Kaelen looked at her daughter. TeSys looked back, her eyes still smiling that impossible, tired smile.
They were not blue. They were not brown. They were the color of the cracked purple sky—deep and bruised and filled with light that had no source. She looked at Kaelen, then at Dorn, then at the midwives cowering in the shadows. And she smiled. Not the reflexive, gummy smile of an infant. A knowing smile. A tired smile. The smile of someone who had already seen the ending and had come anyway. tesys birth story
It was a question.