I narrowed my eyes on her. Until Dax concocted the serum, Nadya would defend her most dangerous secrets.
Another wave of cries resounded from above.
“You’ll be tried for the deaths of those children.” I shook my head. “I’ll leave my mother’s name out, but that is all the kindness I can show you.”
Because killing the ruler of Solkar’s Reach, a crime she’d already confessed to, meant instant death. At least this way, she would get a trial. The people would get to face the murderer they cried out for.
No emotion was above justice.
“You said you’d protect me,” she went on, voice as lost as she looked.
Another act, most likely.
But those words still tugged on my heart.
“Against everyone else, not your own crimes,” I said sadly. “People have lost their lives because of your actions. Children. You killed children, Nadya.”
She didn’t move. She just kept staring at the storm raging outside, as if she didn’t even hear me.
How could she be so careless with other people’s lives?
It truly was like talking to a wall. A murderous, apathetic wall.
My hands fell to my sides.
“I can’t make you care if you refuse to,” I said. “Nobody in this world is above repercussions.”
A muscle in her jaw twitched, but she remained still as a statue.
Even now, I tried to play at guidance, when I knew she’d only scoff at it. Maybe even pity me for trying.
I hadn’t been able to save Geryll.
Now I was losing her, too.
“You have blood on your hands and you will have to live with that,” I went on. Maybe some sliver of humanity remained in her, if it had ever been there. For her own soul, if nothing else. “And you have two choices–you can let it consume you, or you can repent and try to make this world better, not leave behind only ruin and despair.”
She suddenly curled her lip and speared me with her eyes. They’d turned cold and hateful once more. “Youruined everything.”
“Because I’m stopping you from killing more people? How awful of me.”
“No.” She launched herself at the bars, the collision rattling through the walls. “You made me soft. It was a miracle I was still allowed to stay here and try to fix my mistake. And I’d almost did it before you brought that she-beast here.”
I furrowed my brows. “What are you talking about?”
She tilted her head to the side. “Do you remember when I first came here? Barefoot, dirty, famished?”
“A good disguise.”
“A perfect one.” She licked her teeth. “We knew your mother’s pitiful heart–”
“You do not speak of her. Not now, not ever,” I said with deathly calm.
For once, Nadya actually listened.
“We knew you’d allow me passage inside the crater. This pitiful crater you love so much. All your precious civilians and warriors, the ones you’ve bled so many times for and defended, stared at me like I was some kind of rabid animal. And you? What did you do?”
“I brought you a cup of tea,” I said softly.
