As she scoured the deepest recesses of her mind, Rinka and her spear streaked through the air. Memories of her ailing mother welled to the surface. [That's just the way he is,] she'd told Rinka, attempting to explain her father's absence. Rinka thrust her spear again, as if skewering the black pit of solitude that swelled within her. What had her father, a peerless warrior, been searching for? And that's when she realized the truth: She had been chasing her father's shadow all along. She was, in the end, just a lonely little girl.