I don’t remember removing the helmet, but it had vanished when I found myself in my mother’s arms. She smoothed my hair and kissed my forehead. “I love you,” she whispered. “I have always loved you. I loved you when you burned your harp on the Blight’s edge and prayed for me to guide your path. I loved you when Valathea sacrificed herself to help you free S’arric’s soul. I loved you when you marched into Khorvesh, newborn baby in your arms, and demanded no woman would ever be sold to a man there again. And I loved you even more the first moment I held you in my arms, still bloody from your birth—and I screamed so hard no mage on this planet could hear for three days when I had to give you up. I love you enough to humble myself before my enemies so you might live.” She leaned away from me for just long enough to look me in the eyes. “But when all is done, when this is all over, I’m not going to lose. I’m not going to lose, because my daughter doesn’t lose.”

I wiped my eyes and sniffled, choking back an inelegant knot of phlegm. “Three days?”

Her smile turned mischievous. “They call it the Great Silence. They’ve never been able to figure out what caused it.”

“How … dramatic.”

She smiled. “I was in theater when I was younger.”

That made me laugh, even as I still cried. “Apparently, I was too, in another life. Seriously, you couldn’t put me in a body who can carry a tune? I can’t sing at all.”

“Sorry. You get that from me.”

“Of course. The Goddess of Magic can’t sing.” I wiped my eyes, aware I’d just killed myself from razarras poisoning unless Tya intervened. “So what now?”

Tya hugged me and kissed my forehead again. “Let’s go ahead with your plan. You wanted to do something about the metal and smoke here?”

“Yes.”

“I like that idea. Let’s do that together. Then how would you feel about letting your mother help you fight a dragon? Just us?”

I had to admit, I liked that idea rather a lot too.

Aeyan’arric played in the snow.

Tya and I stood on a mountainside in the Yoran mountains and watched the dragon below us cavort and roll in the snow like a cat with a feather, grinning and joyous. Except a cat playing doesn’t make mountains shake or leave giant grooves in granite rock faces. A cat doesn’t start an avalanche and then chase after it like it was a mouse.

She was so beautiful. The sun refracted off her scales, making a thousand rainbows, sparkling against the snow and ice—cold and perfect, winter manifested.

I tightened my grip around Khoreval and wished, just for a moment, that we didn’t have to do this.