I turn down the path and follow in the wake of the young servant that Mayor Elland had sent running. He guides me around the side of the manor. We turn the corner, and there, waiting for me along the stone wall running beside the house, is my mother.

She’s on the back of a white stallion and holding the reins of a second horse at her side. Her silver-white hair falls behind her in a thick braid. To my absolute shock, she’s dressed in what looks like traditional Basean clothes—a loose, billowing white shirt with easy knots twisting down the front, a pair of high-waisted pants with a wide black belt fastened by a gleaming silver buckle in the shape of a crescent moon. It’s finery I’ve never seen her in, not even in Basea.

Everything in me floods with gratitude that today, I’m probably far enough from Constantine for him to have trouble sensing my emotions through our bond. Even if he can, I don’t care right now. The sight of my mother like this brings me to tears. At the same time, a well of anger pools thick in my stomach. Last month, she’d been kept in the prison district. Now she is on the mayor’s estate, indulging in food and leisure. The wounds on her hands from the prison labor have healed, and her gaunt face has rounded, the color having returned to her skin.

Constantine and his games, the mayor had said. And it’s true. This is him toying with his prey, pulling these emotions out of me to train me into obedience. Perhaps even to love him, like one of his citizens.

I look around, searching for a way I could spirit my mother out of here and to safety. But Constantine has warned me of this. I am always watching you, he told me. Even if I cannot see them, I know there are hidden soldiers in the trees and along the horizon, snipers on the roofs of the estate, their guns trained on my mother’s head. If I try something, they will shoot her dead. Even I, with all my Skyhunter enhancements and strength, cannot stop them all.

My mother smiles sadly at the look on my face. She knows that the luxury she gets to indulge in this month is solely because my obedience has pleased the Premier. And this time I can see, behind all this new luxury around her, the weight her eyes carry no matter what conditions she’s in. Her safety always comes at a cost.

Still, she brushes it away. “What?” she says, a teasing lilt in her voice. “You’ve never imagined your mother as a Basean noble?”

Genuine relief floods me. Being trapped in Cardinia, where no one else can understand Maran sign language, with only Constantine able to comprehend everything I want to say, with my emotions held back tight within my chest, has left me a hollow shell. But on these days, I can be with my mother. I can let my heart open a little and take her in.