When I could finally breathe normally without crying, I leaned back and Caspian wiped my cheeks, ''Did you have a bad dream?''
I shook my head, ''I read the diary and letters,'' I answered as I sniffed, ''My mom wasn't my mom, my real mother died giving birth to me.''
''Oh,'' He said sadly, as he pulled me back into my arms, ''I'm so sorry.''
His heartbeat thudded against my ear, steady and deep, a counterpoint to the trembling in my limbs. I clung to him, fingers knotting in the soft linen of his shirt, as if he were an anchor in a storm I hadn't known was coming. I had no right to feel betrayed. The woman who raised me, she was my mother. She had loved me, raised me, soothed my fevers and taught me how to braid my hair. But it wasn't that love that ached. It was the lie. The absence.
