“So your cyonic,” Jace said, “It lets you wield dark aether? That’s it?”
“Isn’t that enough?” Fehn asked.
“Well, if you pulled an arrow out of your shoulder and didn’t bleed out, we’ll have to assume it gives you superior healing ability as well. That scab solidified a lot darker than human blood for sure.”
“I don’t pretend to know the specifics of what the Sinosian raiders did to me.” Fehn looked pointedly at Shy. “I wasn’t exactly a volunteer.”
“But Rokkir wield the dark aether, not raiders,” Tayel said. “It doesn’t make sense that they’re the ones who built it.”
Shy made a pained expression. “Actually, it might. The Rokkir are clearly working with my father, so our organization having access to dark aether is reasonable. What I don’t understand is why they’d build a cyonic that wields dark aether. And why would they install it in Fehn? Raider troops in Rokkir armies don’t use the stuff, right?” She met Tayel’s eyes.
“No,” Tayel said.
“It’s powerful,” said Jace. “Maybe your father was trying to make soldiers to fight back and protect his people.”
“Or maybe he was doing research for the Rokkir,” Fehn said.
“Listen,” Shy said. “You’re right. And I can’t apologize for what — for what you say we did to you.”
“Nice,” he muttered.
“But for what it’s worth, I agree with my brother. What’s been done to you is horrible, and if my father is responsible as you say, we’ll find some way to make it right.”
“That’s cute, but I’m not going to find justice in your organization. Raiders are the ones working with the Rokkir.”
“My father is the one working with the Rokkir. Not all of us — not voluntarily. The people who side with the Rokkir are being indoctrinated. Tayel, tell him.”
Shy’d turned over a new leaf, calling on Tayel for all this verbal backup, but Tayel didn’t know why the raiders worked with Rokkir. Unless… She remembered the refugees. The way they marched. The way they responded to orders.
“You think whatever they did to those refugees, they did to the raiders, too?” she asked.
“Yes. I think my father made some agreement with them — sold our men off in return for something. I will get to the bottom of it, and I will end it. Fehn.” Shy stared at him, her eyes softer than Tayel had ever seen them. “My people are not agreeing to this. I want answers, too.”
“It’s all true, Fehn,” Jace said. “I saw the Rokkir turn helpless refugees into obedient soldiers. Servants, at the very least.”
Fehn’s shoulders tensed. “I don’t want whatever justice you have in mind, princess. I don’t want money or revenge or raider slaves or anything.”
“Well what do you want?” Shy asked.
“For this invasion of my privacy to end.”
Tayel grimaced. She lowered her head. Maybe they’d dug a little too deep.
Shy shrugged. “Fine. Since we’re done, you should all get some rest. There are two small rooms in back if any of you care for cots over steel floors.”
She turned on her heels and marched toward the cockpit without another word. Fehn stomped the opposite direction, toward the rooms she’d indicated, and that left Tayel alone with Jace and a bad taste in her mouth.
“Do you think we pushed him too hard?” she asked.
“Shy shouldn’t have pulled a gun on him,” Jace whispered. “And he obviously didn’t want us knowing this.”
“But it was safer to ask, wasn’t it?”
“I’m not sure.”
She sighed. “I guess someone should check on him.”
“What? Do you think that’s a good idea?”
“In this case, yeah.”
He rose his eye ridges at her.
“Don’t worry. I’ll talk to him. You don’t have to.”
“Maybe you should give him some space, Tayel.”
“What happened to ‘I always do the right thing’?”
“You always do what you think is right,” he corrected. “I’m not sure you’re actually right in this case. He asked for privacy.”
“It’s not like I’m going to ask him more questions. I just want to make sure he’s okay.”
“If you say so.”
“Anyway, are you ready for bed?”
“I think I was ready hours ago.”
She helped him up, keeping a hand at his back out of instinct. They’d left the nighttime forest and the Rokkir fortress behind, but there was a lingering, pervasive fear that wouldn’t leave her. A fear that at any moment, she’d have to push him forward again to flee.
Since Fehn had taken the room to the left, where the red lock display indicated the occupant inside, Tayel led Jace to the right. Small had been an understatement. There was barely enough room for the cot, and the floor space wasn’t helped by the considerable amount of boxes pinned to the wall by a cargo net.
“Wait. If I sleep here, where will you sleep?” Jace asked. “This cot isn’t big enough for two.”
“I’m not sure it’s big enough for one.” Tayel grabbed the thinner of the two blankets from the bed. “I’ll figure it out. You just worry about getting some sleep.”
“Are you sure? I can probably sleep on the floor if you let me take the pillow.”
She smiled. “It’s alright, Jace. Really.”
He waffled a bit, shifting his weight from left to right before sitting on the cot’s edge. “I feel kind of bad.”
She laughed. “Don’t. Get your rest. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Okay. Good night, I guess.”
“Night.”
She maneuvered across the few inches of walking space and left the room, pressing her hand to the touch sensor in the hall. The door shut behind her. Only a two arm’s reach away, Fehn’s door still stood closed, the lock still red. She took a steadying breath and knocked.
No answer.
She knocked again. “Fehn?”
The lock display snapped from red to green, and the door slid open.
Fehn stood in the doorway. “What?”
“Hey.” Tayel hugged the blanket a little closer. “You okay? I feel like maybe we pressed you a little too hard. You didn’t deserve that.”
He grunted. “Banshee’s right. I should have told everyone sooner.”
“I… don’t know if I agree.”
He crossed his arms.
“I think it was your choice to say something when you wanted to — if at all,” she continued. “Tonight, things just sort of happened too fast to hold it off.”
“What’s done is done,” he said.
“Not that it matters, right?”
“What?”
“I assume now that you’re finally off Elsha, you want to get back to the core systems.”
His eyes turned downcast.
“Or not?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Even if I went back to the empire, I wouldn’t have anywhere to go.”
“Not home?”
He focused on his cyonic. “No.”
“I don’t understand. I thought…” She bit her tongue.
He asked for privacy, Jace had said.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t want to pry into your life anymore. You should just know that we’re lucky you’re here. Thanks for, uh, saving all our lives.”
He half-smirked. “Thanks. We done?”
“Sure.”
He pulled back into the room. “Night, Red.”
“Night.”
His door shut and locked. She headed back to the hold. It didn’t make sense that he didn’t want to return home. After everything he’d endured, he should’ve been more than ready to bail. But as confused as she was, thinking about it was pointless. He didn’t want to talk, so she had to accept she’d probably never know what was going on in that thick head of his. The saving grace was that he was staying. For all his scowling, he’d always been there when it counted.