“Why are we laughing?” he asks me even as his chest convulses with chuckles.
“I have no idea,” I say. I press my lips together, trying to hold it in, but it only lasts maybe three seconds before I burst into laughter all over again. A knock at the bedroom door interrupts our insanity.
“Come in,” Aemon says.
The door creaks open and Jael pokes her head in. “Looks like that hit to the head did more damage than I thought.”
“Jael.” I throw my arms wide, and Jael runs into them, hip bumping Aemon out of the way. He feigns annoyance, then steps back to give us room. Jael squeezes me around the shoulders and swings back and forth playfully. “I’m so happy to see you,” I tell her.
Jael pulls back, hands on my arms, to look at me. “Me? When you didn’t show up, I was terrified they’d caught you.”
“They did.”
“So, I heard. Usually, I’d give you a hard time about going back for a man…” She glances over at Aemon, pretending to give him the evil eye even though she can’t stop smiling. “But this one did carry you all the way here, so he gets a pass. This time.” She turns back to me with a sigh and clasps her hands in front of herself. “Thank you,” she says, suddenly serious.
“Don’t thank me. You got yourself out.”
“Yes, but none of this would have happened if you hadn’t been there.”
I wave her off. “You give me too much credit. I got lucky. That’s all.”
She cocks a brow. “Twice.”
I don’t know what to say, so I deftly change the subject. “So, what news have you heard?”
Jael rolls her eyes. I guess my ruse wasn’t as stealthy as I’d hoped. She sighs. “Nothing good. King Troi is on a rampage. He’s accused all the great houses of conspiracy to overthrow the crown. Bellatorae soldiers have raided all the doms south of here, searching for dissenters.”
Her words hit me like a sledgehammer. The room starts spinning again. I close my eyes and rest my forehead in my hands.
“Wait, what?” Aemon says. “All of them?”
“As far and I know.”
I lift my head. “Duje?” I ask, though a large part of me doesn’t want to hear the answer.
Jael glances at Aemon, then me, then her hands, where she starts tugging at a scrap of cuticle dangling from her thumbnail. “It’s destroyed. I’m so sorry, Katya. We’ve taken in a few refugees from there, but not a lot have made it. The ones who have…” She shakes her head. “I’m just so sorry.”
All I can do is stare at her as her words sink in. They’re all dead: Leodin, Mama and Max. Oh gods, poor Max. He was just a little boy. What kind of monsters would kill an innocent, sweet little boy? Tears spill down my cheeks. If I had made it there… If I’d warned them, maybe… I press a hand to my aching chest. My heart’s still beating. How can it still be beating when it feels like it’s been ripped out? I back up to the wall, pull my knees to my chest and whisper, mostly to myself, “It’s all my fault.”
Aemon leaps in front of me. “No.” He tips my chin, forcing me to look at him. “There’s no way anybody could have known he’d do that.”
I don’t reply, just let the tears flow.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” Aemon says, turning toward Jael. "He was supposed to take over the doms, not destroy them. What could he possibly gain?”
“I can only tell you what I’ve heard,” she says. The other doms were ransacked, and a lot of people were killed, but Duje was...” Jael looks at me, her eyes creased with worry. “Worse.”
“Because of me,” I say, the words barely squeezing through my swollen throat.
“No,” Aemon says, even more emphatically. “This is not your fault. This is nobody’s fault but Troi’s. Do you understand?”
He’s wrong, but there’s no use telling him that. Instead, I turn to Jael and ask, “Can I see them?”
“Who?”
“The survivors. From Duje.”
“Of course. If you want to—”
