The sun rolled above the horizon, shining on us. “That’s sort of like a grandmother, isn’t it?” “If Kate is my mother, does that make you my grand-aunt?” Well, look who was sitting in a dragon lair now. He often forgot that people weren’t simply cogs powering the machine of his ambition. My brother with his crowded mind, so filled with ideas. I’d told Im this and he didn’t believe me. I left her a long letter, so she wouldn’t think I ran off in a huff.” I thought about it for a long time, even before everything happened. I could stay, wait for her to get over it, and go on just like I have been for years. “Either way,” she said, “it’s time for me to go. I don’t want to be a walking, talking reminder that she didn’t stick to her promise. She took me in when nobody cared if I lived or died. She will think that for a few seconds she turned into Roland. She promised to never do the thing she did, and now she’s done it. The child of the steppes looked me in the eye. “Is this about your sticking it to your mother?” The third time now.Ī black-and-white horse edged her way out of the woods, carrying a pale-haired rider. She had a husband and a son to look after, and the Shar no longer troubled her. My niece would be sad when she awoke, but then she’d get over it. It was the net that caught us when we drowned and gently lifted us up out of the raging waters. My mother used to say that family, blood or found, was our salvation. She was no longer young or naive, but she was within me. I thought she had melted into the ages of pain and suffering, until only the City Eater remained. I had buried her in the ashes of war, so I could pick up a sword. She played in the water, grew flowers, liked pretty dresses, and made silly little plans for the future. She was a silly girl, the Rose of Tigris, pretty and dumb in the way the very young sometimes are. Then she’d had her son, and he’d needed a grandmother. Kate had needed a mother, and I had stepped in to fill the spot, never expecting anything in return. My niece had changed me in a way she would never fully understand. I had taught Kate everything she needed to know to survive. There was no place for me in their world now. A woman had certain expectations after being resurrected, to live life to its fullest. I didn’t go in-they kept their door locked-but I sensed them beyond it, warm and safe together.

I’d checked on her, her husband, and their son before I left the house. Although there’d been a few blonds in my lifetime. I was used to better horses too, although the Friesian was pretty and he stomped down the quiet crumbling road with great enthusiasm.

We have time now, right?”Ĭurran grinned at me.

Magic triumphs