"Really. There's a belief in Dorcastle, and I guess in the whole Confederation, that as long as the daughter's blood stays in the stone, this wall can never fall."

"Wow." Apparently unable to think of any other comment, Jason peered at the life-sized statue set at the battlement so it faced toward the harbor.

Kira had never forgotten any detail of that statue. Her mother, only a few years older than Kira was now, wearing her Mechanics jacket, her pistol held in one hand that was pointing toward the sea, her other fist defiantly raised to the sky, the statue's cold gaze forever confronting the vanished legions that had been broken before her.

"Mother doesn't like it," Kira said, looking into the eyes of the statue. "She says it makes it look like she was the only one holding the wall, when really she was only one of many."

"But it was because of her that they held the wall, right?" Jason asked, looking out across the darkened city.

"Mother says no, that they would have done it even without her. But everyone else says that without her the wall would have fallen, and Mother's tired army, strung out along the road, would have been hit by the legions as the leading elements reached the city. General Flyn—he commanded my mother's army—told me they might have taken serious losses and have had to fall back to Danalee."

Kira reached out to the statue, her fingers resting on the cold, hard surface of the sculpted jacket. She had once touched the real jacket worn by her mother that day, years ago when visiting the librarians on Altis to whom it had been given for safekeeping. Because she was Mari's daughter, the librarians had brought it out for her, still caked with dried blood, still bearing the hole where the bullet had punched through. Kira had almost fainted just from staring at it, knowing how close her mother had come to dying from the injury she had suffered on this spot. You never want to talk about it, Mother. Maybe you really can't and I've been blaming you unfairly for a wound that's never healed. But how did you do it? How did you stand up here and face the Imperial legions? How did you survive such an injury even with the help Father gave you? How did you do all of the things the daughter did?

And people think I could someday step into your shoes?

I look like you, but how can I ever be anything like you?

"Does it feel weird to you?" Jason asked, unaware of Kira's thoughts. "Knowing that your mom almost died on this spot? That her blood was right there?"