Free To Kill a Wizard: Rose's Story (The Protectors of Tarak Book 1) by Lisa Morrow

hard to understand, but my whole life I’ve just accepted my mom was gone, and I was stuck with my life. Now though, I think I have a chance to get to know her. I don’t know why that’s so important to me, but it is.”
    “Just wait,” she begged. “Blair may tell you later.”
    Biting my lip, I avoided her gaze. All these years alone with a father who hated me, I’d tried to imagine my mother. Yet every time I did, I had to remember she hadn’t just walked away from him, she’d walked away from me. I thought I’d done something wrong, so the idea she’d simply been Chosen allowed a tiny seed of hope… that she might still be somewhere, thinking about her only daughter, and maybe missing me too.
    I gave Sirena my best apologetic look. “Maybe she could even tell me something that’d make this place seem less scary and… full of secrets.”
    She sighed, but I could already see she knew there’d be no changing my mind. “I don’t like this.”
    I forced a smile. “I know, but you love me anyway.”
    She rolled her eyes, a slight grin playing across her lips. “If you aren’t back soon, I’ll go look for you… and I’ll bring those drunks with me.”
    I laughed nervously. “So I’ll be back soon.”
    She went to her room, opened the door, and stared back at me.
    I nodded, then followed the woman behind the tapestry.
    A poorly lit passageway, so narrow I had to turn slightly to move through, hid behind the tapestry. I shuffled forward until I reached a turn, and then followed it to a small room lit by a dozen flickering candles. The room had no windows. Shelves full of old books covered the walls. In the center, a tattered and faded rug covered most of the stone floor, and two chairs sat facing each other, the color of dried blood.
    Meisha sat in one of these chairs, her back straight. “I know of your mother, child.” Her eyes fluttered to the ground, before she pointed one long finger to the other chair. “And I know of your father.”
    My heart quickened as I crossed the room and eased myself into the chair opposite her. The smell of dust filled my nose, and I fought the urge to sneeze. “Was my mother one of you? Was she a Protector of Tarak?”
    Meisha hung her head further, as if she might fall over, and her thin shoulders sagged. “She was almost a Protector, until your father came for her.”
    I nearly tumbled forward. “What—what do you mean?”
    “There is very little I can tell you,” she whispered, her accent making each word like a hiss. “But, your decision in the Choosing Ceremony is very important.”
    I tried to hide my annoyance as I spoke. “I don’t care about the ceremony. Tell me about my parents. Did my father try to stop my mother from joining? Was that how he was hurt?”
    At last, she looked up at me.
    I collapsed back into the seat. Her pupils had grown until nothing was left of her amber eyes, and her tongue flickered out to glide across her razor sharp teeth before she spoke. “You are as foolish as your mother if you do not heed me well. She too cared nothing for the ceremony, nothing for anything but returning to your father, and she paid the ultimate price. We paid the ultimate price for her foolishness.”
    My mind whirled. “She didn’t want to join? I thought we had a choice?”
    She laughed, or at least made a sound like an animal mimicking a laugh. “Had you chosen to return to your father tonight at the portal, they would have forced you, or killed you.”
    My skin felt cold and damp. “What happened to my mother?”
    She tilted her head. “They forced her to join, or at least tried to.” Her tongue darted out once more, and she jerked as if woken from a restless sleep. “But none of that matters now. All that matters is that you choose to become one of us.”
    I tried to sound brave, “after all you’ve told me, what would possibly make me want to join The Protectors?”
    Meisha leapt on me.
    The chair flew out from under me, and I lay on the