Twin Suns of Arterra

22

"They need our help."

"They're murderers!"

The anger on D'Hana's face fanned the rage I felt burning in my own chest. She was a good talker, was Valyn Harba. While I had been learning the awful truth from my sister, she had been filling their heads with propaganda.

D'Hana's dark eyes flashed. "You are blinded by your own agenda, Bana Riftkin." She spoke softly, but her words carried all the venom of a viper. "You have looked so long at nothing but the wrong you felt was done to you, that you can see nothing else, even when it is right in front of you."

"I see plenty." I tried to keep my own voice steady, but the result was a low growl.

"You see only the chance to absolve your own conscience."

A pulse of fire washed through my veins. "Be careful, D'Hana Tor."

Aaliyah laid a hand on D'Hana's arm, her fingers white against D'Hana's dark, shining skin. "Should we not weigh the thoughts of others as purposefully as we demand that they weigh ours?"

D'Hana narrowed her eyes, but after a pause gave a shallow nod.

I released the breath I hadn't realized I was holding. "You think I don't understand," I said, looking around at them, "but I do. I understand what drove them to the lengths they've gone. People were dying. Families. Children. Seeing harm come to a child will drive you to do many things you never thought yourself capable of."

D'Hana nodded in agreement, but I saw the watchful look in the eyes of each of the others. Thoris stroked at the braids of his beard. Aaliyah stood quietly, but the lines of her body resonated with a controlled tension. Blade leaned forward from where she sat, waiting to hear what came next, her stormy eyes filled with a dark anticipation. She had seen too much in her short lifetime to take anything at face value.

How I respected her for that.

"They were forced to leave their homes behind. Forced by something as stupid as a political agenda. Left to die by a government that couldn't care less. Of course I can understand why they took the path that they did, even if it meant starting again on a planet that was forbidden. I even understand why they made the choice to take a chance on losing their fragile grip on life to come back as renegades, breaking into the place they'd once called home."

I settled my gaze on Blade, staring into her eyes. She needed to understand this.

"I don't know how they came to suspect what the prisms could do for them, but I can see why they would make the choice, even if it meant breaking into people's homes and stealing their children. I can't fathom the kind of pain that would lead me to thinking it was all right to take someone so young from all they knew, from the arms of parents and siblings who loved them, offering them no choice or say in it."

At this, Blade looked down at her hands. Thoris closed his eyes. Even D'Hana inhaled deeply, her face somber as she let the breath out slowly.

"What I do know is that there are only thirty-four of those children still here."

Four sets of eyes came up, all of them startled. I left them to do the math on their own. Each might have a different understanding of how many prisms had been abducted, but all of them knew the number should be well above what it was.

"Camille told you this?"

I nodded.

"Where are the rest of them?" Thoris asked, confused.

I let the fullness of my anger fill me, using it to shield me against the flat brutal truth. "They're dead."

Chaos erupted in the small room. There were only five of us, but it sounded like a hive of angry bees.

"Enough!" Blade's shout brought silence. She turned to me. "Is there any chance she's wrong about this?"

I took my time answering, weighing it all in my head before heaving a deep sigh. "I can't rule out the possibility that they've kept something from Camille," I acknowledged, "although it seems unlikely with as deeply involved in their aid as she seems to be." I received a thoughtful nod from Aaliyah, but I knew the others needed to hear the rest of it. "And of course, she could be lying to me." The words tasted like ash in my mouth, but the truth was that this Camille was a stranger to me. She still looked like the sister I had known, but she had been apart from me nearly as many years as we had been together. "Although it seems contradictory that she would tell me something that would turn me so fully against them, when she was trying to convince me of their goodness."

Thoris frowned. "She doesn't want to leave?"

I shook my head. "None of them do. According to her, they all want to help." I couldn't keep the bitterness out of my voice. "The ones that live, anyway."

Thoris shook his head. "I feel anguish for their plight, but something rings afoul."

D'Hana tossed her hands. "How can we assign blame on people who were desperate to save their own children?"

"Because," I hissed, "they were willing to save them even if one child's life meant another child must die."

"So what do we do now?" I could hear the grim resignation in Blade's voice.

"What is it they want from us?" Thoris asked. "They must want something, else they'd have left us to die up on the mountain with the dragons."

The truth of his words seeped into my bones. He was right. They obviously wanted something from us. It wasn't the prisms. They already had those. So what was it?

"There is only one way to know for sure," Aaliyah said, lifting her brows. "Ask."

Blade nodded. "I think it's time we had a face-to-face with whoever is running the show here."

"That can be accommodated." I spun with the others to find Valyn standing in the open doorway, her expression neutral.