Ciara was happy to get into some clothing that wasn’t soaking wet from the storm outside, though she would have happily stayed under the covers too. But this was far more proper. It had been a long time since she’d seen any fabric as elegant as the lavender gown was, and she couldn’t stop her hands from roaming over her body in it. With a less-that-crtical eye, she looked over herself with a smile before looking back at her king and the forlorn look on his face. She was awash with confusion over the shift in mood, and stepped closer to him just as he stepped away.

The words that fell from his mouth then were like ghosts, and it took quite a few repetitions in her head for Ciara to comprehend what Arthur had said. What the words meant. Lilith was gone? Like dead and gone? The smile that had lingered despite Arthur’s own unhappiness finally slid away and Ciara found herself looking out the window toward where the Shady Labyrinth had once stood. It was in ruins now, the warm days as a giant, combined family long since faded, and now it seemed, the musketeers were fading away too.

Her heart twisted like some old rag as Arthur continued, a story about her sort-of father and ice, of armies and dying children, and all Ciara wanted was to hug her friend. She hadn’t been there for him when he had needed her. She’d been off doing nothing for anyone all alone in an abandoned world. And life was crumbling for everyone she cared for. Then guilt turned to anger: at herself, at Shaman as a whole, but quite a bit at Lilith, who had been so possessive of Arthur in the past and had left him broken with no one to pick up the pieces. No one deserved what she had done to him and Arthur’s pat on the mattress was the catalyst Ciara was waiting for.

In barely a step, she was beside him and her arms wrapped around him. Tears for him, for his son, were already forming in her eyes before he gave her her own bad news. Damon was gone. Her home was gone. What did that say about… her children. Some part of Ciara had forgotten she had every had any child that wasn’t Nalani. Perhaps it was memory repression because of the events that led to her departure, but more likely, it was Ciara’s inability to cope with knowing that she left her son and daughter to the world just as she had been left. Only, she’d had a family to fall back on.

Her arms tightened around the king and her eyes closed as Ciara thought about the past. She had returned to Shaman because she believed she was ready to face exactly that. But it was one thing to ignore the past when there were no reminders, and quite another to be completely over everything and everyone that had touched one’s life when their memories were everywhere. Or, perhaps, used to be everywhere, since the Lagoon had obviously stolen Ciara’s heart when it vanished with Damon. And the news that Aura too had left Shaman to its own devices was just salt on the wound. She had always been around to help the shamanites when life was threatening to overwhelm the small world. .

When the king asked his question, Ciara let her arms fall from around his broad shoulders and cross over her chest instead. Her legs too, pulled up underneath her body. How long she sat there, thinking, remembering as she stared out the window could have been seconds, or minutes, but it was certainly a pregnant pause before Ciara felt she could answer for certain. “I’m not sure we all ever were. Happier, perhaps, than now. Than this. But I don’t know… there was always some cloud I guess.”

Drawing a deep breath, Ciara pulled away the darkness from her mind and the sadness that was haunting the lines on her face, replacing it with a smile. She was home and she wasn’t going to dwell on what she couldn’t change. She was trying to change her old habits of caring overly much about the past and, even if it meant suppressing the emotions inside her, she would be happy. This was a reunion, damn it. “No. No, Arthur, I want to be happy to be back. I don’t want to think about the bad times. I want to be happy. I want you to be happy. So what now?”