Disclaimer: Tamora Pierce owns these characters. I do not.
Sarralyn stared at the trees swaying in the breeze. Her blue-gray eyes shone with tears. She was never to see her mother again.
She didn't know how Veralidaine Sarrasri died. Her mother journeyed to Carthak, and months after, Emperor Kaddar sent word back to Tortall that he had found her body.
The whole kingdom was in mourning, as Daine had been very important to King Jonathan. During the Immortals War, she convinced some of the animals to fight for King Jonathan and Tortall.
Numair was grief-stricken. He hadn't talked to his daughter or his son, Rikash, since their mother's death. Sarralyn wasn't sure how Rikash felt. She worried about her brother a lot; he was very different from the other children his age.
Sarralyn wiped the tears from her face. She wasn't going to cry; she shouldn't cry. Daine would be with the gods, and she would be happy. Why was that so hard for Sarralyn to accept?
Rikash came to sit next to her, his eyes cold. She instinctively moved to her left, away from her brother.
"Mother's dead." He said it as if he felt nothing.
Sarralyn looked at him incredulously. "Rikash, why aren't you sad?" she moved closer to him, putting an arm around him. "We're not going to see Mother again for a long time."
"We won't ever see her again," Rikash said dryly. Sarralyn winced at her brother's bluntness.
"That may be. But why aren't you sad?" Sarralyn stared her brother in the eyes.
Rikash met her gaze, stone-faced. "It's all her fault, the way Father is behaving. She didn't have to go to Carthak. She didn't have to die."
"Rikash, how would she know?" Sarralyn asked him.
A strong wind blew by, rustling the trees. Several leaves fell down. Rikash stared at the leaves on the ground.
Sarralyn raised her eyebrows, waiting for an answer. Rikash didn't look his sister in the eye.
"Sarralyn, I adored Mother. She was beautiful and loving. But she did not do us a favor by leaving us alone here." He shrugged.
The girl kissed her brother's head, running her fingers through his brown curls. "Rikash, she didn't know. She wouldn't have gone if she had known. She loved us too much."
Rikash nodded, looking up at his sister. "Sarralyn?"
"What is it?" she replied.
"You'll make a great mother someday." He smiled warmly at her, and she hugged him.
Perhaps he wasn't so different from other boys; perhaps he was. But either way, he was a wonderful brother.
She didn't know how her family could live without Daine. But for now, she enjoyed her brother's company, knowing that somehow they would manage. Someday Father would accept Mother's death.
Things would sort out in time.