“Killian, you couldn’t have known what was going to happen. As for yesterday, you didn’t know how fast we’d figure out who took you, or even if we were on our way. Not to mention you having all the children with you. More than anything, thecaptives who managed to fully free themselves should have stayed with you to protect them.”
Killian had been frustrated at the time, when none of the others had wanted to stay behind in the cell and protect the children. It was how he’d ended up walking around with them all. At the same time, he hadn’t been able to force himself to do it either, so he understood in part. As for them running off…
“Can’t really blame them. It was a stressful situation. They aren’t trained soldiers who are used to following orders.”
“You shouldn’t blame Cyrus either.”
He blinked, and couldn’t help but chuckle at the abrupt shift in the conversation. “Who says I am?”
“Aren’t you?”
Killian met the Dweller’s gaze and smirked. “I don’t know what I feel, Severo. I haven’t sorted my emotions yet. I know enough to know that I am mildly annoyed, and have a bit of anger when it comes to what happened, but as for blame—” He sighed. “—No, I don’t think I can, or do, blame him. This was always set to happen. Cyrus just changed whether I was going to live or not.”
“Killian…” Severo cleared his throat and took a shuddered breath. “Skya wasn’t supposed to be here. While Cyrus is struggling to see anything new right now, he could see bits of what had originally been supposed to happen and, in that timeline, Skya wasn’t with you when you were taken.”
Killian’s eyes widened at that. “She…wasn’t supposed to be here…?”
“No—hah. It’s stupid really. I can’t find it in myself to blame him. Not even for her being in danger, and you know why? Because if he had told me about you, I would have made him do whatever he could to fix it. Resulting in the same dam—darn thing happening. And when I realized why he did what he did, I finally forgave him.”
“I knew you hadn’t…” Killian said with a sigh. He’d been hoping the Shadow Dweller would eventually, but sometimes, Severo would get this look, like he was expecting Cyrus to betray him. He’d kept his suspicions to himself though, as one, he didn’t do drama, and two, he wasn’t going to force them to talk about it when neither were ready, or more likely, knew how to fix it.
“I feel we all knew I hadn’t, even if none of us would admit it. I wanted to…I tried…but I couldn’t trust that Cyrus wouldn’t sit back, knowing we would die, and just let it happen. And I was wrong. But Killian—” The man cut off when his voice broke. A few of the tears that had flooded his eyes breaking free then, as Severo took another shuddered breath. “H-he’s struggling, you know? He just seems so lost right now, and I?—”
Killian pinched the Dweller’s nose. “Why are you such a crybaby?!” he huffed. “You know I don’t do well with tears.”
Severo growled, batting his hand away. “I c-can’t help it!” The Dweller sniffled, his face scrunching as the man likely tried to hold the rest back and failed. “I’m trying to be serious!” the man blubbered, before wiping at his eyes with his arm.
Killian let out an exasperated chuckle. “I know you are. But like I already told you, I don’t blame him. As soon as he did what he did, everything was out of his hands. I know him well enough to realize that Cyrus would have been paralyzed into inaction, into staying silent in fear of accidentally reversing the change he made.
“I’m miffed…mad that Cyrus kept things from me. Knowing and understanding why he did it doesn’t mean I still can’t be angry about it. But regardless, we are going to be fine, Severo.”
Well, they would be fine…unless whatever punishment Cyrus’ rule breaking brought ended badly…
Eyeing Soren warily,Ender relaxed back on the bed against the headboard, ignoring the stinging pain as he did. The Harpy was standing there, arms crossed, looking as stressed as he fucking felt.
“Ender, you need to inform them of the possible dangers that are coming.”
“Gee, and I thought you were all for me dealing with it without drugs.”
“Yeah, in a place you could be monitored, with the safety of others accounted for. Not on multiple broken ass ships in the middle of fucking space!”
“Well, we have a small supply of random narcotics, and they have one, not to mention whatever the fuck the traffickers kept. So between all that, if I take enough, maybe it will work.”
Soren scoffed. “It's more likely you’ll overdose before they do.”
“Which would be better than going on a rampage!” he snapped.
“The fuck it is!?”
In his mind, it was. An overdose could at leastpossiblybe fixed, while accidentally eating someone was a little harder to reverse, especially after digestion, but what did he know?!
The Harpy took a deep breath, held it for a moment before slowly letting it out. “We don’t need to tell them anything right away. I know the engineers said that fixing the core engines isn't an option, but we still have all the secondary smaller ones on the ships. Maybe we can rig those up before it’s too late. It could, atthe very least, get us somewhere that we can contact help, if not home. And if done quickly enough, we could still get back with plenty of time to spare.”
Ender stared, and he really wanted to just nod and agree to that, but…he couldn’t…
Soren frowned. “Why do you look like you just ate something sour?”
He forced his face to relax before admitting, “We don’t have time… Also, while they are called secondary engine cores, they are really just batteries, or rather the energy source for the rest of the ship. I’m pretty sure if we could safely shift their purpose, without losing other important life-sustaining ship functions, Saffire would have brought it up.”
