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“Yes.”
No evasion. No self-pity. I almost hate her less for that, which feels like another moral injury.
Brakk points the cutter at her again, his hand shaking. “You killed Teren.”
Rolaev looks at him. “My order killed him.”
“Coward’s distinction.”
“I do not offer it as absolution.”
“He was a nervous pain in the ass with terrible timing and he deserved better than being a line item in your mercy ledger.”
Rolaev bows her head. “Yes.”
Brakk’s face crumples with rage. “Don’t agree with me! Fight me like a normal murderer!”
Sira steps beside him, touching his shoulder. Brakk jerks once, then stands rigid under her hand.
I look at Rolaev . Empathy is not forgiveness. I know that. I cling to it like a railing over a pit. Empathy is only understanding the shape of another person’s wound, and Rolaev ’s wound is suddenly visible. She saw what I just saw years ago, alone or nearly alone. She tried to do what I would have done. She watched people break. Then she made the oldest, ugliest bargain in civilization: commit violence now to prevent greater violence later.
I understand her.
That does not make her right.
It makes the divide between us personal enough to hurt.
“You think suppression is mercy,” I say.
Rolaev ’s eyes return to mine. “Not suppression alone. Containment. Selective preservation. Destruction where containment fails.”
“You murdered an excavation crew.”
“I prevented uncontrolled dissemination.”
“Teren is still dead.”
“Yes.”
“Stop saying yes like it makes you honest enough to be clean.”
Her nostrils flare. For the first time, anger warms her voice. “Nothing about this is clean.”
“Good. Then we agree on one thing.”
She steps closer. Ghar moves with her, smooth and lethal.
Rolaev notices and stops. “If you attack me here, the archive will destabilize.”
Ghar bares his teeth. “That is the only reason you are still standing.”
“Then use the time well.”
I put a hand against Ghar’s arm. His muscles are rigid beneath my palm. “I’ve got this.”
His eyes do not leave Rolaev . “She is dangerous.”
“So am I, intellectually speaking.”
