“After we escaped Father, Mama spent years trying to find you.”

Corvin’s throat tightened.

“Why didn’t she?”

“Father kept moving you. Fort towns. Mining camps. Ranches. Every time someone heard something, you’d already gone.”

“After he died?”

“We didn’t know.”

Corvin nodded.

Fair.

Mara continued.

“Six months ago, Mama met a trader who mentioned the Torne brand. He had bought a horse from a ranch south of the north pass.”

“My horse?”

“A black gelding.”

“Bishop.”

“He remembered the brand.”

Corvin leaned forward.

“So she sent Sena.”

“Yes.”

“Then where is Mama?”

Mara looked toward the door.

“Close.”

Corvin stood.

“How close?”

No one answered.

He suddenly became furious.

“Enough mysteries.”

Mara rose.

“Please.”

“No. I’ve spent thirty-four years living inside someone else’s lie. If Mama is alive, tell me where she is.”

Sena quietly opened the door.

Cold night air entered.

Outside, the elder stood beside someone Corvin had not seen before.

A very old woman.

She was small.

Far smaller than Sena.

A wool blanket covered her shoulders.

Her hair was almost entirely silver.

She leaned heavily on a wooden cane.

Corvin stopped breathing.

The woman stepped into the lamplight.

Her face had changed beyond recognition.

Time had narrowed it.

Wrinkled it.

Weathered it.

But her eyes—

Corvin remembered those eyes.

He remembered them looking down at him while she sang beside a cooking fire.

He remembered them filled with tears the night before everything disappeared.

He remembered one hand brushing hair from his forehead.

The old woman whispered something.

Mara translated unnecessarily.

“Cory.”

Corvin made a sound he had never made before.

Half sob.

Half gasp.

His mother dropped the cane.

He crossed the yard.

Elena Torne reached for her son.

And thirty-four stolen years collapsed between them.

“Mama.”

She touched his face.

Again.

Again.

As if sight wasn’t enough.

As if she needed her fingertips to prove he was real.

Then she pulled his forehead against hers.

Corvin closed his eyes.

He was eight years old again.

No ranch.

No rifle.

No dead father.

No lonely decades.

Just his mother’s hands.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

Elena shook her head fiercely.

“Mama, I’m sorry I didn’t look—”

She pressed two fingers against his lips.

“No.”

Her English was faint but clear.

“He lied to you.”

Then she said the words Corvin had needed all his life without knowing it.

“You were a child.”

Corvin wept.

He did not hide it.

Not from Sena.

Not from Mara.

Not from three hundred warriors.

Not from God.

He simply held his mother until neither of them had strength left to stand.

Two days later territorial officers arrived.

Not because Pike had summoned them.

Because Corvin had.

He handed over his ledger.

Silas’s confession.

The original land papers.

The names of Pike’s armed men.

And Pike himself.

The investigation would last months.

Trials might take years.

Corvin didn’t care.

He had spent enough of his life waiting for other men to determine what truth was allowed to exist.