Jade Fern Grove If only I had strength to change your mind

His niece and nephew? Their father was... Kove? The silence that had long been characteristic of her seemed to grab her tongue again, and she could only press out a strained and simple, "Yes," for she was related to Kove in the same way these new children were - and what did that mean for them? What did that mean for her?

And what did this mean now - that Blackfeather Woods - those heathens and child-killers - her father - that he was one of them? Or so Siarut led her to believe. And what she saw reflected here - Siarut and his sister leaving, towing the children in line. Her chest clutched with the pain of being torn in two - this was all too familiar - and her front legs quivered with the strain of holding down the emotion that suddenly overwhelmed her. She had always blamed herself for her family's separation, until she had blamed no one at all, as much as Kove had tried to shift her blame on him. She had never had a reason to -

And he was one of them. And now, his wife had left him just as Scarlett had left him before. He had always been kind to Nanook -

But she finally found her voice. "My mother left him too," she said and turned her gaze away. His children would again run fatherless, for no fault of their own - and for the first time, she considered that maybe her mother had been right. Maybe there was a reason she had left him, a very good one. For what did Nanook know about her father? The thought unsettled her, and made her want to protest no, no, no - but truly, she knew nothing apart from the ghost of his memory. And if Xan, a good man, had left him too... "Blackfeather Woods killed a child from Easthollow," she swallowed hard. Had Siarut been involved with that? But he was leaving now - perhaps for this - and when she returned her gaze, her eyes steeled with hurt and sorrow and the strength of her conviction. "Any wolf of Blackfeather is no kin of mine. He won't know where we have gone. Not by me."