The smile came easily. Too easily.
Her lips curved into the same soft expression she had worn countless times as a girl—when Bridge scraped his knees and cried, when Kain came running back from the market with dirt all over his face, when the younger ones in the orphanage begged for a story before bed. A smile of warmth, of comfort, of reassurance.
But beneath it, her chest thudded with nerves. Her hands trembled slightly where they hung at her sides, and she dug her nails into her palms to keep them still.
Because Kain's grumbled thoughts about explaining for her were right.
It wasn't his responsibility to explain her presence.
It was hers.
And how exactly was she supposed to do that?
What story do I tell?
A thousand possibilities spun through her head even as she kept her eyes fixed on her long lost brother's stunned face.
