This did not negate the fact that I suffered a loss of what I should have had…

But didn’t.

“I went swimming today,” I said softly.

Mother lifted her gaze.

“It was so beautiful, swimming with Jorie. Being in The Deep, transformed. Inhabiting a part of me I lived my life never knowing was of me,” I shared. “But I always wondered. About so many things that were me.”

“I didn’t know either, Silence.”

“I know,” I replied.

Hope filled her face.

“Since he has known me, he has barely left my side,” I told her.

“I have noticed your husband’s devotion, and am glad for it,” she said earnestly.

“I wasn’t talking about Mars. I was talking about Jorie,” I shared.

She flinched.

“A brother. A father,” I said.

“I did not know,” she stated miserably. “I thought he was naught but a Zee.”

“Well, Mother, I have, of late, had the occasion to meet many Zees here in Airen. They fought alongside Cassius and Elena in the Battle of the Heights. They lost people they loved in a cause that is just. They are also amusing and full of life. They are not ‘naught but Zees.’ But regardless, if they had been of him, they would have been my family.”

“You know your father can be—”

“He is not my father.”

She shook that off with an actual physical shake of her body.

“I have made some poor decisions,” she admitted.

“Do you think?” Jorie murmured.

I threw a look at him over my shoulder.

His expression, when he caught my look, returned a silent “What?”

“But I’ve always loved you,” she persevered.

I turned back to her and brought us full circle.

“Why did you come here, to Airen, to me? From what True says, you are now Mistress of the Arbor, not simply its Lady. And you are this until Mars and I make our second child and he or she is old enough to assume their title. You have means. You have freedom. This land is at war.”

“You are here,” she repeated.

“And you cannot be alone,” I said quietly. “You cannot fend for yourself. You cannot make decisions or keep your own company. You were willing to do anything to keep him so you would not have to do any of this. And now that he is gone, you need me.”

I shook my head, feeling many things I did not wish to feel.

Pity for my mother, which was something a child should not have unless that emotion was earned by something that was beyond their parent’s control.

Anger that I felt this pity.

And frustration, that she had come here, when all that was happening was happening, and in the midst of it, we could at any time have to face the Beast.

And she had come here so she could deliver the burden of herself on me.