“I get that. I expected the same from you. Angry, fierce, murderous huge monsters.” She looked him up and down, and her gaze lingered for a second on his package. “They got the huge right.”
Wrathin raised his eyebrow. “Is that a problem?”
“No. No problem at all,” Veta smiled.
They continued through the jungles, heading for the crest of the mountain. Wrathin promised the town was on the other side, but Veta was starting to wonder about his navigational skills.
They hadn’t seen any signs of life—nothing to indicate anyone was around.
She was about to ask Wrathin about it when he spoke.
“I saw your Empress once. When she came here.”
Veta blinked. Not what she expected him to say. “Were you there when she died?”
He shook his head. “I was young. Still training. Our company had taken up a position in a corridor. Her delegation walked by. She was mesmerizing. Almost seemed to float down the hallway.”
“I never knew her,” Veta said.
“Do you mourn her?”
“Because she was my Empress, and her light cannot die.” She grimaced, she sounded like the Emperor. That was his call-to-arms. His rally cry. That the Empress cannot be lost to a race of monstrous aliens who killed her rather than move.
Did she believe that?
Her natural reaction was,Of course. The Emperor speaks no lies.That was her mantra, her training.
“Is she worth the light of all the Rhimodians?”
Veta glanced at him. “Once, I thought so.”
“And now?”
“I don’t know.”
