Strange how the S’danzo Sight worked. It rarely focused on the self, family, or loved ones but brought the abstract, the uncared-for, into clarity. Illyra did not love-would not allow herself to care for-this not- daughter they called Trevya and so the infant flashed constantly in her mind’s eye where the Seeing visions grew.
Had not Trevya’s legs been crippled in the prolonged birthing that had claimed her blood-mother’s life? Had not Illyra Seen, superimposed over every other vision she commanded, a construct of baleen and leather guiding the infant’s soft bones into a healthy alignment? Had not Dubro made such a brace, following her precise instructions, and was not that twisted little leg already growing straighter as the Sight had foretold?
Illyra had wrought a miracle for Trevya, who was not her daughter and whom she did not love. She had given Trevya freedom and built an unyielding trap for herself. Hot tears squeezed out from her eyes and puddled in the crook of Dubro’s arm. The young woman who had once been a mother prayed that they would not awaken him and waited the long hours until dawn when she would be released.
This not-daughter consumed more of Dubro and Illyra’s time and money than their own children had, for they kept Trevya with them in the Bazaar rather than send her behind the fortress walls of the Aphrodi- sia House where working merchants often kept their precious children. So they had had to hire a wet nurse, a woman-scarcely more than a child herself-whose baby had been stillborn and who had come to live with them alongside Dubro’s forge. But there wasn’t enough room for them, Trevya and the waiflike Suyan, so they’d hired workmen to make their home larger. And, of course, Suyan must have food, and clothes, and medicine when she grew sick.