“What is there not to be proud of?”
“They’re still my family.”
“A family who never considered your wellbeing in their greed. Had your parents cared for any of you children, they never would’ve done what they did.”
Qylar knew that was true, but there were also layers to it. No one was wholly evil, not even his parents. It had likely been more delusion—them thinking they wouldn’t be caught—that had made them overlook what might’ve happened to him. At least, that’s what he told himself to prevent him from hating them more.
“I couldn’t believe my papa was guilty. Not at first. I’d only seen love from him.” Tears prickled at the backs of Qylar’s eyes again. “It never made sense. He’d taught me to be a good person all while secretly being a terrible one? How was that possible?”
Qylar hadn’t reconciled it yet. “Then the trials came, and he finally admitted that he’d known. I was…shattered.Everything I’d known was a lie. We were a rotted family, inside and out. All of us.”
Ommit rubbed a hand along Qylar’s back. “All but you, Qy. You were the one good thing they did.”
“But am I? Libault is right. I live in relative comfort compared to those my family harmed. What have I done to help them? Nothing.”
“Your family’s holdings were sold off. The money was used to help free their victims and set them up with a fresh start. Families of those who did not survive were compensated,” Ommit said.
“As if that fixed things,” Qylar said. “It wasn’t enough.”
“What more can you do? You can’t give them back their years of servitude. What youcando is honor the duke and all he’s given you.”
“I’ve been thinking of asking the duke if he might allow me to go into the Nefyrian Services.”
“And do what?”
“They’re begging for more pilots for their relief efforts. There seems to be a new crisis every week.”
Ommit scoffed. “You call yourself a pilot now?”
“I’ve been piloting Cryss’s ship for years. Learning to fly something in the Service’s fleet can’t be all that different.”
“Who’s flying something in the Service’s fleet?”
Qylar’s head whipped toward Cryss’s voice.
“Your friend here,” Ommit replied. “He wants to ask your father if he can join the Services and run relief missions across the galaxy—forgetting his duty to your household. Talk some sense into him, Lord Kreegl.Beforeyour father gets wind of this.”
Ommit walked away, leaving them alone.
Qylar looked at the floor and the tips of his tentacles instead of the disappointment filling Cryss’s eyes.
“Okay. Let’s do it.”
Qylar’s gaze lifted to Cryss.
“When do we leave?” Cryss asked.
“We?”Qylar asked, his jaw dropping.
“I’m as good a pilot as you are.”
“The hell you are,” Qylar quipped.
“You know full well my father won’t allow you to enlist. If I do, you can tell my father that I refused to listen to reason and you joined to keep watch over me—as any good friend would do.”
“Ommit knows what I wanted to do. He’ll tell your father.”
“I think you underestimate how much Ommit likes you. I’ve heard him defending you in conversations with my father.” Cryss rested his back against the column and looked out at the party. “I don’t think he’d tell.”
