The dicine woman’s quarters looked bare without the herbs.
Seren stood in the doorway of her mother’s rooms, watching Marina pack the last of her supplies into a worn leather satchel. Dried lavender hung from the ceiling. Bundles of yarrow and comfrey lined the shelves. The sll of chamomile and sothing sharper; feverfew, maybe, lingered in the air.
"You don’t have to go," Seren said.
Marina didn’t look up. "I do."
"The palace has space. I could give you a larger room. Better equipnt. More assistants..."
"Seren." Marina finally turned. Her face was calm, but her eyes were wet. "I am proud of you. More proud than I ever thought I could be. But I am not a courtier. I am a healer. And there are people in the city who need more than the princes need another physician."
Seren stepped into the room. "It’s not about the princes. It’s about . I want you here."
Marina set down the satchel and crossed to her daughter. She took Seren’s face in her hands; hands that had delivered her into the world, hands that had treated kings and servants alike without distinction.
"You don’t need here," Marina said softly. "You haven’t needed for a long ti. That’s not a complaint. It’s a mother’s greatest hope."
Seren’s throat tightened. "I’ll always need you."
"Then visit. The city is not far. And I’m not dying, I’m just moving." Marina smiled. "Though I suspect I’ll see more of you than I did when I lived down the hall. You were always too busy being queen to visit your mother."
"I visited."
"Once a month. For tea. While your guards stood outside and your mates paced the corridor." Marina released her daughter’s face and returned to packing. "I love you. But I cannot breathe in this palace. Too many walls. Too many rules. Too many people who look at and see the queen’s mother rather than a healer."
Seren sank onto the edge of the bed. "Elowen offered you a position in the east. Kael wanted you to train the military healers. Aeron..."
"Aeron offered a title." Marina’s voice was dry. "Lady Marina of the Royal Apothecary. As if I care about titles."
"He ant well."
"They all an well. That’s not the problem." Marina closed her satchel and buckled it. "The problem is that I am a simple woman from simple stock. I spent twenty years being invisible so that I could survive. Watching you beco visible, beco *queen*..has been the greatest terror and joy of my life."
She picked up the satchel and faced Seren.
"But I need to be myself again. Not your mother. Not the queen’s advisor. Just Marina, who sets bones and brews teas and tells fools to stop getting injured in the sa stupid ways."
Seren laughed despite herself. "You always said that."
"Because it’s always true." Marina set down the satchel once more. "There’s sothing I want to give you. Before I go."
She walked to the small chest by her bed and opened it with a key she wore around her neck. Inside, wrapped in soft cloth, was a locket.
Marina held it out.
Seren took it. The tal was warm from her mother’s touch; silver, old, slightly tarnished. She pressed the clasp, and it opened.
Inside was a portrait. A child’s face, maybe five years old, with wild hair and a smile that showed missing teeth. The child was laughing at sothing outside the fra, her eyes bright with joy.
Seren’s breath caught. "Is that... ?"
"That’s you." Marina sat beside her on the bed. "Before you learned to be invisible. Before you learned that looking at a wolf in the eye could get you killed. Before you learned to make yourself small."
Seren traced the portrait with her fingertip. "I don’t rember being this happy."
"You were. Constantly. You used to chase butterflies in the garden. You used to sing while you helped sort herbs. You used to ask every stranger who passed if they wanted to be your friend." Marina’s voice cracked. "And then you grew up. And the world taught you that happiness was dangerous. That visibility was death."
"The world wasn’t wrong."
"The world was cruel." Marina took Seren’s hand. "I kept this locket to rember who you were before the fear. Because there were nights when I looked at the silent, careful woman you had beco, and I wondered if that laughing child still existed sowhere inside you."
Seren stared at the portrait. At herself. At the girl who had not yet learned to flinch.
"She’s still there," Marina said. "I see her sotis. When you’re with your mates.When you think no one is watching, and you let your guard down."
She closed Seren’s fingers around the locket.
"I’m giving this back to you so you can rember. Not the fear. Not the invisibility. *Her*. The girl who laughed at butterflies and sang off-key and wanted to be everyone’s friend. She’s still you. She always was."
Seren’s tears fell onto the silver. "Mother..."
"Don’t cry. You’ll make cry, and I have to walk through the city looking dignified." Marina wiped her own eyes with the back of her hand. "Just promise sothing."
"Anything."
"Don’t lose her. The girl in the locket. Don’t let the crown, the politics, the conspiracies...don’t let any of it grind her down." Marina gripped her daughter’s hands. "You are a queen now. But you are also Seren. The sa Seren who used to hide under my herb table and pretend to be a forest spirit. That girl deserves to live."
Seren threw her arms around her mother. They held each other for a long mont, neither speaking, both crying.
.
.
.
The palace gates lood behind them. Marina’s cart waited with her supplies, a single horse stamping impatiently.
Kael had offered an escort. Marina had refused. "I’m a healer. No one bothers healers."
Now, at the threshold, mother and daughter stood facing each other.
"Write to ," Seren said.
"I’ll send word when the clinic is open. You can visit. Bring your mates. I’ll make them drink my worst-tasting redies."
Seren laughed. "They deserve it."
Marina hugged her one last ti. Then she climbed onto the cart and took the reins.
"Seren."
"Yes?"
Marina looked at her daughter: queen, mate, wolf, woman and smiled.
"Be happy. That’s all I ever wanted for you. Not power. Not safety. Just happiness."
She flicked the reins, and the cart rolled forward.
Seren stood at the gates, the locket warm against her chest, and watched until her mother disappeared around the bend.
.
.
.
That night, she showed the locket to the triplets.
Kael held it carefully, as if it might break. "You were adorable."
"I was missing teeth."
"Adorable," he repeated.
Theron examined the portrait. "You’re still her, you know. The girl who laughs at things she shouldn’t and sings off-key and wants everyone to be her friend."
Seren blushed. "I do not sing off-key."
"You definitely do." He kissed her cheek. "It’s charming."
Aeron took the locket last. He studied the portrait in silence. Then he fastened the chain around Seren’s neck himself, his fingers brushing her skin.
"Your mother was right," he said quietly. "Don’t lose her. The world will try to take that girl from you. We won’t let it."
Seren touched the locket. The silver was warm from her skin now, not from her mother’s keeping. It had beco hers.
Seren looked at her mates. At the bond that bound them. At the kingdom they were building, piece by painful piece.
She thought of her mother, driving her cart toward the city, toward a new life of her own making.
She thought of the girl in the locket, laughing at butterflies.
She touched the silver again.
*I rember you,* she told that girl. *I won’t forget again.*
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