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My heart pounded as I took in their hasty escape. As though I was the villain.
“They didn’t believe me,” I said numbly. No one had ever questioned me before. How was I supposed to convince anyone that I was still on their side while I was attached to my nocs?
“Should I go after them?” Bracken asked. “It would only take me a minute to catch them...”
I shook my head.
“No. Hunting them–hurting them, proves them right. Tsuki tasked us with fixing this mess. I don’t know how, but the senseless killing has to stop. It is not what we are supposed to do.”
“What do you propose?” Kiar asked and I looked at him. The careful curiosity on his face stopped me because it was clear he already knew I hadn’t a clue.
I shook my head, at a loss, emotions hitting me hard again.
“I am out of my depth here,” I admitted. “Don’t look to me for answers. Everything I have ever believed has been turned on its head.”
Chapter 22
Hadi
There was something unnerving and wrong about seeing Sun like this.
On top of the mountain, shock had reverberated through me as the others comforted him. But I watched, unmoving until the shock was replaced with fury and many things suddenly shifted in my mind.
I was glad they had left me up there, I had needed the time to think as I swung down the mountainside.
Sun was loyal to a fault. He had fought for his king. He would have followed him to the grave.
He was the one I should have had at my side all this time. He was the one who deserved to be there now.
The goddess had not spoken in riddles. She had made everything abundantly clear. She did not want the humans to be destroyed as we had been trying for years. Nor did she want us nocs wiped out. We were all meant to be here, together. Coexisting.
Instinctively, I wanted to fight that. I had spent the entirety of my life trying to get the stones and flatten the human race, but now the truth was becoming clear; it wasn’t about humans. It was about power. I was meant to be on the throne–and the human king had to be removed from his… This new information didn’t need to change much at all.
I stepped forward to where the others had closed around him in comfort once more. Reaching out, I touched Bracken and Kiar’s shoulders.
They both looked back at me, and then parted for me when I gently pushed them aside.
Clem was harder to dislodge from Sun’s shoulders, but finally, he stepped back, leaving Sun’s solemn face exposed.
His breaths shook even as he tried to be strong. Lifting his chin at my arrival, there was still fire in his eyes.
Good.
I lowered myself, folding my legs beneath me to descend as much as I could to his level. He still had to look up at me.
Reaching out, I held each of his shoulders and then tilted his chin up with one of my other hands so that he would not look away from my face when I spoke.
“Let them go,” I told him. “Let them do your bidding.”
He frowned, confused.
“They ran from us in fear,” he said. “They don’t trust me.”
I could hear the pain that caused him in his voice and smiled. What an unexpectedly naive creature he was.
“They do not need to trust you to do your bidding,” I informed him. “You told them what happened and now, they will spread the word.”
Sun’s jaw dropped slightly, understanding flickering through his gaze.
