“So?”
Ursula sighed, the hard smell of her impatience hitting me. She’d delivered her messages, done the requisite comforting, and was ready to be on her way.
“So, just that. Andi thinks our mother made each of us a doll and that we need them. She said to find yours.”
“Hard for a dead woman to make a doll.”
“I said the same thing, but I had a lot of time to think on the journey here.” Ursula turned her head and pinned me with a pointed look. “I remember now—her making it while she was pregnant with you. She spent months on it. Singing and talking to you. I know it’s a sorrow to you that you never knew her, and maybe I should have told you this before now, but she loved you and talked to you all the time. Maybe some part of you knows that, deep inside.”
“I don’t know that.” It hit me then, unexpectedly hard, and I sank to my knees, not feeling the warmth of the fire. I was all alone now, with no one to love me. Not my mother, not Hugh, not even Andi. The pain of them all mixed together and a high keening sound rose from my throat. The people of Avonlidgh might not cry out at the ravages of death, but I was a child of Mohraya, a daughter of Glorianna, and we do wail out our grief.
“Amelia . . .” Ursula put her hand on my shoulder.
“Just go. Leave me alone for a while.” I sounded like I was begging her. In fact, I was. I couldn’t bear for anyone to see me this way. So lost and broken. “Dulcinor can show you your rooms.”
Another person might have argued. Andi likely would have, as much as she hated my hysterics, but Ursula always respected someone’s desire to be alone. Without another word, she left, softly pulling the door to behind her.
I sat on the floor in front of the fire, my dry eyes baking while soothing tears remained in some distant, cutoff place. Alone.
KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by
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Copyright © 2014 by Jeffe Kennedy
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
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ISBN: 978-0-7582-9443-2
eISBN-13: 978-0-7582-9444-9
eISBN-10: 0-7582-9444-1
First Kensington Electronic Edition: June 2014
The Twelve Kingdoms: The Mark of the Tala Page 33