I wanted to nod, but couldn’t. Instead, I just looked at him, wide-eyed.
“As you know, the change a human must endure as they become one of the Chosen is very painful. The longer the pain, the longer the recovery, the more powerful is the magic.” He paused and I could tell he was gauging how I was handling everything he was telling me. I tried to keep a straight face, even though I was still panicking just a bit.
Part of me still didn’t want to believe him. If I had been able to string more than a few words together, I would have been rebutting him at every turn. As much as I wanted to argue, as much as I didn’t want to believe him, I still couldn’t get the images of the balls of light colliding in my kitchen, the flying refrigerator, or the sensation of flying out of my mind.
“How long?” My throat burned again as I spoke, my vocal chords cutting off before I could complete my question.
“Your father says you were in the hospital for about six months, which is one of the longest I have heard of.”
My heart beat uncontrollably. The longest? What was I, some ultra-powerful freak? Ilyan shushed me quietly as his thumb traced circles in the skin on my back. I wished I could shy away from the touch. It was something Ryland would do.
“Now, this could mean nothing. Most children focus and begin to use their powers days after awakening. It has been a bit longer than that for you,” he said darkly. I just stared at him.
“A kiss,” Ilyan continued, “is given by a Vil? to human children who already have a natural ability. A Vil? is a dark creature that most closely resembles a small, winged dinosaur; although their faces are more human. They are brightly colored and almost seem to glow, making them easy to find.”
The flash of blue, the glitter of wings; I remembered seeing both before the pain had hit. I had seen the little creature right before he bit me. I hadn’t been paying close enough attention; I didn’t know what I was seeing. If I had known what it was, would I have recognized it? Would it made anything easier? I doubt it.
“Vil?s have not been seen in more than two hundred years, which is why, when your father found me in Prague, we came right to you. We would have taken you with us right then, grabbed your mother and ran, but there was a complication.”
My forehead furled; I hoped that my silent question was obvious for him. He only stared at me though, his blue eyes deep and troubled.
“What… complication?” I tried to keep my face calm; I wanted to know more, but was afraid he would stop.
“In all things in life, there is a good and a bad, a light and a dark.” He paused and I couldn’t help but realize that his voice had deepened. The change scared me. “Your kiss is one of those things that possess a dual nature as well. My life has been consumed by this purpose; in many ways it is the sole reason I stay on this earth. Myself, and all those within my family, have spent our entire lives seeking out and protecting the Chosen Children who have been kissed by the Vil?s. For centuries, I have sought them out and protected them…”
“Centuries?” I cut him off, although my voice was a squeak, but he still sputtered to a stop at my words.
“Yes, Joclyn, centuries. I am very old, much older than I appear.” His lips turned up in a curious half-smile. “I wasn’t lying to you when I told you I was born in the 80s. It just wasn’t the 1980s.”
“When?”
“It was in the tenth century, Joclyn.” His voice was ashamed, like he was worried about my reaction. He had every right to be, too.
I struggled to keep my head, but after everything he had told me, what was one more impossible thing? I held my breath in an attempt to keep myself under control, unsure if I would be able to accomplish it. Thankfully, he continued anyway.
“The kiss on your skin is unique. There has not been a child who has been given this mark in more than three centuries. And the ones who had received their kiss before then have all but disappeared. This is why we had to come right to you. This is why we lied and hid; you are that important. You are the last of the Chosen Children.”
He spoke as if he were done and had told me everything, but he hadn’t. What about the bad side he had spoken of, what about the complications? I looked at him skeptically as I gathered strength to speak again.
“Bad side?” I said. Ilyan just looked at me before looking down at the couch. I waited for clarification, but none came. My heart skipped a beat in fear; was the bad side really all that scary?
“Complication?” I tried again, the longer word feeling like acid in my throat.
Ilyan looked away from me to focus on a spot on the blankets that covered me.