And I never would have gotten to know him.
For a second, my throat was too tight to speak while I looked at Nev’s bowed head and the snowflakes collecting in his hair.
“I really didn’t mean to get on the ship back in Dracorva, you know,” he murmured, not looking up at me. “I was only supposed to get you on board and then stay to find Arjan and face my father, whatever the consequences. But I failed at even that.”
The thought of him staying, even to help Arjan, and of never seeing him again, sent another bolt of panic through me, in spite of myself.
I took a breath and forced the words out, the words I had to say to save my brother—whatever the consequences. “You can still help us. I know I’m asking a lot, but…”
He looked up at me now, his silver-gray eyes heavy. “It’s the least I can do. No…actually, it’s the most I can do, but it’s the least you deserve. And this way, I still get to face him, and you stand a chance of getting Arjan back. Although, I warn you, it’s only the slightest chance.”
I swallowed. “I know. But I have to try.”
“We’ll probably all die.”
“I know,” I repeated, the words echoing hollowly inside me. I hugged myself tighter.
He nodded, as if he’d just been making sure, and dropped his arms, causing a gust of snowy air to swirl around him. “In any case, once we return, I won’t be coming back out.”
My chest went tight as an airlock. “What?”
“After this, I’ll be of no good to you. Either I’ll be dead, or I should stay as far away from you as possible. I don’t belong—I don’t deserve—to be in your life. I wanted to help you, and yet I’ve only hurt you in the worst imaginable way.” He smiled, but it was so bitter it hardly seemed like a smile, more like a grimace. So different from how he smiled when I’d first met him. “I also wanted to help my family, but all I’ve done is betray them.” He laughed, a sound that was also so different from the one I was used to. “How is it that I’ve made myself miserable trying so hard to make people happy, and yet I still haven’t succeeded?”
It was odd: I’d always thought Nev was far happier than he had any right to be. That his happiness was a product of his privileged upbringing—privilege that had been gained by standing on the backs of others. And yet it made me sad to watch him lose something I realized I’d begun to appreciate.
Both my sadness and my appreciation surprised me. But then, his happiness wasn’t about wealth, I knew now, even if wealth inevitably colored it. It was more about the sense of humor and hope with which he engaged the world. It was humor and hope that many in my world still had. I didn’t—for good reason—but only now did I realize this was something I’d craved without knowing it, like food or water after a long day of fishing during which I’d forgotten to eat or drink.
I missed it now, when I could hardly stop thinking about everything else I’d lost: my path, my family, my world. Nev’s happiness gave me hope for my own. And if not for the possibility of happiness, why else was I trying so hard to get back everything I’d lost?
Maybe I was already lost, and I was only trying to get Arjan back. And yet, just like I couldn’t give up on my brother, part of me didn’t want to give up on myself, either.
Nor did I want Nev to give up on himself.
“Maybe you’re trying in the wrong ways,” I said. “You can’t always know what’s right for everyone.”
He looked up in surprise at the gentleness of my tone.
“You’ve trained for so long—been trained—to be a king, but maybe acting like a king isn’t always the best thing to do. Instead of making decisions for people,” I continued, “you have to support them with the resources you have in doing what they think is best for themselves. They won’t always be right, but neither are you, and you have the power to do greater harm. Or greater good.”
His lips parted and his eyes widened, like I’d just said the most bewildering thing he’d ever heard. When he began to nod slowly, I had to fight off the utterly irrational and idiotic urge to take his face in both hands and kiss him.
Instead, I told him what he needed to hear. I gave it to him like a gift, even though the words could have been bitter, even though I didn’t feel like I had very much to give.
Not that it would be the easiest gift to receive.
“Greater good…one of your family ideals, hey?” I didn’t bother to hide my accent. “It doesn’t have to be a lie. It is right now, but you can make it truth.”
Nev’s beautiful features twisted, wringing my stomach at the same time. I knew there were more than tears of sadness and loss in his eyes. They were probably tears of realizing and relief too, but it still hurt to see.
“How can an unhappy person expect to spread joy?” I whispered, not trusting my voice. “Be happy again, Nev. What would it take to make that happen?”
He blinked at me, looking like I had actually kissed him, or maybe kneed him in the stomach. Or both at the same time.
I didn’t know the answer for myself, or if there was a chance for me to ever be happy again. But maybe he had a chance.
It took him a moment to respond, afterward. He gazed out over the landscape as if seeing it differently now, his eyes as shiny as melting ice. “You’re right. Perhaps I’m not like the drones, stuck in an obsolete destructive pattern without purpose. That’s my family. And I don’t have to do as they do anymore.”
His eyes snapped back to me, the silver-gray irises suddenly sharp and clear.
Purposeful.
“Drones.” He laughed, as genuinely as ever before, and my stomach did a flip at the sound, defying the gravity that weighed me down. “I know exactly how to get into the citadel…and maybe even how to get back out again.”
The mist parted, swirling, and the Kaitan burst out of the clouds that clung to the mountains above the Dracorvan plains. For the second time in as many days, Dracorva spread before me in all its glory, the spires of the citadel shining in the sun.
My emotions were profoundly different this time. Rather than dizzying heights of excitement, an accepting calm filled me. I knew what I had to do, and so it had to be done. Glancing at Qole in her captain’s seat, her face serious and focused, I wondered if this was how she always felt.
I turned back to the viewport in front of us, a brighter glint of sunlight catching my attention. From the spires of the citadel, a starfighter flitted out, darting this way and that before the pilot found his course and rose to meet us. Another fighter dropped out of a spire to join the first as it passed, and then another, and another. In less than a minute, I had lost count as their number filled the sky in front of us and the weapons-lock klaxon started.