Wheeling Gull Isle I come, God, I come

heda had seen the shattering of her island and her family. she had seen the fracturing in her daughters, and now she watched spiderwebbing reach across the auras of her warring sons. one, a wounded boy made in the calm image of his father — the other a zealot as she had fed to him with her milk.
she heard the weight in simeon's voice, ears wilting when he spoke of her new inability. she heard the lash of fire in malakai's voice and felt it ignite something behind her tongue; a mustering; she straightened.
"kai."
her voice was weak, wavering; rusted as a hinge in a storm-battered door. raspy with salt and with grief. "you ... will die ... if you stay here .... alone." heda drew a long breath, not daring to glance toward simeon in case she saw anger, horror, anything else than the relief she hoped hearing her would bring him.
"you do ... not have to ... stay with me." and she lifted her chin sharply, hoping neither of them would interrupt her. "i will .... take you any ... where ... you want, kai."
better a boy raised miles from her than another boy dead, another piece of caracal stamped out of the world. another child for which she had wanted far better now gone due to her failures. a kid not allowed to grow into the man he wanted to be.
no more.