My Second Chance Mate is a Barbarian (Sera and Fenris) novel Chapter 218

Lyra

"She knows you miss her, Lyra. She does not need to be told."

It was the answer I had been afraid of. My mother would have invented messages. She would have invented affection. She would have invented anything I wanted if Sera had asked enough for the invention to be needed. She did not invent anything tonight.

I drew in a breath.

"Does she still seem like Sera, Mama."

"What does that mean."

"I don't know what it means." I had to stop. "I have been trying to picture her for five weeks. Every time I try, I see her at fifteen at the breakfast table refusing the eggs. I know that's the wrong face. I just want to know what's right."

She set the cup on the side table.

Her hand had a small tremor as she set it down.

"Why do you keep asking about Sera, Lyra."

Her voice came out flatter than she meant it. I heard the moment she heard herself.

"Mama —"

"Sera is fine. Sera is — Sera. She does not need either of us anymore. She has what she wants. Can we please talk about something else."

The room went very quiet.

I sat with my hands on the edge of the bed and the air not quite reaching the bottom of my lungs.

Her mouth was a thin line. She was looking at the cup on the side table.

After a moment she closed her eyes.

"Lyra."

"I'm here."

"I'm sorry, baby." Her eyes opened, wet. "I'm tired. I did not mean that."

"I know."

"Come here."

I went.

She put her arm around my shoulders and pulled me sideways against her, and I let her, because she needed me to, and because under everything I needed her to also, and the two of us sat on the edge of her bed without saying anything for a long time.

The thing she had said about Sera was still in the room with us. She had said it the way a person delivers a verdict she has spent a long carriage ride reaching. She believed it. That was the part I would have to carry.

After a while she let go of my shoulders. She wiped her face with her sleeve, which she never did in front of company and almost never in front of me.

"Tell me something else," she said. "Tell me about the new horse your father bought. I heard him talking about it at the dock."

So I told her. I told her about the eastern trader father had got it from, who had charged him double because he could. I told her the horse had thrown three grooms in the first week and nobody could ride it. I told her about the rain two days ago, which had flooded the lower gardens. I told her small things in a quiet voice until her shoulders dropped by a fraction.

I did not ask about Sera again.

She let her head rest on top of mine after a while. I let her.

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