I went to him, my feet taking me across the room, my thin boots slapping through spilled whiskey on the floor. Placing my hand on his shoulder, I said, “Is that why we were given this estate?”

His body felt like a furnace underneath my touch.

Finally, he said, “One last task. One last task to win this war. Then you can go home. That’s what Nb’aru told me. He made it clear. Kill the officer…kill Aina”—he shuddered under my touch—“and I would be rewarded. My whole unit would be rewarded for our service to the United Alliance.”

“So it wasn’t you that killed the Pe’jians’ war general during the final battle?”

Which was what we’d always been told was the reason he’d been promoted through the military ranks. Why he’d been called a hero.

The shake of his head was gut-wrenching. “N-No. It was a stray plasma blast that killed the general. We had just been close to him when it happened.”

So everything had been a lie.

My father had been given the estate as a reward for killing Aina. And that realization alone nearly made me want to vomit.

“Where is she?”

Father raised his head. His eyes were bloodshot. He looked drained, exhausted. Old. When had the years caught up with him? And why hadn’t I noticed?

“What?”

“What did you do with Aina’s body?”

“Gemma…I can’t,” he told me, shaking his head, his eyes suddenly fearful. “You don’t understand. I promised my unit we would never tell. If this feed got out…”

“You killed a peace ambassador for the Uranian Federation,” I said. And though I wanted to scream at him, though I wanted to cry with him, I couldn’t. “My husband’s family. It’s too late.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, his watery blinking up at me, quieting. “Gemma, what do you mean?”

“I’m asking you to turn yourself in to War Crimes,” I told him, crouching next to his desk so that we were eye level. I kept my hand on his shoulder, squeezing tight, as the words felt like shards of glass coming up my throat. “I’m asking you to turn yourself in to the High Quadrant Council. Along with your unit. For Aina’s murder. Because that’s what it was, Father, despite what you might think.”

He fell back in his chair, his eyes wide with disbelief and horror. He stared at me.

“You…” He swallowed. “You would turn this feed over to War Crimes? You would put me on trial? Sentence me to live out my life on a prison planet, never to see you again?”

I didn’t point out that he’d already been prepared to never see me again when he’d handed me off to Azur on Nulaxy.

I hated him. I loved him. I felt pity for him while also feeling disgust and anger. I couldn’t make sense of my emotions, and so I focused on his eyes, eyes so much like mine.

I couldn’t let me face crumble. Thankfully, I felt like I was out of my body. I didn’t feel present as I said, “I’m giving you the chance to try to make this right. Even though it can never truly be right.”

“It’s been seventeen years, Gemma,” my father said. “Seventeen years. And I’ve lived that war every day of my life since. I’ve done my time. I served the United Alliance and I followed orders. I was a solider. Nothing more.”

“You profited off her death,” I pointed out softly.

He blanched. Then he argued, “She was marked for death. Since the moment she arrived on Pe’ji. It would have been done regardless.”

“But it was you,” my words clipped. “It. Was. You.”

He began to cry again and I cried with him, deep wrenching sobs tearing up my throat.

Through my tears, I said, “I’m asking you, as your daughter, to please make this right!”

“I—I don’t think I can,” he breathed.

“For us,” I whispered, pressing forward. “For Mira and Piper. For Mother. For me. For Aina and her family, who have been kept in the dark for years. You don’t know their pain, but it runs deep to this day. Please, Father. I’m asking you to make this right. Give them her body back. Let them grieve. And let your fate be decided by the law of our universe. You are not above that.”

“We would lose everything,” he told me raggedly. “We would lose everything. Your sisters…”

“We’ve already lost everything. You don’t see that?” I exclaimed. “Our home is stripped away. Mother is gone. Greed and pain has destroyed us already, and the collectors would have taken everything else.”

He slumped against me. “I know. I know,” he breathed. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Gemma. You will never know how much so.”

Sorry enough to try to borrow again from collectors behind my back, I knew. It was an addiction for him. The credits. He thought it was all he had left. But he couldn’t see what was in front of him. Not anymore.

“Mira and Piper would want you to make this right,” I said, knowing it was the truth. They would be horrified once I told them. Another difficult conversation that would implode their entire reality, just like it had mine. “You haven’t been the same since Pe’ji, have you? This has weighed on you. I know it has.”

His shoulders shook.

“This is your chance to come clean,” I murmured in his ear, holding him close when he sunk into me. “Please. Please.”

The father I’d known, the father I loved would do the right thing. I knew he would. I knew he would with every part of my soul. That man was still deep inside him, and I needed to know he was still there.

It still hit me like a boulder in the gut when he finally spoke the words. Whispered into my hair, as his arms tightened around me.

“All right,” he said, his voice fractured, his will broken. “I’ll do it.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. Relief and despair and an aching sadness made the room sway.

His arms were like vines around me, trapping me close.

“I’ll tell you where we buried her,” he said.

I thought of Azur. I thought of Kalia. Of the icy touch in the hallway in the south wing and the moon winds rising in the Kaalium, and I prayed that it would be enough to bring them peace.

“I’ll make this right,” Rye Hara said, his lips pressed to my cheeks as his tears dripped into my hair. “I promise.”

Chapter 45

Azur

Kythel found me on the roof.

He swooped down, circling overhead, before he landed with a heavy thud next to me, sprawling his bulk out.

Wordlessly, he plucked a vial of lore from his pockets, packed the glass vessel, and ignited the leaf within. He handed it to me and I took it silently, dragging the silver smoke in deep, but even lore couldn’t help the tension in my shoulders and the fucking ache in my chest.

Kythel took the lore from me and inhaled deeply. We didn’t speak for a long time. Only passed the thin, cylindrical glass pipe between us, smoking. Watching the moon sink in the night sky as gentle waves lapped against the cliffs of the terrace.

It had been five days since Gemma had left Krynn.

And every day she was gone brought a new wound, throbbing and stinging and prodding. Today, the hunger had finally made me turn to synthetic blood rations. I refused to drink from another. The thought made me feel nauseous, like I was betraying my kyrana. I only wanted her. I would only ever want her.

The rations had tasted like thick, muddy sludge and had done nothing to ease the hunger. I’d given up after my third package and locked myself away in my office, growling at anyone who’d tried to disturb me.

Zaale had given up eventually. Maybe he’d sent my brother in his stead. Because Kythel was the only being on this entire planet that I could stand right now.

Kythel finally said, “Thaine and Lucen returned to their territories. They told me to tell you their goodbyes. They knew you didn’t want to be found. Not right now.”