Blackfeather Woods and then one day you find ten years have got behind you

This felt good, too, to have him curled up with her. Maegi stared at him for a long moment, at a loss for words. Finally, she looked down, swallowing. Everything was so pleasurably numb that the pain behind her voice wasn't there; it came out at once both flat and hollow, completely lifeless.

"My mother wanted me dead," she whispered, breath stirring up the dust. Little motes rose and fell, twinkling slightly in the dim light. "I wasn't supposed to be born--my father was her brother; it was wrong. She hated me. And I hated her, too."

Maegi stretched into him, pressing her head into the curve of his neck. She felt his pulse against her temple, gentle and steady. Slow. "When we were pups, all she did was lay around, in a daze. She had poppies, like us," she explained, words growing longer, more slurred. "All day, in a daze. She didn't want her children, and we barely needed her.

"It's weird, Mou," she sighed. "I hate her more than almost anyone--but I want to be like her, too. She was a great priestess, great with plants. And here I am, high on poppies, good with plants, praying to the gods." She pulled back to stare into his eye, a bemused smile blooming over her face. "I'm her. I've turned into her. Why?"