Sunspire Mountains she slipped the lock, and changed her dress

Tiercel did her best to hide everything, but Wylla wasn't stupid. She didn't know the nature of the change—the truth would've turned her stomach inside out—but she could smell it. Something was significantly different about Tiercel. She entertained the delusional notion of drawing her eldest daughter into an embrace, to ask what was wrong, but that was shattered by the way Tiercel shied away from her and unleashed her vitriol.

Once upon a time, Wylla would've snapped at Tiercel for being impertinent. Their relationship had never been particularly healthy. Now, she didn't have the strength to feel anything but the cold wash of hurt at being rejected. She misunderstood the hatred in her daughter's voice as being levelled at her. Hadn't Tiercel left her?

You don't get to be dead, she said flatly, eyes narrowed with the hurt of her daughter's words. She couldn't stoke even a single ember to mock Tiercel for the ridiculousness of her statements. Did she think by shedding her name, she shed who she was? That wasn't how life worked. If it was, Wylla would've changed hers long ago, but changing her name wouldn't erase what came before. That was true for Tiercel as well, and if she had any of her usual energy, she would've been offended that the name she'd christened her accidental first child with was thrown aside. But her energy was spent. She was a husk without an argument to offer.

Tiercel remarked on the mountains. Wylla agreed, but didn't know how to forge a connection that way. Instead, she fumbled with her tongue a moment before quietly asked, where did you go? If Tiercel thought her worry was a waste, then she wouldn't reiterate it, but it was still there, layered between hurt and relief and confusion and the cracked, smouldering ruin of the anger that had always ruled her before.