Ravensblood Forest and out in the woods lighting struck

How could a single word nearly bring her to her knees?

She stumbled forward, breathless, speechless, only a choked, Sakhmet, escaping her lips before she stopped dead, just shy of embracing her daughter. She was afraid, perhaps, of the girl—the woman—disappearing, slipping away within her embrace.

Wh—What has brought you here? she said incredulously instead, drinking in the sight of Sakhmet. Maegi couldn't get enough. So much the same, that blood-red fur and bone-white gaze, and yet. . .she was grown. She had changed.

But she was still Sakhmet.

Uh, Jakoul had told me, she continued, coming back to herself, suddenly aware that she had let a few heartbeats slip away silently lost in the moment, that you were far away. In a new place.

Safe. And Maegi had been glad for this. But this—!