Page 86 of The Space Between Stars

She chuckled at his naivety. “If Gelhard became captain of the Rogue’s Rapture tomorrow, do you think he’d give it up again next ten-day?”

Mitek picked at his nails. “Suppose not. Still, it seems a little treasonous… and dangerous. I thought a Ruxian was impossible to kill.”

Indeed. Killing a deity was no small task. That was why Nelfindar had begun to outsource. “The government was so infiltrated with Tera’thian spies, and oligarchs who secretly wanted the Ruxians out, that support for them fell into private hands. And Methu’su, this journal’s owner, was a part of that shadow operation keeping them alive.”

“Got it. Sooooo, what does this have to do with Kaidech?”

Fates help her. Mitek genuinely cared more about filling his stomach than learning about one of the largest coverups in Nelfinden history.

“Mitek, the operation’s key orchestrator was stationed in Kaidech.”

His eyes rolled skyward in thought. “So you’re saying the reason the Tera’thians risked an all-out assault on Kaidech was because they were terrified a Ruxian would jump to our defense during their conquest and destroy them again.” Natoluphut, Seraphinden’s first Ruxian king, had supposedly submerged a fleet of Tera’thian war ships. But that had been generations ago, long enough for the line between tale and truth to grow murky. “And they knew that there was a Kaidechi operation with intent to procure additional Ruxians.”

At least he could follow a stream of thought. Perhaps there was hope for him.

But his eyes strayed out the window again, towards a girl walking down Chira’na’s trade district, a basket brimming with apples in the crook of her arm. The ribbons braided into her hair rippled against the wind. Another ribbon cinched the waistline of her kaftan, revealing what felt like unrealistic proportions.

Fankalo rolled her eyes. “Mitek, focus.” She snapped her fingers.

“I am.”

“I need you to keep your dick out of your hand for five minutes. This is important.” When he’d hit his teens, he’d lost half of his brain. Not that there had been much there to begin with.

Mitek shone every one of his teeth at her. “If you were half the boy you pretend to be, you’d have your dick in your hand too. She was brilliant.”

“Disgusting.”

Mitek’s expression sobered as he slowly comprehended the implications of her discovery. “This is why they burned your city?”

“Yes.”

“The Tera’thians were successful, then. In killing the last of the Ruxian bloodline?”

“No.”

“How do you know?”

“Well… for two reasons. First, if the Tera’thians were sure they had killed all of Nelfindar’s Ruxians, they would have laid siege to Nelfindar already, the way they have on nearly the rest of Kath. Don’t you think? There have to be at least some still out there.”

“Hypothetically, sure. And the other reason?” He was hurrying her along.

Fankalo pressed her lips into a line. Her chest rose and fell in an unintended sigh. Now that she was preparing to voice it, it sounded too insane to be real.

“In Kaidech, the director of that Ruxian protection operation was named Torbast Calisto. And Calisto was a close family friend.” The words didn’t do him justice. “More than that. He ran Kaidech’s dowagian studio. Trained my father and brother in the dowagian arts for thirty-five hours every ten-day.”

Mitek’s attention was on her, unmoving now. The blood left his face. “Fuck.”

Eloquent as ever, though her initial response had been much the same. “Knowing my mother, the way she used to act. The way she kept me isolated, and her disappointment in me. They were trying for a Ruxian… but I was just another conduit.”

Mitek’s lips parted. He moistened them. “This is why you’re lucky?”

“Right.” She nodded. “Methu’su wrote that some conduits had the ability to sense the threads of distortion that Ruxians could pull from; they simply couldn’t manipulate them. I can sense good and bad futures. And Calver… well, he had reactionary skills like something from a fable. He knew when bad things were going to happen, just not as far in advance as me.”

Mitek pressed a fist to his lips.

“You don’t believe me?”

“No, I do. Fuck me, I knew you were special. We all do. I just didn’t realize. Ahm. Well…” He looked at her, then, the way he sometimes did when he wasn’t being an arse. “Your blood brother. You really think this is why you feel him? Why they took him?”