“She was lost before I could show her what I had learned. What she would wish to know. She left this earth, she joined the veil, not knowing she could be proud of me.”

Chu stood at the flaps of the tent, apparently frozen by her words.

“And I lost you by—” she began to continue but interrupted herself as she had only the time to brace for impact before she was on her back on her pallet, Chu’s weight atop her. “Chu,” she wheezed, partly because of his weight, partly because, bearing it was so beloved by her, she could not process it.

“She speaks my name again,” he murmured, staring down at her and shifting so some of his weight was held in his forearms and his hands could frame her face.

“I—” she began.

“You did not lose me, I am right here,” he pointed out.

“I cannot—”

“You can.”

“We cannot—”

“We can and we will.”

Of a sudden, staring up into his eyes, feeling him there, the only thing in her world in that moment, the only thing beyond that moment, in weeks past and into a bleak future that she wanted most in her life—outside her mother’s return to this earth—something started happening deep within her.

The strength of it, the foreignness of it so frightened her, in a panic, she bucked against his weight and started to fight him, for he was there, and she could not fight it.

The unknown happening to her with Chu right there…right there…made her clumsy and inept, thus he quelled her struggles with laughable ease.

But Serena could not dwell on that.

It was overwhelming her, whatever “it” was.

And she feared she could not defeat it.

“Let it go,” Chu whispered in her ear right before she shoved her face in his throat and an excruciatingly painful sob wracked her entire body.

She was crying.

She had not cried in…

Goddess, even as a little girl, she did not cry.

With a hand cupping the back of her head, keeping her face against his skin, his other arm curled around her and he slid to the side, holding her tight to him as she wept.

And wept.

And wept.

Through her tears, she heard the tent flap open and she tensed.

But she needn’t have worried.

Chu adjusted, hiding her with his big body, even as she felt his neck twist to look to the opening.

“She mourns,” he murmured.

“I’ll come back,” Serena heard Elena say softly. “Erm, thank you for, um, seeing to her,” she finished awkwardly.

Chu made no reply.

Serena only knew Elena had retreated when he settled at her side and started stroking her back.

When she had a handle on her tears—not a firm one, but a handle—Chu said tenderly, “Your mother was proud of you.”

“I gave her no reason.”