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shakes her head. “Maybe I’ve made everything worse. Now we’re back here.” She motions listlessly with her hand. “You’re just as much a slave to the pride. Only this time it’s worse. They’ll no longer treat you like you’re a great gift bestowed upon them. They’ll treat you like you’re some kind of malcontent.”
    “Mom?” My voice quavers a bit and I swallow. “What are you saying?”
    She looks up from the bear. “Don’t let them treat you like a whipped dog for the rest of your life. Follow their rules. Lay low. Get back on top. Do what you have to.”
    “You actually want to stay here? You want Tamra to stay here?”
    “Taking you to Chaparral . . . I was chasing a dream. Something that never existed. Not for you or even Tamra. She was destined to be a draki and I didn’t even know it.” She strangles on a laugh, presses her fingers to her lips to catch it. “And you—well, you’ve been trying to tell me all along that you can’t be anything but a draki. That you need to be here. I just didn’t want to hear it. I’m sorry, Jacinda.”
    I sit down beside my mother on the bed. She might have infuriated me in the past, but I can’t stand seeing her like this. I want her back. I miss her vibrancy. Miss her. “Don’t be sorry. Don’t ever be sorry for being a mother who loves her daughters so completely she would sacrifice everything for them.”
    I hold her hand, squeeze the cold fingers, and suddenly remember that she’s always cold here. Always shivering in the perpetual mists and winds. The same mist and wind that are home to me—that I lift my face to better feel and taste. She didn’t love it. Never had and never will. “We’ll figure out a way to live here. Happily. I’m not going to live with my head bowed and neither will you.”
    She gives me a wobbly smile and reminds me gently, “Your sister’s head isn’t bowed here anymore.”
    That’s true. Tamra’s on top now. And ironically, I’m not. At least not at the moment.
    Mom brushes my cheek with the back of her hand. “I lived here for your father. I can do it for my girls. It’s a small price to pay.” She sucks in a breath. “I loved your dad very much. But that love was nothing like how I felt after we were bonded. Something happens, changes when you’re bonded in that circle. It’s like we became connected. . . .” Her expression grows wistful. “Some days, I couldn’t tell my emotions from his.” Her amber gaze darkens. “Even that last day . . . I felt . . . I knew something was wrong before anyone told me. And I stayed here for so long, telling myself that the nothingness I felt wasn’t him dead. That he could still be alive out there, just out of my range so I couldn’t sense him anymore.”
    I watch her raptly. “Why did you never tell me this?” At least the part about feeling something was wrong with Dad that last day. Of course I knew that many bonded draki form a connection. Historically, dragons mated for life and the idea behind bonding stems from this ancient trait. For some draki couples it goes deeper. Apparently my parents had been one of them.
    She shrugs. “You were just a girl. I didn’t want you to know that I’d felt his . . . fear. His pain. I nearly passed out from it, Jacinda. I was afraid if I told you, you would think I’d felt his . . .”
    “Death,” I supply. My head aches, temples throbbing as I process this. Deep in my soul, I held hope that Dad lived. That he could be in captivity somewhere. I don’t know what to think anymore.
    She flinches but nods.
    “So why are you telling me now?” I demand. Mom had practically been in Dad’s head at the end . . . and she kept that to herself?
    “You need to know.” She tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “In case you ever bond with someone here.” My eyes widen, already guessing the direction she’s heading. And not believing it. She can’t be suggesting I bond with Cassian. “You’ll