Jake's fingers stilled on the cigarette. He turned his head slightly, enough to meet her gaze.
"Can you tell me about her?"
It was the first time he showed interest and wanted to learn from her.
"I raised her," Drauni said. There was no sentimentality in the words, only the dry precision of long memory.
"She was the most rebellious of my daughters. Even as a child she questioned every rule we set. When the elders spoke of purity of blood and the necessity of marrying inside the line, she listened with the same quiet defiance she later used to leave. She believed the clan had sealed itself into a slow death. She said it to my face more than once."
Drauni's eyes drifted toward the open side of the pagoda, as though she could still see the younger version of her daughter standing there.
