‘You were quiet when you came back. I should have known.’

There was silence for a few moments to weigh the option of a conciliatory gesture or a final imprecation under my breath. As there was no clear choice, I sagged into the sand further and rubbed my aching legs. ‘Yes. You’re angry, Dzivah can tell. But I couldn’t be sure at first that I was not hallucinating, and by the time I knew I was not dreaming, it seemed too remote, too ridiculous to even speak of.’

‘And yet we speak of it here, hundreds, thousands of footsteps away.’ He growls. I feel Drek’tal’s frustration. The Isles, ostensibly the home of my blood, seems a foreign and confusing place to end up now that I know very little of my own blood.
My sister ‘Laikah. Is she even mine? Papa, not mine? Mama?

The mon in the jungle knew far too much. His voice, tremulous through wood and smoke, spoke a history I couldn’t verify but could believe. He told me that he as my father. He told me that fate had put everything in place for me, to enable me to claim my birthright.

What rubbish! What madness! And yet his voice, his scent… whether a parent holds you in their arms or holds you accountable for your own actions, either way you feel you are a tiny, vulnerable, and insouciant creature with the horizon of your life stretching beyond their furrowed brow. And when he spoke my birth name, that feeling squeezed down on my chest and swaddled me in emotions I hadn’t felt for a long time. If blood is drawn to its own kind, then it explains everything. And if this is magicka, then it explains far more.

I need to be careful, and Drek’tal knows it.
We need leads. We need to know what has happened since we’ve been gone.

We must find Ohiska.