Olivia

Rocky's mate for the Agelaius clan legacy challenge. Rocky's first mate.

Come on, Rocky had said. You're no great beauty but neither am I. Olivia had a head full of thoughts, colors, things she never had words for and didn't try. She lived off in her own mind.

I have a duty to my line, Rocky said, and my whole family goes to the Windsinger eventually, but Grandmother Strand, she watches over us all, guides our line. I'm her heir. I have a duty to make another one.

She'd be a perfect mother, he said. She had grace, class, breeding, good genes. Their descendants would move up in the world. And the thing of it all was, she believed him. The thing of it was, Olivia loved him. The thing of it was, their children were perfect.

Nobody had thought to mention to Grandmother Strand that Olivia was born of the Light until it was much too late. This line was Wind's line. Olivia didn't qualify, and her perfect children were nothing.

She hasn't left. She won't. There's more to the clan than Grandmother Strand, and the Ladymother won't force her to go. Somebody has to watch over Olivia's children as they grow up, as they defy Grandmother Strand right here in her own lair. And there's art and light everywhere, even here. But she won't share it with Rocky again.