176 No Where Else to Turn Part 2

"OH? With?" She asked as the water on the fire began to warm. She felt the temperature again, it wasn't quite ready for the tea leaves.

"Mally was injured during the fight today. I need help to heal her." Kyera didn't bother dashing around the question. It would do nothing for either of their nerves.

"I see. You know I am not a healer. That was always your gift." Akira replied cooly, her eyes dancing with mischief. She was well aware of what she had that would help her daughter in this escapade. There were so few people she could ask, of course she came here. Akira felt a twinge of disappointment in her chest.

"I need you to lend me some spiritual energy. The Shadows have lent me all that I can command from myself. However, I need more to truly heal Mally. Her wounds are the worst from today's attack." Kyera replied coming to stand a few feet from her mother. There was a child like unsurety hidden by the desperateness of a woman out of options. The shame in her eyes was painful for both Kyera to feel and Akira to see. Very few people would realize this was a child asking her mother for help not a beggar asking for a hand out.

"I see. That...You do realize what it would mean for me to replenish your aura?" Akira asked raising a elegant eyebrow watching her daughter's eyes. The woman before her was so foreign, beautiful, with very few remnants of the little girl she had left sleeping so long ago. She never dreamed that night would be the last time she saw her sons, or it would be so long before she saw Kyera again. No matter how the body had changed however, those golden eyes still held the same soul as the child from years passed.

"Yes. I am aware. I can't express how much I did not want it to come to this, but it has." Kyera replied tense as the woman kept her eyes. There was sorrow in Akira's face, and it caught kyera off guard. The amount of emotion in those blue pools was disquieting. Was she imagining things, or did it look vaguely like regret?

"Alright, I suppose I can help, if you will do something with me." Akira replied, a idea sparking in her mind. She wanted to help, but if she could achieve something small from this it would make Kyera less suspicious.

"What's your price?" Kyera asked tensing as she waited. This was to be expected. Very few tigers would do such a lofty favor without something in return. Years had change the woman but not the heart.

"I want you to reveal yourself to the Empress Dowager." Akira replied and Kyera froze a growl ripping from her throat at her mother's words. That growl turning to dark laughter as she turned to face the door.

"Kyera, do not be so closed minded. You are my only child, the last thing I wish to see you you joining your brothers so soon." Akira chastised her gently, the pain in her voice nearly moving her daughter's heart. Kyera stopped, hesitating to walk on while her mother spoke. That break in motion was enough to give Akira hope. "You would not be breaking jungle law. The Empress Dowager has seen our kind before… she knows what I am." she persisted in explaining to Kyera. The shock on the child's face was enough to make her falter for but a moment before admitting the truth.

"She knows about your forms?" Kyera asked softly, her mind whirling with the possibilities of this news.