Aurelia did not respond. She stared at her palm, at the lines there, at the space where her mother's hand had been.
"My queen..."
Still, she said nothing.
The first pale light of dawn showed beyond the ruined walls, the sky lightening in degrees that seemed to mock the night's drama with their gradualness. Aurelia finally spoke, her voice carrying the particular quiet of someone who had asked a question too many times and feared the answer.
"Vaelric said she would awaken." She did not turn. "If what my son told us is true...why did she disappear?"
No one answered. The silence had weight, texture, the particular quality of held breath.
She turned. Her eyes found Vera, held her with the intensity of someone who had learned to read faces for survival and found this one insufficiently opaque.
"If my mother's awakening has begun, why did she not resurrect? Why did she appear only as a spirit and then vanish?"
