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As I tied up Ember’s hair in tattered ribbons, I felt a sudden surge of guilt that I had no new ribbons to provide my child. The girls had escaped the flood caused by my magic with nothing but the clothes on their backs. If it hadn’t been for our stroke of good fortune at finding Ash and Finn’s untouched supplies on Thesan, we would’ve been a lot worse off. And then there was the issue with Ember’s doll. No doubt it had been swept away in the flood and was buried under mud and debris. After we survived this war, I would do whatever it took to ensure my children had pretty dresses and new toys, along with all my love and attention. I refused to let them grow up in impoverished misery, for as more memories returned, I recollected that Shiri and I went to bed many nights with hollow stomachs and tattered stockings.
I grew a fresh patch of flowers for the rabbits, then Shiri and I laid back on a blanket, watching as the girls collected stones along the embankment.
“I had a memory of doing something like this,” I said to my sister. “We were bathing in a pond. Mother was with us.”
Shiri hugged her knees to her chest, wearing my spare dress after washing hers. “We used to take the girls to bathe every evening in the spring.”
“It was a lot like this one,” I said, motioning to a stair-step waterfall that gently cascaded into the pond. “With a little stream running through it.”
She gave me an appreciative smile. “It was.”
I watched Aurora skip a stone across the pond with practiced ease while Ember busied herself searching out the best stones for her sister. I wondered who’d taught Aurora to skip stones. Shiri? One of Shiri’s mates? I’d missed so many milestones with my children thanks to my foolish parents.
I grimaced when Aurora cleaned a muddy stone on her frock.
“Wash the stone in the water,” Shiri gently reprimanded. “You don’t have any spare frocks.”
Aurora turned to her with a frown. “Yes, Auntie.” Then she gave me a wary look. “Sorry, Mommy.”
I flinched at that. Was my child expecting me to yell at her?
I forced a smile. “It’s alright, dearest.”
A memory suddenly hit me of a much younger Aurora with chubby cheeks and chin-length hair getting dirty after I’d bathed her in a pond. I’d scolded her, and then Shiri had scolded me.
I released a slow breath while casting my sister a side-eyed look. “I think I remember Aurora getting dirty after I’d dressed her.”
Shiri smoothed her hands down her skirts. “You used to get so frustrated.”
I wished there was a rock big enough for me to crawl under. “I wasn’t a patient mother, was I?”
She gave me a pitying look. “You were depressed.”
Ember dropped a rock into her frock pocket and plopped on my knee, batting thick lashes. “Why were you sad, Mommy?”
I wiped a smudge of mud off her cheek. “Because I thought your fathers were dead.”
“Why?” she pressed.
I breathed out a long, shaky breath as I was assailed by the memory of escaping the carnage with my father, the screams and smoke that filled the air, and we’d run like cowards. If only my white magic had come in then; I could’ve saved the town of Lupine. “Because King Fachnan sent his dragon army to destroy the entire shifter kingdom.”
Ember gasped while Aurora leaned against my other knee. “Did Radnor kill the shifters, too?”
“No.” I brushed dirt from her frock. “He and Helian saved your fathers and flew them to Thesan.” I looked from one child to the other. “I didn’t know this at the time. I thought your fathers had been killed.”
Aurora’s brow creased. “That’s why our other pappo had a melted face.”
“You’ve seen your other pappo?” I asked. King Adrean had been one of the few survivors, and, yes, his face did look like a melted ball of wax, though I’d offered to heal it. I had vague memories of him discovering my strengthening magic and then recruiting me for his rebel army.
“Yeah,” Ember said with a pout. “I gave him Bethamy Number One.”
When I gave my sister a questioning look, she answered. “We stayed at Ulula one night.”
I tilted my head. “Ulula?”
“The shifter stronghold in Windhaven,” she answered. “It’s where the surviving shifters went.”
I wracked my memories, though I didn’t remember a shifter stronghold. I wondered if it had been created after my parents had sent me with Thorin.
