawing on the end of a
quill. In the end, I just wrote down what had happened as
clearly as possible. It was inevitable that she’d think I was
insane, but I couldn’t to lie to her; one day I hoped to
prove this all to her.
    I finished the letter, holding it up to read it. Satisfied
that I hadn't left anything out, I blew the ink gently to
help it dry. I caught Jett looking at me strangely.
“What?” I asked, still holding the parchment aloft.
    “I’m just trying to get my head around the fact that I
have a daughter,” he said quietly. “All circumstances
considered, our reunion was a bit far-fetched, don’t you
think?”
I put the letter down.
“Why did you never visit?” I responded. “Why did I
never hear from you?”
    “I had no idea you existed,” he picked up my hand and
folded it between his. “Up until the very moment you
were banished, I didn’t connect the dots. It had been so
long since I’d seen your mother... and to think I had been
standing in her kitchen when I rescued you from the fire!”
    “I didn’t believe it either,” I said. “I’d gone so long
without a father that to have one again felt... false. Wrong,
almost. No, not wrong,” I corrected as his face fell.
“Different, I suppose.”
We sat together quietly, until I asked another question
that I’d always wondered about.
“Do I have grandparents?”
“You did until a few years ago. Both lived and died in
    Gowar. They lived long, happy lives. Of course, they
would’ve been happier if they’d known they had a
granddaughter.”
“Any aunts or uncles?”
He was already shaking his head, having guessed my
next question.
“No, just me. I was an only child.”
“Well, ‘just you’,” I patted his hands and grinned. “How
does it feel do be a dad?”
    “So far I’ve gone through a whole whirlwind of
emotions, but I tore through a universe to get to you and
to be quite honest, I want to challenge Phoenix to some
kind of duel. Apart from that, I guess I just want to be a
barrier between you and the world but... I really can’t, can
I?” His dark eyes were wide, and I realised he was truly
asking.
    “I don’t think so,” I said, trying to ignore the tears that
had gathered in my eyes. “When I was littler maybe, but
now... Now I’ve got to fall and get hurt and learn on my
own.”
    “I understand,” he tightened his grip on my fingers.
“But anyone you want to be dealt with, just point and nod,
alright?”
I laughed through my tears. I stood and he hugged me
to him, resting his chin on my head.
    “You tore through the realms for me,” I sniffed into his
robes, suddenly realising what he’d done to get me back.
“You