The Heartwood color me in gold

Where Liffey had found relief, Lucy could find only despair. She was frustrated that she didn’t even know how significant it was to cross paths with the slate-coated female. She didn’t know that they were from the same litter – though she could very well venture a guess. The dark girl was astounded that she had fought so hard against the idea of returning to her home, with their mother, and living out her days in the Caldera. That had been so long ago, though. Finley had searched for her when she had still been nothing more than a dark young pup, lost in the expanse of earth. Burning still from the feelings of abandonment, Lucy listened to her sister and swiveled only a single ear atop her crown.
 
Questions started to line up in her mind, unspoken, but ready to know some truth about her life and the family she had managed to leave behind. She looked at her sibling with an expression haunted by loss. The light blue of her eyes shot toward the earth as Liffey attempted to soften the confidence she had used with their mother. Lucy didn’t blame her; she had a better frame of reference for how great the Blackthorn matriarch had really been. The dark ghoul would never have known.
 
“How many are there? How many siblings?” she finally inquired.