"How do you know my mother?" Circe asked.
Of all the forms the woman could have chosen, she had taken Thalora's face. There had to be a reason for that.
"I suppose you have more than earned an explanation," the woman said at last. "So I will give you one."
She rose to her feet, and it was as though the entire cave held its breath in anticipation. The shadows along the walls seemed to draw inward, the pool of water growing unnaturally still.
"Your mother is flesh of my flesh and blood of my blood," the woman continued. "The power that bound us together was stronger than the power holding this weak realm together. That is why her betrayal cut so deeply. Even thirty years later, the wound she left behind has barely healed."
She tilted her head, eyes bright with something sharp and ancient. " She was what humans would call a twin. But we were three, equal halves of the same soul."
