beat.
Daz spoke, but I didn’t focus on his words. I was too busy staring into the face that had haunted me for ten cycles, the face I knew betrayed me, but I hadn’t been able to remember how, when, or why.
Now I knew. He’d sacrificed me to save himself. She is All was our creed, but after that it was never betray a warrior. Crius had done more than that. He’d betrayed me, and everyone in this clavas.
Hands tugged on me, and I let them pull me off Crius as Xavy and Nero hauled him to his feet. They led him away, his head hung between his shoulders. When the door shut behind them, I stared after it.
“They’re taking him to a barred cell. Not a hut like you were in, but a locked cell,” Daz said. There was a pause before he spoke again. “Drak?”
I blinked and turned to him.
He gestured to the seat next to him. “I understand it hurts you to speak, but I need to hear what you remember. Everything.”
I sat down, Miranda at my side, and I repeated everything I remembered, from finding him in the forest talking to the Uldani, to them beating me up, to stumbling back to the clavas with Crius to hear him accuse me of betrayal.
How he’d found me after I was casted out and slit my throat. I’d lived, but I hadn’t spoken a single word after that moment. Not until Merr-anda.
“Did you see Gar or Crius that day you found Miranda?”
I shook my head. “Only … her fighting … Kulks.”
“Daz, I swear to you, Crius led me away from Gar,” Miranda said. “He left me there, like he was making a delivery to the Kulks. He framed Drak fifteen years ago, and he must still be in league with the Uldani.”
Daz leaned back in his chair, his elbow on the armrest, as he rubbed his fingers across his blue nubbed brow. With his lips pressed together, he closed his eyes on a heavy sigh. For a moment, he looked as if the whole world was on his shoulders.
My memories of Daz had returned in bits and pieces. He’d been a leader during the Uprising from the Uldani. Strong and dependable, his focus was on gaining our independence, rather than destroying the Uldani as a race. He’d been a fair drexel.
When he opened his eyes, guilt swam in his purple irises. “I wouldn’t be a good drexel if I didn’t admit when I was wrong. And fifteen cycles ago, I was wrong. I believed Crius. He said you two had fought—he’d been beaten too, although now I suspect those injuries were self-inflicted. And you had been silent and stunned, like you couldn’t believe you’d been caught. I should have let you heal and given you time to defend yourself. Instead I made a snap judgement that let a guilty warrior live here and endanger our women while a good warrior remained alone for fifteen flecking cycles. I’m sorry, Drak.”
He hesitated, and then reached out to clasp the back of my neck. He drew our foreheads together until they touched.
I sank into the familiar feeling of the Drixonian greeting of respect. I hadn’t felt this for fifteen cycles, and I’d forgotten it. I hadn’t remembered the strong palm on my neck as we breathed in each other’s air. But now I did, and I could see why my mind had shut everything off. It’d been self-preservation in a way. If I had remembered everything I lost, I never would have made it.
Daz’s words threaded through me like liquid gold. I hadn’t realized I needed his words until he said them. Merr-anda’s bloom glowed in my mind, no longer working so hard to shine light into the darkness of my mind.
But I couldn’t find it in me to return Daz’s gesture. My mind held me back. As much as my anger didn’t reside with Daz, I’d still lost fifteen cycles of my life to madness. I could barely speak with my mate because of Crius’s actions and Daz’s acceptance of Crius’s word without giving me time to heal and defend myself.
Resentment swam in my stomach, bitter and acidic. I wanted to vomit it up and give in, offer forgiveness, but the words tangled in my scarred throat, turning into something ugly. I didn’t trust myself to give them a voice, for fear of how they’d come out.
Daz released me, his expression guilty. I lifted my head.
“Crius will be allowed to speak