I walked to the cottage, my hand entwined with Kliss’s, Delta following close behind us. I could feel the nervous tremor in my fingers, fueled by the uncertainty of what was coming. Deception had become so ingrained in my interactions with my parents, a web of carefully constructed narratives woven over thirteen years to protect them from a truth they might not be ready to face.

We entered through the backdoor and filled the living room.

Mom and dad were there, relaxing by the fire.

“Dante,” Cassandra sent me a soft smile, glancing at Kliss. “Did you two have dinner already?”

“Kliss and I had dinner at the Fox,” I nodded.

It was time to tell the truth.

My carefully constructed wall of lies, of half-truths and evasions, suddenly felt suffocating. I took a deep breath, meeting mom’s sky-blue gaze with my own.

“Mom, dad we need to talk,” I began. “There’s something… something we haven’t told you. Something important.”

Mom’s smile faded, replaced by a flicker of concern. “What is it, Dante? What’s wrong?”

I glanced at Delta, a silent plea for support. She nodded at me.

“It’s… about us,” Delta said.

Mom looked at Delta and then back at me, her brows furrowing. “About you? What about you?”

“We’re not exactly… who you think we are,” I admitted.

“What?” Cassandra asked.

“Hrm,” Georgi’s beard twitched. His gaze went over me, judging me.

“I think I know what this is about,” he said.

“You do?” Cassandra turned to her husband.

My heart pounded. It felt like a thousand butterflies were trapped in my chest, their wings beating against my ribs. As we walked, I had planned this conversation in my head a hundred times, composing the right words, the perfect script, and yet, faced with the reality of it all, my carefully constructed sentences simply failed to emerge.

I glanced at Delta again, a silent plea for her to take over. She stepped closer to Mom, her hand reaching out to gently touch Cassandra’s arm as she sat next to her on the couch.

“Mom, we’re your kids,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “But we’re also… more.”

“More?” Cassandra repeated, looking from my twin to her husband. “More what?”

“This is my second life,” Delta revealed.

“What?” Mom’s eyes widened.

“Oh?” Georgi turned to Delta. “Now that’s curious.”

“I… concealed my real level when I was born,” Delta said.

“You’re… an Astral Phantom?” Mom said, her voice trembling.

“I’m a girl who lived in Skyisle over one thousand and one hundred years ago,” Delta said. “My name was Kopusha Megara Tricameron. Yes. I am… an Astral Phantom.”

Georgi turned his head from Delta towards me. “And you?”

“I am Academic Vladislav Aleksandrovich Kerenski,” I said. “I was sixty when I died… on another world.”

“Another… world?” Georgi blinked. “Not Novazem?”

“A world without magic,” I said.

Mom’s eyes snapped my way.

“You’re… Vladislav?” She squeaked.

“I am my own apprentice,” I said. “There’s no such thing as Oz. There’s no Great Aunt Delta. She’s just a colony of ants and bees covered in armor intermittently controlled by us.”

“And w-what is she?” Mom pointed a trembling finger at Kliss.

“She’s Kliss,” I said. “Skyisle’s hapless Overseer killed by Dragon Aradria. I rebuilt her body from Aradria’s organs after I brought the dragon from the sky.”

Kliss nodded.

Mom’s eyes became filled with sparks of tears. Georgi hugged her.

“I thought as much,” he said, looking at me. “You were born with… what was it? An absurd, impossibly high level of Intelligence…”

“One hundred and seventy six Intelligence,” I said. “Tamara’s Eye of Evaluation wasn’t lying.”

“Thank you for keeping my secret, Georgi,” I added into the tense silence.

“Thank you for raising us,” Delta nodded and hugged Cassandra. “Thank you for being my second mom, for taking care of me even though I wasn’t the best, most cooperative daughter.”

Cassandra looked somewhat catatonic.Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

“Why?” She asked after a pause. “How?”

“The blood sacrifice you’ve made with Giovashi to undo Destiny’s future fished my soul from the Astral Ocean,” I said. “I dragged Kopusha along with me into your womb.”

“So,” Cassandra said, her voice trembling. “My Destiny… was never born?”

“I am Destiny, mom!” Delta insisted. “I am your daughter! You and dad raised me! I don’t want you to treat me any differently. I was simply born… with the memories of a mage from a thousand years ago. And my brother was born with the knowledge of a man from another world. That’s how we were able to help Skyisle bloom, how we started to heal the valley!”

“Astral Phantoms… feed on people,” Cassandra uttered. “That… that’s the fate I was trying to avoid with my sacrifice. It seems that I… failed.”

“You didn’t fail at anything, mom! I’m not going to eat people!” Delta assured. “I’m not insane! I’ve been planting trees all over Skyisle to heal our people, bringing up everyone’s levels. That Agromancy wand you’ve been using, one that allows you to cast spells way above your level - Dante and I made that for you! Giovashi has deceived all of you, she’s an ancient necromancer that’s been controlling Skyisle like a spider for a thousand years, devouring everyone’s souls!”

“The proper thing to do would be to cast you into the Valley of Death,” Georgi said, his expression stern.

A pulse of syntropic magic blossomed away from Kliss like a blast of superheated air, making the fire within the fireplace flicker.

“I won’t allow this, Georgi,” She said. “As the Baroness of Skyisle I…”

“I have no desire to fight you, Baroness,” Georgi put his hand into the air in a placating gesture. “I know how fast you are. I've watched you catching rocks in the garden from the air just an hour ago with a wooden spyglass.”

Kliss squinted at our father.

