Page 31 of When the Universe Sings

“I saw you there.” My gaze landed back on Captain Ruciyah. “I heard you tell them to ‘burn it to the ground.’”

He nodded and ran a hand through his messy hair. “We had a role to play. Our job was to slip in undetected and retrieve as many as possible. My team up top took the elderly first, along with the younger children who had stayed below the canopy, and stashed them on the ground in a nearby cave. Then when the fighting broke out we…we grabbed as many as we could and got out of there.”

Part of me didn’t believe it, not with what I’d seen—the brutal expression on his face, the discussion with his superior. But Kal was here, he wasalive. So did that mean he was telling the truth?

“We aren’t heroes?—”

I laughed bitterly. “That is not the word that comes to mind.”

Captain Ruciyah huffed, but it didn’t sound frustrated, it sounded almost like he agreed with me. “I have done what I could to make amends…tokeepmaking amends.”

“Did you know who I was?” I asked.

“No,” he answered. “I knew you were from Selhveina but I had no idea you were from that specific village. Kal was not particularly forthcoming with your true identity.”

I turned to look at the male in question, who shrugged. “You didn’t recognize me and it felt unfair to reveal your true identity when you didn’t know mine.”

My throat clicked with a dry swallow. The expression on his face was so heart-achingly familiar, from the set of his mouth to the furrow between his brows. I had the urge to touch the vee with my fingertip as I had when we were children. “And you joined him?”

“It took more than a cycle for my wounds to heal. I spent the time recovering in a safe house on Uhkazar with Mom andNiko. Asher would come to visit occasionally, checking on us and the others, and we struck up a friendship.” He let out a huff of laughter and, though Captain Ruciyah didn’t join in, his expression softened a little. “When I was old enough, after he’d donned the mask and started his own crew, he agreed to let me join. That was…Maker,that was almost eight cycles ago now.”

My old friend’s hands covered mine, squeezing tight and forcing me to look up at him. Another apology lingered in his eyes. “If I’d known you survived, I would have never left you behind, you have to believe me.”

I nodded. “I do.”

“When Asher told us he’d found our final member of the crew on some outpost orbiting a Class Three planet, I’d never in a million years have thought it was you. It was like seeing a ghost the first time you came on board. At first, I thought I was wrong but the more I looked, the more I saw you there beneath the cycles and cycles you spent on that outpost.”

I couldn’t help but share a look with Captain Ruciyah. “It wasn’t an outpost.”

Kal’s face fell at the same time I shifted my arm, pulling up the sleeve of the medical gown so the dark scar was in view. Color flooded his cheeks and fury washed over him in a way I’d seen countless times when we were children. The look was sharper now, like a weapon, but he didn’t reach out to touch it.

In fits and starts, I told him how I’d fallen unconscious on the ground after the explosion. How I’d also woken up in a cargo hold but I’d been gagged with my hands and feet cuffed together.

And as I spoke, both males paled in horror.

“They got a good price for me selling me to Ebyd III for labor, I think,” I murmured, my throat aching now along with my lungs.

I skimmed through the years on the prison outpost—Kal didn’t need my nightmares—but I explained about stowing awayon theDaskquahafter years of looking for a way out. About Lunastra’s generosity in allowing me to stay, her mercy that no one ever touched me.

And how she’d contracted me out to Captain Ruciyah for this mission.

I spoke until my words were merely whispers. With each one, Kal’s face dropped further and further until his knees hit the floor. Until he clasped my hand in his and pressed his forehead to my knuckles. Until he sobbed into the thin mattress and I stroked his hair off the back of his neck.

And through it all, I could just barely make out the words he spoke over and over:

“Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me.”

CHAPTER

TWENTY-TWO

I heardCaptain Ruciyah outside my door long before he ever spoke.

It was the sound of his breath, distorted by the respirator. Or maybe it was the pacing. I couldn’t understand why he didn’t knock, yet he seemed content to stalk the hallway outside. But I’d known from the moment I woke he was waiting for me. I didn’t answer the door, unsure how I would face him knowing what I did now. Though the male outside was a murderer, he was also something else.

I couldn’t shake the memory. I’d seen it too long in my dreams. But now there was also the memory of that night in the control room—Captain Ruciyah kneeling beside me, bare hands soothing against my skin.Stay still, j’ska mahsi. I didn’t know the term. When we had returned from Lesephous’ ship, I’d looked up the first endearment he’d used:ly’anen.It was a Quinzyr term of endearment for something precious and could be used for both beings and inanimate objects. And thoughj’ska mahsisounded familiar, I couldn’t find the definition anywhere.

Kal had stayed with me for a long time in the med bay before Rhiaon came in to check my vitals. Turned out they were the resident doctor on board and, despite their size, they were exceedingly gentle as they prodded my back and hooked up a monitor to my chest to check my lung capacity. They’d murmured that I needed to take it easy the next few days, but I wouldn’t have any lasting damage from the broken pipe that hadbeen jutting out from the shelf. Greabes had left it there days ago to be thrown out after repairing one of the cooling units.