I ran that night. Ran towards my mother. I don’t know how I knew where to run, but I never lost confidence in my direction. I ran through the night, till the bluedawn. I needed to get far enough away from LoPa to keep him from turning back.

  I knew my brothers would keep him from trying and a part of me died, knowing how I’d break his already fractured heart. His little Lu, disappearing in the night. More than that, running away from him. Running towards an oncoming dragon.

  If they survived and if they still live, they may think I died all that time ago. Either in the forest, lost and alone and cold, or from the dragon’s flames.

  It took me two nights and a day to get home. I never got lost. I just kept running, except for when I slept. I gave up on the rhythm of the day and just ran.

  I slept that first dawn, waking when the suns were high, then ran till night. Hungry and thirsty, I couldn’t sleep, so I walked. I walked through the night. And then I ran when the bluesun broke through the trees. So tired and dirty and hungry and thirsty.

  There was something in me. Something in the forest. Not the song of the forest mother told me about, but a different kind of music. Like my mother’s heartbeat became a tether between the two of us, showing me how to make it home. How to find her again. And I chased that sensation, that feeling. Like my mother haunted me, even though we both lived. It was her love. The power flowing from and through her. It left a trail of her in the forest.

  I burst through the trees and saw MotherTree, towering overhead. I nearly collapsed right there but swelled with new energy. I ran the long way back home.

  Mother practiced Mirtis Kardas and HoPa watched her from beside the fire. He was filling pots with cabbage to bury and ferment underground, as if he’d be there in winter to dig them back out. The suns were reaching the top of the sky, but winter clawed at the warmth of the forest. All the leaves scattered, blown into swirls in the air.

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  “Mother!” I ran to them, my voice rising with more power than I thought possible.

  She stopped midswing and turned to me. Her face erupted with emotion. She dropped her sword—the only time I’d ever see her be careless with it—and ran to me, scooping me up in her sweaty arms.

  “My moon, I was so worried!” She looked past me, expecting my brothers. LoPa.

  “Why didn’t you chase us? Why didn’t you stop him?” I pressed my face into her chest, wet with my tears and sweat.

  Mother held me at arm’s length and smiled sadly, “Your LoPa was doing what he thought was right. Just as First Mother is. Just as everyone is.” She looked past me again, scanning the distance.

  “I was scared. Scared I’d never see you again.”

  She pulled me into your arms. “I’ll always be with you.” She paused. The words held inside her—I knew what they were. I knew how she feared saying them aloud.

  “I ran away.”

  “LoPa and your brothers are gone.” Her voice was husky.

  “Why?” My whisper vibrated against the black curls behind her ear.

  She set me down and her eyes were so tired. So red. She said, “This is no place for men. Now come along, we need to wash you up!”

  I was filthy from sleeping in the dirt, running as fast as I could through the forest. Tiny cuts tore at my arms and legs from running through brush I didn’t recall. So caught up in getting home, I didn’t notice how the branches and thorns tore at me. My feet bled from whatever I had stepped on, and mother took extra care to wash them.

  When I was clean and back at the fire, HoPa massaged an unguent into my feet and torn up limbs. Then he began preparing dinner. At the same time, he was smoking a deer mother had killed the day before that would be ready the following day.

  I remember those final days we shared. My mother sitting always so still, listening for that ancient song of the forest to show her what waited for her. Looking for signs of the dragon that would come burn our lives down. Shake the foundation of our clan. I watched her, always. I clung to her body, to her stillness, to her power. And she was powerful. Like a storm raging inside her chest.

  And HoPa cared for us. He loved us. We were almost always touching, the three of us.

  We were waiting for the end, but we were together, and it kept us alive. Kept us from going mad with fear.