“I hear you,” I say, wiping away another tear. “But I don’t agree. You could have told us the truth. You could have trusted us with reality.”
My father shakes his head. “Remember Kenai when he was thirteen? Rebelling against every rule; questioning every word his parents said? How do you think he would have handled the truth? Do you think he would have stayed in our territory, hiding from the outside world?”
I shake my head.
“And he’s just one example, Juneau. We had to fabricate a story that would keep you all with us. Keep us separate from the world. And keep our secrets safe.”
“It still wasn’t right,” I say.
“I know,” Dad says. “But it’s the best we knew to do. The other elders are having to deal with their own children and, worse for some, themselves. We all have to deal with the repercussions of our mutual and individual deceit. There has been forgiveness in some cases.” He looks down. “Less in others.”
My jaw clenches and my eyes sting. I squeeze my hands into fists.
“You’re allowed to cry, Juneau,” he says.
Wiping the corners of my eyes, I take a shaky breath. I can tell my father wants to hug me, but if he does, I’m afraid I’ll start bawling and never stop. I wrap my arms around myself, keeping him at a distance.
“Why did you come here when I told you not to?” he asks softly.
“The clan is my responsibility,” I say.
My dad rises and walks to the corner, where he picks up a bottle of water. Sitting back down, he hands it to me. “Juneau, ever since the clan was abducted, I’ve been thinking about you. Questioning how I raised you. You’ve grown up with the knowledge that you will be the next clan leader. I know the burden that Whit put on you. And I know how our clan members look up to you, but also treat you like you belong to them. Their own clan Sage.”
My father reaches forward and runs his hand back and forth over my short hair. “Because of this, you’ve missed out on a childhood. You don’t know what it means to be carefree. To not feel the weight of the clan’s survival resting on your shoulders at all times. I was wrong to have raised you like this. But it was hard to refuse Whit and the other elders once your mom died. You were the only one who could take her place.”
“Because I can Conjure?” I ask.
“That’s a part of it,” Dad says. “What’s more important is something I have never talked to you about. I was waiting until you passed the Rite. But that might well never happen now. It’s time I told you everything.”
I hold up my hand to stop him. “And I should believe you because . . .”
“There are no more lies between us. No more secrets,” my father says. “I swear it on the memory of your mother. It’s up to you whether you believe me or not. But I assure you that everything I’m telling you is true.”
I watch him, silent.
“How much do you know now about Amrit?” he asks.
“I figured some things out for myself, and Whit pretty much confirmed it all last night,” I say.
He nods sadly. “I saw you talking to him in the fire. Did he mention our part in making Amrit? The part about your mother’s legend?”
I nod. “Something about healing a she-wolf who went on to live a long time.”
He takes a long drink from his glass and stares at the ceiling, as if trying to see back in time. “Both your mother’s story, and several of the legends about eternal or extended life that we subsequently dug up, specified using ‘the life force of a prophetess.’ They called for a woman who was one with the earth—a daughter of Gaia.
“Your mother not only knew about her tribe’s legend, but she was the right person to re-create it. That is the only reason we were able to succeed where scientists and scholars have failed over the centuries. It’s the reason we, of all people, were able to crack the long-hidden code . . . to access the earth’s secret.”
“What do you mean Mom was the right person?” Goose bumps rise on my arms.
“What do you know of your mother’s family?” my father asks, blatant guilt scrawled across his face.
“Well, before Whit told me she was from Mongolia, I thought they came from China.”
“A part of China that used to be Mongolia,” my father clarifies. “Your grandmother was from a tribe of itinerant farmers who worshipped the land they worked and lived on. Their women were famed shamans, medicine women.
“Your grandmother used to tell your mother their stories. She said your mother was special because she had priestess blood. The knowledge of her ancestors’ nature-worship was one of the things that interested your mother in Gaian philosophy and the movement rising up around us. She was drawn to it through her heritage.