I shook my head. “I don’t want to fight you. I don’t want to fight anybody. But I’m not going to let you hurt anyone on the Kaitan again.”
“Your delusion is assuming you have any say in the matter.” He stepped toward me, but I didn’t step back. He stopped, almost touching my blades. “All you’ve done is brought dishonor on your family, disaster on your people, and death to your friends. You’ve accomplished nothing else.” He took another step, and pressed himself against my blades. “Now, as your king, I command you to lay down your weapons.”
I felt the twinge of a lifetime spent listening to that voice and obeying. But I had already struggled with my choices, and they were made.
I pushed back against him, my blades grating on his armor, but my father didn’t move, and my frustration spiked. “You taught me to never lay aside my duty to this family, which I learned all too well at my Rendering. Now you say I dishonor our family? Who took someone against their will and tortured them? Who lied to his son his entire life? You’ve dishonored everything, everything that you raised me to believe. You’ve forsaken your duty.” I was shouting at him now. “So, no, I’m not putting down my weapons, not by your command, because you haven’t earned the right.”
Lightning flashed in my father’s eyes. He stepped back, and I never even registered how his sword appeared in his hands. It came at me, and on pure instinct, I brought a blade up to answer it. The weight of his weapon took mine to the floor; he shifted, trapped it there with his foot, and hammered his sword back up against my other one. Both were wrenched from my hands at the same time, and he slammed his hilt against my unarmored chest. I wheezed and staggered, falling almost as much from shock as from the blow. I had just been disarmed like a child being relieved of a toy.
“Earned? Leadership isn’t bestowed; it is a decision!” Thelarus growled. The lines on his face deepened, and he stood tall, blade pointed down at me. “A ruler doesn’t dabble in sentiment. A ruler sacrifices. You would kill a hundred to save one you care for? The selfishness is staggering.”
I suddenly became aware of cuts and bruises on me I had no memory of receiving, and at the rate I was bleeding, I’d probably pass out soon. On top of that, new troops were spreading into the hangar, weapons up and aimed. So much for fighting everyone off. Maybe I can stall them.
I climbed to my feet wearily.
“You say sacrifice a lot. Sacrifice of what?” I asked. “Somewhere, Father, you lost sight. You focused on the practical measures to accomplish our ideals. The big picture.” It was my turn to walk toward him, and I stopped with the point of his blade almost touching my chest. “But in the end, that means your ultimate ideal is the success of our family. What kind of choices do you think you make when that is what drives you? Choices that benefit us, or benefit others? Are you really so arrogant as to think those are one and the same?”
Father’s face didn’t change, but he didn’t stop me either. What if I could reach him with my words? Surely there was some part of him that had to know this was true.
“Do you know what you taught me? You taught me to make the lives of others better. Do you think their lives are better?” I shouted without warning, stabbing my finger at the ship behind me. My world had shrunk to this, just my father and me, and everything I had ever felt boiled in my veins. Love for this man, love for my family, and a raging despair that it had come to this. “Of what use is the big picture to them? Your big picture is made of billions of single lives, and you’d look each of them in the eye and say they deserve to die, when you yourself give up nothing?”
I took a ragged breath and stepped back with my hands spread out. “Father, don’t you think that when stealing and torturing is what saves our family, the true sacrifice would be to let our family fail?”
For the briefest of seconds, pain flickered across my father’s face, before it was replaced with the king’s stony expression once more. He put away his blade.
“The ship of your terrorist comrades is surrounded, there are fighters outside this hangar, and drone security has, thankfully, reset the drones to their master program,” he informed me without a trace of emotion. “If you fight, we will incapacitate you. If your…‘friends’…fight, they will be killed. You are unwell and will be taken to the infirmary to be treated. I will visit you there when you’ve at least partially returned to your senses.”
What am I supposed to do? I looked over my shoulder, at the Kaitan.
Telu and Basra had Arjan on a blanket they were using as a makeshift stretcher. His wounds looked hideous, and I didn’t even know if he was alive. Eton’s leg was hastily bandaged, if still bleeding. Even though he could hardly walk, he was trying to help Qole up. She was on her knees, her eyes closed, her face drawn, as if she were waging some internal battle. The sight of her stabbed through me, and I wished I could go to her…but my place was here, between my father and her. The crew was battered, hurt, and yet, they’d made it back to the ship. They had defied all odds, and an entire royal family. The least I could do was defy a king.
I turned back and shook my head. “Don’t you see? It’s not about winning; it’s about doing the right thing.”
Thelarus shrugged his shoulders and raised his hand. “Watch the consequences of your choices.”
This was it. He was going to give the order, the troops would attack, and everyone would die. Except for me, and I would no doubt go to an asylum for the rest of my days, or until I was somehow reprogrammed. I closed my eyes for a second. Congratulations, Nev, you’re out of ideas.
“Thelarus Dracorte, there is a warning signal on your comm that just went off. It’s there because you receive an alert when any significantly drastic market action occurs.”
Basra’s voice sounded in my ears, and even in my bedraggled state, I managed to start. His ability to sneak up on me was uncanny.
I had no idea what he was going on about, but Father stayed still, watching as Basra walked past me.
Something was different about him. Drying blood matted his clothing on one side, but that wasn’t it. Instead of his customary slouch, instead of all the little ways he faded into the background, Basra was standing straight, his shoulders square and arms clasped behind him. He exuded the confidence and posture of an executive in a boardroom, not a fugitive in front of a firing squad.
“How do you know that?” Father narrowed his eyes.