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Chapter Nine
Part Six

“I really don’t want to,” his father said. “It messes up everything, but at this point I don’t think there’s much point in lying to you. You already know enough to throw your reactions totally off from what they should be. ” He rubbed at his forehead. “Hoist upon my own petard, I guess. I still can’t tell you everything, but this all started because some witch hunters tried to kill your mother.”

Sarah made a choking noise. “Marian Laverne would freak if she heard you calling her family that.”

“That’s because she’s a hypocrite!” his father snarled. “She spends half her time enforcing the illusion that Astrals don’t exist because she’s convinced the non-Astrals would kill us all, and the other half hunting down and murdering Resonants, based on a prophecy that’s so old no one even remembers what it said any more.”

“What?” Daniel stared at them blankly. “I have no idea what you’re taking about.”

“Astrals are people like us, people with powers,” his mother said. “Resonants are a sub-group who, while no stronger than other Astrals, resonate with their primary affinity to an extrordinary degree.”

“You saw what the Brightwell boy did just before he teleported?” His father asked.

“When he seemed to turn into water? It was creepy, just like a dragon discorporating.”

“Yes, that.” His father nodded. “But please don’t compare Resonants to dragons. They’re nothing alike.”

“To be fair, there are cosmetic similarities, Matt,” Sarah said. “We share the ability to discorporate into a form based on our affinity for one.”

“We?” His father raised an eyebrow. “Are you admitting to being Resonant as well?”

“Of course I am.” She grinned at him. “So are Lucus and Jay. I think you are as well. I’m pretty sure all the Warriors are, but we’re getting off track. He needs to know why Kyle Brightwell went off the deep end.”

His father sighed. “You’re right. Fourteen years ago Kyle Brightwell’s father commited suicide, except he didn’t. He was psychically coerced into it. Every Astral in Europe knew that and we all knew why: he was Resonant. Kyle’s mother attacked Marian Laverne for it, and they killed her too – as a sympathiser. He grew up knowing he was a orphaned by the Lavernes for no reason. I think he always intended to go after them once he hit his maturity. Karen had been working on cooling him down, because dealing with that family requires a much more long term plan.”

“So he was never entirely stable, not that I blame him,” Daniel said. “But how does this explain him ending up working for a dragon?”

“I’m not sure how they came to be working for a dragon, but I’m pretty sure that was down to Darya. He’d already vanished when Kyle found out it was the Core that pointed the Lavernes at his father,” Jason said. “And at Sonia as it happened. All of us were pretty furious. We might not have got between him and the Core when he attacked it, but this world would literally disintegrate without it. And quite apart from the fact that it isn’t the Speakers fault, there’s every reason to believe that if this world collapses it wouldn’t be good for Earth. He was the only one of us who’d reached maturity at the time and he blasted past all of us. It was Darya who appeared out of nowhere and stopped him. The Core struck out at both of them. We were sure they were dead. They sure as hell looked dead.”

“Wait a second!” Daniel interrupted. “If that’s the case, is Mum safe here? If the Core…”

“It already had to know I was alive, Dan,” she said. “If only because Nephele isn’t dead. It hasn’t gone after her or told the Lavernes I’m alive in all these years. Whatever triggered it to go after me, it passed.That, or it’s scared of your father.”

“I hope you’re right, mum.” He looked over at Jason again. “I thought you guys had your memories wiped.”

“Blocked, not wiped. Wiping memories is hard without doing damage and it knew it would probably need us again. Sarah and Lucas spent a long time knocking the barriers down when it dumped us back on Earth.”

Daniel sat down and began to massage his temples. “This is already too much to take in, and I know you haven’t told me everything yet.”

“I know,” his father said sympathetically. “But bear this in mind: The Core is out of control. It’s not its fault, the Speakers created it to preserve their world and defend them but it’s a poor substitute for what it replaced. We can’t destroy it, so we have to rein it in before it does something even worse.”

“Without giving the dragons an advantage,” his mother added. She gave Daniel a sharp look as he yawned. “It’s nearly dawn, you should go and sleep. It’s hard to process stuff when you’re falling asleep.”

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