“Why?” Azur rasped.

That was when I saw it.

The panic he was hiding behind the wall of his anger. His vulnerability.

Was he worried that I’d run back to my father, knowing what I knew now? Was he worried I was choosing my father?

No, it couldn’t be. Azur knew me better than that.

“I need to hear it,” I told him softly, wanting him to understand. “I need to hear the truth right from my father’s mouth. I need to hear what he did. And I need to know why. I need the answers. Your family deserves them too.”

Kalia gasped.

I swallowed, feeling my dry eyes begin to burn when I’d thought I had no tears left.

“And he will tell me,” I promised. “He’ll tell me where they buried Aina’s body. I’ll find out where she is, try to bring her back to you, back to Krynn. So her place in your family’s shrine will not lie empty. And maybe…just maybe her soul will find its way back to you.”

Azur’s lips parted. Even Kaldur straightened.

“It’s the least I can do,” I told him, told them all. “The very least after what he’s done. And then I’ll ask him to turn in himself and his unit to War Crimes at the High Quadrant Council.”

“Gemma,” Azur began, shaking his head.

“And if he refuses,” I whispered, meeting those ember eyes, watching his pupils dilate, “then I will turn him in myself.”

All the air in the room seemed to have stilled. It went so quiet that I thought I could hear his heartbeat, thunderous in his chest.

“I’ll need a copy of the video,” I informed him, “before I leave. If it comes down to that.”

Which it might, I couldn’t help but admit silently to myself. My father had lived with this secret for seventeen years, after all.

“You’re not going alone,” Azur growled. “I forbid it.”

“I need to,” I told him. “I don’t want you to come. This is something I need to do on my own. This…”

I took in a deep breath when my voice broke.

“I know he has his faults,” I said. I laughed, and it sounded hollow and broken as I looked at Azur, standing much too far away and yet too close. “Trust me, I know. But I still love him. I cannot turn that off, and I’ve tried before. He’s my father. He’s the man who cried when I broke my arm and who made me special cakes every birthday even though he couldn’t navigate a kitchen to save his life. Who stayed up late every night so my mother could sleep when Mira was born. Who took me hiking through the forests of the Collis when it rained because he knew I loved the smell.”

A sob broke from my throat, and I was too sad and heartbroken to be embarrassed that there were witnesses beyond Azur.

“That man is my father. The one I love,” I told him. “The monster you showed me in the video is not. He’s not the man that I recognize. But I realize that he can be both. I realize he can love me and my sisters and my mother…and then destroy us too. Racking up debts left and right until we had no way to pay them, dismissing my mother’s depression as something she could control, and murdering Aina in cold blood. He didn’t only destroy us, he destroyed so many others too.”

I couldn’t help but wonder if my mother had known. There had been a shift in their relationship. Perhaps not obvious to me at the time, but looking back, things had been different after Pe’ji. She’d stopped dancing with him. Her smiles hadn’t come as naturally. He’d started drinking more. She had too.

Maybe they’d both been miserable, forced to keep a dark secret or else it would destroy our entire family. Their children. Our futures.

Silver tears were running down Kalia’s face. Kaldur had stepped forward, a deep frown of what I thought was understanding on his features.

But it was Azur who captured and claimed my gaze in the end.

I took in a deep breath. I was already dressed. Ludayn had been helping me pack my clothes. I’d come to Krynn with three trunks of everything I’d owned, but I’d be leaving with only one.

Wiping my hand across my cheek, I waited until my tears stopped and then I said, “I need to go alone. I know you understand.”

“Your father isn’t in the Collis,” Azur informed me, his tone careful.

Another sharp pain darted through my heart. So he’d been keeping tabs on Rye Hara. Of course he would. Knowing what I knew now, I knew that Azur must’ve been watching closely, tracking him, like a predator with its prey.

“Where is he?”

Azur’s nostrils flared. His jaw unclenched before he answered, “On Jrika.”

A well-known gambling colony, though its reputation had always been dark. It attracted the worst kind of criminals because its corruption ran deep.

“Has he borrowed any credits?” I asked, another crack splitting down my heart. I’d suspected it, though, hadn’t I? When my sisters had told me he was off planet. He never went off planet unless he was looking for another collector…or he wanted to drink his weight in whiskey and didn’t want his daughters to see.

A rough sound came from Azur’s throat. He stepped toward me. Could he see the despair on my face? Hear it in my voice?

“He tried,” he told me. “On Vrano. I had a friend, Setlan, stop the deal and warn the collector away. And warn your father. He hasn’t tried again, as far as I know.”

“Vaan,” Kaldur cursed quietly, running a hand down his face.

Taking in a deep breath, I pushed away the ache. The hurt. The fury and frustration. “He’ll return if I ask him to. I’ll call him from the ship.”

Azur shook his head. “Gemma, I don’t want you leaving. Especially without protection. You’re not leaving this planet without me and—”

“You need to be here,” I argued. “The harvest just ended. There’s still so many people traveling within Laras and—”

“Fuck the harvest,” he growled. “I don’t want to be without my kyrana.”

Blood.

Of course.

“I can…I can store some of my blood here for you, can’t I?” I asked, frowning. Looking to Ludayn, I asked, “How is it usually done? In containers of some kind? Will I need—”

Azur barked out a harsh laugh. “You think I don’t want to be without your blood, wife? I don’t want to be without you.”

All the breath whistled from my throat when I whirled back to face Azur.

“My maddening, stubborn, frustrating, wonderful little human wife,” he finished, his voice a dark deep rumble. “Today has already been hell without you.”

My lips parted. My throat went tight.

I wanted to fall into his arms. I wanted to bury my face into his chest, feel his wings wrap around me, and let the world fall away. I wanted that so much that it shredded me.

The imprint of the glow of the plasma gun reared through my mind, making me flinch. Making my eyes lower.

“Some distance will be good for us, Azur,” I said instead, stepping away. “To decide if this is what is right. For your family. For your duty. To decide if this…if this marriage is what’s best for everyone involved.”

That flurry of panic darted across his face. “What are you talking about?” he asked, his hand tilting my chin up.

“There’s still so much pain,” I murmured, my eyes briefly flickering to Kaldur, remembering his words last night. “I never knew how much. Not until now.”

“You’re my wife,” Azur growled, his wings lifting to shield away the rest of the room. Until it was just me and him. In the circle of his body.

“I don’t feel like it,” I told him honestly, the words falling like stones from my lips, tears blurring my vision again. And I was so damn tired of crying. “Our marriage only happened because my father killed Aina. It began because of grief and sorrow and vengeance and hatred. It feels wrong. All wrong.”

Azur looked like I’d struck him.

“Please,” I whispered. “Please. Let me see this right first, as best as I’m able to. I’ll find Aina for you. She can return to Krynn, where she belongs. Her soul can cross into Alara. Let me deal with my father. Then we can talk about us.”