Fireheart Tiger

by Aliette de Bodard

“Big sis, it’s your life. You go through it the way you want. You—” She stops then, starts again, “Your life doesn’t come with an obligation to make mine work.”

If love is what it takes to make her remember a girl in the midst of a fire, then how much can you trust her? How much can you trust that love?”

She says—because darkness needs to be faced, needs to be denied—“You would have given me so much, in exchange for me giving up everything.”