The next time, her hands were small.
She sat beside her mother beneath a flowering tree while someone tried to untangle a ribbon from her hair.
"You've made it worse."
"Then sit still."
Kali reached up impatiently. For an instant, she expected silk to emerge from her fingers, but nothing happened.
Her mother caught her hand and laughed.
"Let me."
Petals drifted into her lap.
She watched them fall with a peculiar unease, as though something immense had passed while she was not looking.
In that life, the river had changed its course.
The old city stood several miles from the water, its abandoned quays overgrown with grass. People quarried stone from its walls to build homes among the orchards.
Children climbed over the broken bridge.
Kali was one of them.
