On the way home from her evening classes, Anna Lott sampled numerous sweet and salty spices throughout the inner village markets and bought some of her favorites. She just finished teaching a lesson on the constellations to her nine-year-old students. The purple and blue skies reflected off the milky backdrop of clouds hurling towards the western horizon. She watched as a band of three stars blinked in synchronistic patterns. They grew bright then flattened, then bright once again before dimming down to little specks. It had been nearly two years since Anna had last seen Rayne. Today, the boy would have turned ten. The moons and the stars were aligned just like the night he was born. This significance revived painful memories of that terrible night when the Queen had died, but also the joy of when she and Indrid were young and when Rayne was home. They were the only happy thoughts that she carried nowadays. With Montague and Gretchen as their caretakers, she, Indrid, and Rayne were once a family. But that warm embrace had been broken. Anna missed her stepbrother more than she could have ever…show more content… She kneeled. “It’s been a long time since you’ve been gone and I still think about what it would be like if you were still here. I can’t seem to let go of the past. I’m not sure who I am anymore or where I belong. I’m even questioning my own beliefs.” She looked up to the night sky and thought about their God, Gabriel Volpi. “And where are you, Gabriel? Don’t you care about your own bloodline? Well? Why didn’t you protect Rayne and keep him safe?” She didn’t understand; how can a loving God neglect his own descendent? Maybe, the old woman from the day Alexandal had claimed throne was right. Perhaps Gabriel had forsaken them. “But then I ask myself, Rayne, what if you ran away and escaped? And it made me even more upset. Why wouldn’t you have come back for me? You wouldn’t just leave us. You would have come back for me,
