Twisted Slough a wind age

In some matters, she said, a vague reference to her standing among the Malkaria. She was valued, and that was enough for her. The cultural nuances were better left unsaid.

Dead, said she, automatic. But great in life. I was named for my father, whose name still holds great weight in some lands. The pain of her parents' deaths no longer stung. Worse was her mother's, whom she had known and loved in life, and the uncertainty of it. Thistle Cloud was not dead, but missing, but how could she have left while her sons still remained in the wilds? Surely she was dead. Ragna would rather she was dead than to think that her mother, stalwart and kind, had grown so cold as to abandon her children.