Chapter 132

"Are you afraid of me?"

Mother's eyes are wide and frozen in perpetual torture. Her hand still loosely grips the athame she used to end her friend's life and her own. Their fingers are entwined tightly together…

The only touch I ever knew from those hands was a slap across my cheek. I never came close to her often-she and I chose to keep our distance.

"Stop," Asena sobs as she shuts Mother's eyes and hides that awful expression she wears even in death. "Just...just leave her be, Kaltain."

It comes of no revelation that my sister would stay so protective of the woman who gave birth to us-even after she chose to leave us for The Moon. Asena is just like her...and Cecily sensed it. Asena had been the only one she would talk to-the only one of us who knew the

tenderness of Mother's hand.

My sister looks nothing like us either. My two other sisters and inherited our complexions and features from Orion. But Asena is the only one who took after Mother-her stature, her appearance...even her v