Page 66 of Enslak

The shame settled deeper. I'd attacked my own brothers without recognizing them.

"You weren't there," I said, the realization arriving with sudden clarity. "When I woke. You weren't in the room."

That was why I'd raged. The desperate animal need to find her, to protect her, had had nowhere to go.

"No," she admitted. "I wasn't allowed in the medical bay. They thought it was too dangerous." Her hand tightened on my arm. "I tried to see you every day, Enslak. They kept telling me no."

Something cold settled in my gut at that. I might have hurt her. Turned these claws on her without knowing what I was doing.

But beneath that fear was something fierce and warm and entirely involuntary.

She'd tried anyway. Wanted to be near me even when I was dangerous. Had kept fighting to reach me.

Mine, something whispered, deep and certain. She is mine.

"Your family thought your mind was gone," she continued. "They believed the torture had destroyed who you were." She touched her own temple briefly. "So they decided to grant you a mercy death. A warrior's death. They thought it would be kinder than letting you suffer."

The words settled over me slowly. My family had looked at what remained of me and thought I was too far gone to bring back.

A flash of memory came then, sudden and sharp and more complete than most.

A battlefield. Smoke thick and acrid. The smell of burning metal and something worse underneath.

A warrior, one of ours, pinned beneath twisted wreckage. His lower body destroyed. No medic could reach us. No healer was coming.

He'd looked at me with eyes that weren't asking to be rescued. He was asking for something else.

I'd knelt beside him. Put my hand on his chest. Spoken the ritual words.

Your honor remains. Your spirit flies free.

Then I'd ended it. Quick. Clean. The most merciful thing I had to offer.

He'd thanked me with his last breath.

The memory faded, leaving me hollow and certain at the same time.

I'd done it myself. Granted mercy to warriors too broken to save. I'd always understood it as an act of love, of respect, a final kindness given when nothing else could be given.

My family had tried to give me the same thing.

"But I knew better," Niki said, and the fierceness in her voice made me look at her again. "I knew you were still in there. You protected me on Merisalle. You spoke to me. Broken or not, you just needed time and space and someone willing to stay." Her eyes held mine steadily. "So I convinced my friends to help me escape with you. We stole a ship and came here."

I stared at her, trying to take in the full weight of what she'd risked.

She'd stolen me. Defied my family. Put herself in danger for months because she believed something in me was worth believing in.

"Don't be angry with them," Niki said quickly, searching my face. "Your family. Please don't blame them for what they wanted to do."

Angry?

I turned the word over carefully.

"They were heartbroken, Enslak. Your mother—" Her voice caught for a moment. "They thought they were doing the right thing. The merciful thing. They thought the Enslak they knew was already gone, and all that was left was pain."

Something shifted in my chest. It wasn't anger at all.

It was understanding, arriving slowly but completely.