Her parents were busy almost continually in the Temple now, and she saw her mother only when she came home to rest, grey with weariness.
Several times Kyra tried to talk to her daughter, seeing her sullen and brooding face, but each time Deva managed to shut her out, and at last, too tired to fight any more, Kyra left the girl, thinking that the greatest service she could do for her would be to defeat Groth and bring Isar home to her.
‘As soon as we have something positive to tell her she will come round,’ Kyra told herself.
Although she loved Deva deeply, she knew, compared to Khu-ren and herself, and indeed to Isar, she had not evolved through so many lives, nor reached so fine an understanding of life’s mysteries.
* * * *
On the day of the Festival of Groth’s Mask Deva rose early a
