“He was waiting by the door,” she said. “He let me back inside, and our lives continued as if I had never left. The women would visit often, helping me get ready for Isla. The man would come here at the end of the day, wave his greeting, then go into another room. He never touched me, but he cooked and cleaned. Each time the women were here, the man would be kind to them, too. I don’t know how to explain it. We spoke to each other in our own languages. I learned his words, and he learned mine. Once Isla came, he did everything so I would never have to lift a finger. The women trusted him, and I started to as well. Over time, I fell in love. I loved him.”

She closes her eyes, face contorted in pain. “The rest you can imagine. My shame stayed with me, but my desire to leave dwindled. Ten years is so long, Rowan.”

“That can’t be true,” I say. “What about after she was born? Why didn’t you go back? How … how can you live here? So far from the Heliana? I don’t understand.”

The older warrior looks away from me. “You are asking all the questions I’ve been asking myself for years. Having Isla so far from my mother and sisters … I started to lose the will to live. Thank the skies Isla turned out healthy. After she was born, I got an infection and nearly died. The first three months of my baby’s life, I could barely lift my arms enough to hold her.”

I grip my tea tighter. “Oh.”

“I’ve been telling myself I will go back,” Ellian goes on. “Someday. But being a mother has changed me. My courage isn’t gone. It’s different. What if I tried to leave and we were caught? They’d take me from her—or worse. Isla would be all alone. One good look into her eyes would reveal what she is.”

I fight the lump in my throat. Looking around the cabin, I look for signs of another person and come up empty. “Where is the man now?”

She pauses. “He died in an boating accident a few years ago.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, because that’s what I would normally say to someone sharing a painful memory—though it is strange to say it of a human.