Hazel
My mother comes to my room at four in the afternoon and I already know what she is going to say before she opens her mouth.
I know because I have spent my entire life reading Rossana — reading the set of her shoulders, the quality of her composure, the particular way she holds herself when she is carrying a message she did not choose to carry. I know because I have been sitting in this room since this morning watching the palace operate around me and understanding, from the way people move through corridors and avoid looking at my door, that something has been decided.
She sits across from me.
She tells me.
I listen to all of it — Varder's words, the eastern territories, the two months minimum, the correction I am expected to make to Mira before I go — and I listen the way I always listen, which is completely, without showing anything, filing everything in the right place for later use.
When she finishes I look at her.
"He said this," I say. "Varder."
"Yes."
