Besides, all the stories and lies could get so exhausting.
She ran her hand over her head. Sliding through the braids and twirling one of the longer strands around her finger for a moment. Physical intimacy was much more fun, but sometimes it wasn’t what she needed to do to get results.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Wrathin, watching her. Acting like he wasn’t, but he was.
Words always were one of her most potent weapons. It was time she used them.
“Things hurt you, and you compartmentalize them,” Veta said. “Tuck this feeling into this box, and you don’t let it out unless you need it.”
“Like a program,” Wrathin replied.
She nodded. “War. Poverty. I put everything in mental boxes. Survival was all I knew. From the time I was a child. I had to learn how to tuck away anything. Good. Bad. Scary. Fun. It didn’t matter. Emotions were dangerous.”
“Why? Do they overrun your programming too?”
She smiled because she liked how he put it. Accurate, in its own way. “Emotions make mistakes. Logic doesn’t.”
“The raisers said similar things. Follow the program. Execute the protocol. Think not beyond the code.”
She blinked, and it took her a moment to figure out what he meant. At least she thought she did. “Raisers? You mean parents?”
“Whoever raises the young ones, yes.”
“I had some. Allegedly. Because I was born. But my father was never around, and my mother wasn’t much help either. Supposedly he died in the early years of the war.”
“Were there not other raisers? Parents?”
She shook her head. “No. You typically got the one set.”
“Seems a flawed plan.”
“It is. There were companies that helped children who lost their families. At least, there were, before the war. Now, those types of companies are overrun with survivors of the war.”
“We did not want to bring the war to you,” Wrathin said, a crack in his voice. An emotion there. “You left us no choice.”
She appreciated knowing that he did have emotions. More than she expected. He surprised her with everything she learned about him. “Six months ago, I would have argued you on that. Hell, a few days ago, I would have.”
“What has changed your mind?”
She glanced at him. “You have.”
“And you have made me reconsider Terrans as well.” He pushed a low-hanging branch out of the way and held it so she could pass under. “Did you choose your place in the world, then?”
“In a way. I was six or seven when I tried to steal a box of rations from a Terran military vehicle. I was caught. For some reason, the commander took me in. He thought I had potential. Because I had the nerve to steal from a military vehicle under the nose of the officers, he found that intriguing.”
“Did you?”
“What?”
“Find it intriguing?”
“I was hungry. And they had a big box of food, just sitting there. It would have fed me and the other kids I ran around with for a month.”
“What happened?”
“The Emperor had started a kind of military academy for girls and boys. Urchins on the streets. Claimed it was a way to help children. And it did. We were warm, dry, and fed. In return, we trained and learned how to become the best possible spies and assassins we could be.”
“And the other children?”
