I suppose I should have been shocked that she knew about Varien but, to be honest, in the face of her presence it seemed a minor point. A thousand questions, a thousand blessings and curses and demands coursed through me. Why did you leave? Why have you not returned until this moment? Was I so terrible? Did you hate me? Did you love me?

"Why did you want to talk to me?" I managed to choke out. Ah, well, it wasn't the most pressing question, but it was a start.

She sighed. 'There is much I need to tell you."

"Is there, by all the Hells," I snarled. I hadn't meant to be angry with her. I could see her calling on every ounce of courage she possessed not to fly from me—but I swear, I felt possessed. The words that burst from me didn't even seem to be mine, at first. "Then why has it taken you twenty-four years to bloody well come out and say it! Goddess, Maran, was I so terrible you couldn't bear me even for a year?" And then it came out, the one thing behind all my bluster, the one thing every abandoned child needs to know with all her heart, no matter how great the fear of the answer.

"Why?" I demanded, my voice high and thin and not my own. "Why did you leave me?" Oddly, I seemed to be shaking, and my eyes stung. "Why didn't you ever come back?"

My mother lifted her chin, her eyes wintry, her face like car-ven stone. "Lanen, I swear to you, my soul to the Lady, I left you because I believed you to be in peril of your life."

"And was I?" I asked.

She shook her head, unable to speak, and finally whispered, "No. I was wrong. I didn't know it for years." She cleared her throat and managed to reclaim her voice, or most of it. "And even when I knew you were safe I didn't dare come back."

"Why not?" I demanded.

She smiled at me then, one corner of her mouth tilted up. "I was too bloody scared, what do you think? I know how I'd feel if I'd been abandoned."

"No you don't!" I shouted, my fists clenched. "No you bloody well don'tl"

I didn't know whether to laugh or be sick. It felt as though a dozen mice were quarrelling in my belly. I had longed for this day from the moment I had understood, as a small child, that I didn't have a mother like everyone else. Jamie had done what he could and I adored him, but—every girl needs her mother. I had mourned for her, longed for a mother's touch, been desperate for the wisdom of an older woman, so many, many times—and now here she was. Now, when I had faced death not once but several times, now I had grown strong and been wed and had children growing below my heart. I didn't know whether I wanted to throw myself in her arms or punch her in the nose, though if I am truthful the latter was the stronger impulse.

She nodded. "No, you're right. I don't."

"Its terrible!" I shouted passionately, shaking my fists in her face, my whole body shaking with the terrible release. "Unloved, unwanted, abandoned—with only Jamie to look after me, and Hadron who hated me left to bring me up. How could you just walk away from your daughter?"

"Because I was young and stupid and I thought I was saving your life," she replied sternly. "Lanen, I can't change what has been or deny that I have been a fool and a coward—but I was hoping we might start again."

"You're too damned late!" I shouted, my voice soaring as years of hurt tore through me. Here I thought I'd got it out of my soul long since, the more fool I. "You're twenty years too late! Where were you? Why didn't you come before now?" I demanded. "Why did you leave me there, my whole life there at Hadronsstead, with that man? It was terrible! I thought Hadron was my fatherl He hated me, and for years I thought I was evil and twisted because I couldn't bear him either."

"Lanen—" she began, but I was fairly started now and I couldn't stop.

"He kept saying I was too tall and too like a man and not fit for anything or anyone!" I watched as my words struck her like so many daggers. Years upon years of that terrible loneliness poured over me afresh, and all the bitterness, all the years of desolation, came pouring out in an agonized flood—and she stood there like a rock in a stream and bore it. "I believed him. There was a time when I even thought of killing myself to get away,"

Damnation. I'd never admitted that to anyone. I'd barely admitted it to myself.

"If it hadn't been for Jamie I'd have gone mad years ago. Goddess, Maran, how could you leave Jamie to look after me? Did you ever love him as he loved you? Did you ever even think about him?" My throat caught, then, as I stood a handspan before her and shouted past the tightness. I wanted her to shout back, cry, rage, anything, but she just stood there and listened. "Eh, Maran? Did you ever think about me? Did you ever love me?"

She never moved.

"Damn you!" I screamed, and without thought I drew back and struck her as hard as I could across the face.

She took the blow without flinching. A distant, cool part of my mind took careful note that, whatever else she may be, she was bloody strong. "I deserved that, Lanen," she said. Her calmness was infuriating. I went to strike her again, anything to get a reaction, but this time she stepped in and caught my wrist in a grip of iron. And held it.

"Listen to me, Daughter," she said, keeping her voice low and as steady as she could. Her eyes were the hopeless grey of a winter sky, but they were sharp and focussed entirely on me. "I don't expect you to understand or approve or forgive what I did, but you will hear me." She was breathless, suddenly, and had to stop and just breathe. I wrenched my arm, trying to pull away. I might have been a child for all that her grip loosened.

"When I left you I was sure I was saving your life," she said finally. She closed her eyes just for an instant, swallowed, continued. "The demons had found me. Found us. I didn't learn that I was wrong for sixteen years."

"Demons?" I repeated, suddenly shaken. A memory from before memory came to me then: a bright room, dark fear with red eyes, a flash of silvery metal.

"Demons," said Maran, letting go my wrist. "Have you never wondered why you have that scar on your right shoulder?" She reached out and touched the exact spot. How in the Hells did she know that?

I shivered. "Jamie said I hurt myself when I was—tiny—" I said slowly.

"It's a demon scar, Lanen," she said, her face unreadable. "You weren't even a year old. They came for me. I had learned how to get rid of them, but that time—that time there were more of them, and they hurt you as well." For the first time her gaze left mine as she lived that moment again. I wondered, in a quiet part of my mind, how many times she had lived it over the years. "It was such a tiny scratch, but you cried so hard. I had to fight you even to cleanse it. By the time I was done I was shaking so badly I had to put you down lest I drop you."

I waited.

"I was younger than you are now, Lanen. I knew so little of life," she said, and for the first time she let her guard down a little. " I knew it was wrong to treat Jamie so, but—"

"Why did you, then?" I demanded.

She stared into my eyes, challenging me. "Life is not always black and white, Daughter. Sometimes we just have to find the shade of grey that we can live with. The sooner you learn that, the better." She frowned and looked away. "I thought the demons would take you and any who cared for you. My own life I never feared to risk, but I could not bear that they should hurt either of you, whom I"—she stopped and wrapped her arms about herself— "either of you, whom I loved."

"I see. You loved us," I mocked. "You loved us so much you abandoned us for twenty-four years."

Maran sighed, and in that moment her whole armour of self-control dropped away, leaving only a middle-aged woman with a weary heart. "Bloody stupid, isn't it? Hells, Lanen. I know I'm too late," she sighed. "I know I've done damn near everything wrong, but"—she caught my gaze again and said very quietly—"my soul to the Lady, Daughter, I loved you and Jamie so much that I murdered my own heart and left you. I could not bear to be your death."