“Oh, my darling girl,” she whispered into my hair. Her voice was everything I’d imagined my entire life.
Tears streamed down both of our faces as twenty-three years of grief came pouring out.
“Mira?” Thom had followed her over, confusion and impatience warring in his voice. “Mira, we don’t have time for you to heal every soul in distress?—”
“Shut up, Thom,” came a quiet voice from behind me. Violet had appeared again, coming to stand next to her brother.
My father looked at us, sobbing together. I saw the exact moment he realized who I was, as his eyes took in my dark hair, mybuild, the way I clung to his wife. His eyes snapped back and forth between our faces, noting all the shared features.
I released my mother and flung myself at my father. He put his hands up in time to catch me, his arms just as strong as I’d always dreamed. “Lexie? Is that really you?” he asked incredulously as I sobbed into his chest.
“Okay, okay, everyone get inside,” Violet said, pushing my father’s back.
I stepped back, my father reluctantly releasing me as the three of us stared at each other. My mother gently touched my arm, assuring herself that I was truly present.
“Inside!” Violet barked.
We jumped, but did as she said.
“Gods above. How did this even happen?” my father asked as all three of us squeezed together to sit on Violet’s cot.
I was in no condition to answer, and my mother was focused entirely on me. We now sat hand in hand, just staring at each other.
Violet shrugged. “Magic. Obviously.”
My father let out a frustrated sigh. “You seem very calm about this, Vi.”
She grinned, her teeth startlingly white in the pitch black. “I’ve had a whole, oh I don’t know, hour or so to get used to it. Catch up, Thom.”
With a few words, that I was sure were completely disjointed, I acquainted them with the details of where I was from and why I was here. Surprisingly, they accepted it even quicker than Violet had.
“Told you it was magic,” Violet said from the corner.
My father glared at her. My mother had said little during my babbling explanation, just somehow knew whenever I needed reassurance, squeezing my hand in those moments.
“But here’s my question,” Violet said, her voice carefully controlled. “I get why you don’t know me—I always expected to fall here.” She waved dismissively at my mother as she started to interrupt. “Mira, we’ve talked about this. I’ve always known where my end was. And I made peace with it long ago.”
“The prophecy doesn’t—” Mam started.
“You don’t know it like I do.” Her lips twisted wryly. Dismissing that subject, she turned back to me. “But why don’t you know them?”
The question hung in the air like a blade poised to fall. I couldn’t meet their eyes.
The silence that followed was deafening.
I watched my father’s face crumble, his shoulders sag. My mother’s hands, still in mine, began to shake. My parents looked at each other, and that one glance spoke volumes—shock at the realization that today was the day they would die. At the terrible unfairness of not being able to be there for their daughter. At the grief of never seeing that daughter grow up, of abandoning their child to a cruel world, filled with darkness, where the sun had disappeared. Tears formed in my father’s eyes as they broke contact with each other to look at me, their gazes drinking in my features the same way I had done to them earlier.
My mother faced me with desperate intensity. “Your first word was da-da. You used to fall asleep on his chest during storms.”
I swallowed the cry that wanted to burst through me.
“I cherished those moments,” my father added. “Tell me you’ve been happy,” he said urgently. “Tell me my mother took care of you. Kept you safe.”
I nodded, unable to speak through the lump in my throat.
My mother stroked a hand down my braid, smiling faintly through her tears. I felt rather than saw her joy at having this moment—the chance to see her daughter grown. See who she had become.
And finally, as they looked back at each other, I saw their love and partnership, combined with the resignation and acceptance of what they must do.
