"How long have you known?" Shandry inquired.
Kira placed her hands flat on the table as she urged herself to stay calm. She breathed in then out slowly, doing it again and again.
"Since Rothchild." Jin's voice held grim realization as he put the pieces together.
"Is this why you cornered me?" Kira asked, her voice deadly calm as she glanced at Graydon.
Graydon's expression was hard to read, but she caught a thread of irritation in the look he threw the healer. So—he hadn't planned to use this information against her.
That had been all Shandry's doing. Good to know.
Kira lifted her head and faced her oldest friend, reading the emotional turbulence in him as clearly as if he'd been human.
"Before," Kira admitted softly.
There was a choked sound from Jace as he sat hard. Raider's expression closed down, a stoic mask descending.
"Why didn't you tell us?" Jace asked. "We could have helped."
"How?" Her voice sounded dead. She'd never wanted anyone to know this. It had been her burden to bear.
"I don't know. Someone else could have taken your place."
Kira scoffed. "It was war, Jace. Every one of us faced death each time we suited up. Mine was simply a little more inescapable."
"You didn't always have to be on the front lines," he argued. "There would have been options if you'd simply told somebody."
"Who would you have had me send in my place?" she challenged. "Who should I have chosen? Elise? Raider? You? I knew the risks. Everyone did. That didn't change because there was something inside tearing me apart."
He shook his head. He folded his arms across his chest, his jaw clenching as if he were biting back more words.
"No doubt whatever you were doing to help the humans made things worse," Shandry said crisply.
Kira fixed a look on her, that monstrous creature inside that took over when times were dark fixated on Shandry. It longed to break the healer's neck. It would be so easy.
The healer looked soft. Zero combat ability.
Two seconds and Kira could be across the table. A second after that and crack, no more annoying healer.
Finn shifted, correctly interpreting Kira’s precarious mood. Her control right now was gossamer thin.
"The Tuann pay a price for our power," Silas said into the silence. "Left unchecked the effects of unbalancedkikill."
Jace's gaze sharpened. "What are you saying?"
"We can heal you," Silas promised, his eyes never leaving Kira's.
"And all you want in exchange is everything I am," she said bitterly.
"You would be alive."
Her smile was brief and didn't reach her eyes. "There are things worse than death."
Shandry slapped the table. "You're making this more difficult than it has to be. We're offering you a way to survive. Don't you want to live?"
Of course, she did. Almost more than anything else in the world.
But that was the sticking point—almost. There were important things she needed to do. Things that no one else could.
