“Allie will be as dutiful a wife as my uncle is a soldier,” Rain said. His neck was so stiff his head shook slightly as he talked.

“Have you talked about it with her,” Mama Mathers said. She leaned over to put her face in front of Rain’s. He closed his eyes. “Leaving?”

“We both know you don’t ever leave,” Rain said.

“Then where have you been, Rain?” she asked.

He couldn’t voice a response.

“Anyone who can’t answer my questions isn’t a soldier,” she said. “If I can’t get an answer when you’re right in front of me, I won’t breed you, either. We’ll take your mind and identity, or we’ll take your balls.”

“I’m weak,” Rain said. “I’ll be your soldier, but I need to figure that out first.”

“You’ve had a year.”

The words echoed Lee’s response to Love Lost.

“I’m going to kill the people who triggered alongside me. Hopefully, I can take their power.”

Her hand brushed his cheek.

“You have a time limit,” she said.

He nodded, stiff.

“I’ll be watching,” she said.

He nodded again.

There was only silence after that.

“May I go, mama?” he asked.

“Rain,” the voice came from the bed, even more ethereal and thin than it had been. He felt chills, hearing the voice. He felt the words worm into his head.

The bedsprings creaked as she stood, holding the pole to steady herself. He looked away. She only now stood from the bed.

“Rain,” she said. “Look at me.”

He resisted.

“I will have you killed if you do not,” she said.

He looked.

He’d only seen her leg and foot, and she’d jumped into his head, tactile, audible, present, impossible to ignore.

Now, seeing her in full, it was more pronounced, heavier, insofar as the frail woman could be ‘heavy’. Her hair was long, bleached silver, and frayed. Her face was thin enough that it appeared older.

It was worse.

“Why would you leave, when we haven’t talked?” she asked. “You’ve been standing there, talking to yourself.”

“Sorry, mama,” he said.

He knew how she worked, but he couldn’t ignore the apparition in situations like this, because ignoring her and having her turn out to be real was the sort of thing that got him killed.

“Everything I said to you before now, it came from within you. I saw and heard much of it,” she said.

He hated seeing her, hated hearing her. He hated knowing it was for real.

“You should know these things to be absolute truth, divine and malign both,” she said. “The fears, the promise you made.”

“Yes, mama,” he said.