“I knew that at least one of my kids was an Astral Phantom,” he said. “And I did nothing at all to stop it. Do you know why?”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because I also knew that Skyisle was dying,” he said. “That you would potentially be the last generation. That Cassandra and I were bound to this house, that everyone’s levels were capped and that things were getting worse. The fields were bringing in less and less crops. The wood I got from the forest got more brittle, weaker with each year. I took a big gamble in raising you. We both did.”

Cassandra opened her mouth to argue.

“We’ve spoken about this, Cass,” he said. “Dante’s impossible intelligence level. You chose to bury this fact, to ignore it. I didn’t.”

Georgi looked at me and my twin.

“I’ve been watching you grow up for over a decade. I’ve been keeping track of all that you two have done. I’m not stupid, not blind. You are fixing things around here. The air does feel cleaner, it’s easier to breathe, the fields are greener, the vegetables are bigger, the trees are much healthier. Those violet trees of yours are helping people, healing Skyisle. It’s a fact. Had you strayed from the path of goodness, I would have struck you down myself long ago. You didn’t. You lied to us, yes, but you’ve also proven that you are what Skyisle needed.”

“Thanks dad,” Delta’s eyes filled with tears as she buried her face in Georgi’s large chest. “Sorry that I lied to you.”

“It’s fine, Desty,” he said, petting her silver-white hair gently. “You gave me back the skills I lost, you gave me hope where I honestly didn’t expect to find any. Honestly, I’ve been expecting this conversation… dreading it in fact. The things you’ve told me just didn’t align with what I suspected.”

I nodded, not sure what else to say. I saw that Cassandra was crying more openly now.

My heart hammered in my chest. It was much easier to rant about particle accelerators, nuclear chain reactions and virus replication, than to simply and plainly reveal my feelings.

‘Maybe Sasha was right,’ some deep part of me thought. ‘Maybe I really am just an emotionally deficient monster, one incapable of forming proper human bonds, one who sees everyone as a mere piece of a puzzle that I’m trying to assemble into something that makes sense?’

It was as if my early head trauma stole an essential piece of me, one that made me who I was back then. The injury that led to my savantism had made me crave the pursuit of knowledge over the warmth of human connections, bound me into a loop from which I could not break free.

[Shush. You aren’t a monster, Slava,] sparks-entwined, warm words danced from Kliss across my head. [I know you better than anyone. Just… go and hug your mom. Right now. Don’t think about it so hard. Just… say your feelings out loud. She’ll understand… I think.]

Her hand pushed me forward and I took a step towards Cassandra and then another, eventually coming down to her level and grabbing her hand.

“Sorry mom,” I muttered. “I… I love you.” I forced the words out of my mouth. “I deceived you, yes, but only to protect you from Giovashi and her barmaids. You took care of me… you’ve raised me for thirteen years, you sat with me while I was recovering… and for all of this I am incredibly grateful. I… just didn’t want to hurt you with the truth. Didn’t want to lose you.”

“Why now?” She asked, tear-streaked eyes cutting across my face.

“I’m going to Agamemnon,” I said. “With Kliss. We’re going to intercept the Inquisitor of Equality, take care of him and the two legions, make sure they never make it to our valley. Destiny is going to stay here, protect Skyisle as Aunt Delta. You are going to stay here with her, help her grow more Vitality trees.”

“You’re certain that you can do that?” Dad asked. “What if Giovashi returns to Skyisle? Will Destiny be able to stop her… alone?”

“She’s not going to be alone,” I said. “Destiny has Leemy now.”

“Leemy?” Georgi asked.

“Leemy is a Vitality-aligned dryad in charge of the violet-leafed trees,” I explained. “Leemy is Kopusha’s creation, made a thousand years ago.”

“Can you and your dryad handle Giovashi?” Dad turned to Delta.

“I’ll do my best,” Delta said with a semi-confident look. “Unless she sends another dragon my way, then I'll definitely be in trouble. Dragons trump trees.”

“Even if I stay here,” I said. “I won’t be able to handle another dragon. I need dragonheart engines to make anti-dragon weapons. Kliss and I are going to fly down the mountains on that wooden glider you’ve been helping us craft. We’re going to time it just right to intercept the Inquisitor and return to Skyisle.”

“How are you going to deal with the Inquisitor of Equality?” Georgi asked.

“I’m going to lead him into the Valley of Death,” I said.

“You… you can’t!” Cassandra’s hands suddenly grabbed mine. “Dante! The valley will kill you… like it killed your grandparents!”

I looked into her fear-stricken eyes. She still thought of me as her son and simply wanted to protect me.

“I won’t go there in person,” I revealed. “I’ll leave my human body here, sleeping in Skyisle for you to take care of. I’ll be travelling within the body of a bee along with Kliss… as an Astral Phantom. She’s a dragon shaped like a human girl and as such, is immune to the radiance of death.”

“A bee?” Georgi sputtered.

“Ogonek,” Delta said.

The fat bumblebee emerged from her pocket and buzzed atop me, settling in my hair.

“Ogonek is an immortal bee,” I said. “Fused with Vitality crystals, designed to stand up to the edge of the magogenic fault. She was my first experiment.”

“This… is certainly a lot of impossible things to take in,” Georgi commented.

Cassandra reached out to me and wrapped me in her embrace. I hugged her back.

“I’m just a simple Skyisle-born Agromancer,” she said. “I’m no archmage, no Lord administrator. I’ve no idea what’s going on and the more things you say, the more lost I feel… but I do know that you’re my Dante and I understand that you’re going to throw your life into danger to protect all of us. You’re of age and you can do magic, I’ve no right to tell you what to do, no right to shame you since I have also deceived you. The best I can do is tell you to be careful and to come back to us, yeah?”

“Yeah, mom,” I nodded. “I will, I promise.”