It leaped against my palm, beyond relieved to see Olive alive. As the days passed, and Matu hadn’t been able to find her, I’d presumed her dead. But there she stood, in the flesh, alive, breathing, her eyes trying to tell me something. Cris could hide his bare skin beneath the jacket, but he couldn’t conceal the bloodstained shirt or his tear-stained face. Mari said something to him I couldn’t hear through the roar in my ears. Olive hadn’t looked away from me, and I found myself trapped between being a princess and being a little sister. I didn’t know how to act, what to say, or where to stand so that I commanded the room. Those were lessons provided to men like Cris, who always dressed the part and knew what to say and how to say it. Olive broke the straining band between us by striding forward and grasping me in a tight embrace. “Echo.” Her voice came softly, and I squeezed my eyes closed and inhaled deeply.
