Tears were rolling down her cousin’s face, gleaming in the sunshine. Asterin closed her eyes and whispered into the wind. “She was stillborn. I waited to hear that cry of triumph, but there was only silence. Silence, and then your grandmother …” She opened her eyes. “Your grandmother struck me. She beat me. Again and again. All I wanted was to see my witchling, and she ordered them to have her burned instead. She refused to let me see her. I was a disgrace to every witch who had come before me; I was to blame for a defective witchling; I had dishonored the Blackbeaks; I had disappointed her.
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