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“How can you still be alive?” I said. “You’re supposed to be dead!”
Qale motioned to the scars on his face and body.
“Almost,” he said.
“Why didn’t you come to me? Why didn’t you reveal you were still alive instead of leaving those cryptic messages?”
“Because you’re their lord now.”
“A warrior should always be the leader of the Titans,” I said. “I’m not a warrior.”
“During wartimes, yes. But the future requires peace, not war.”
“Have you seen outside lately?” I said. “The Changelings conquered us. This is war.”
“Geographically, maybe,” Qale said. “But not here. Not where it counts.”
He placed a fist on his chest.
“I shouldn’t be the Lord of Taw,” I said. “It’s your birthrite, not mine.”
“You were always meant to rule,” Qale said. “It doesn’t matter that I’m the eldest. What matters is what’s best for the people. And that’s you. Everyone thinks I’m dead. And I am. I’ve found a good woman to love me. She’s warm and humble. I don’t think she would survive in the castle with our politics. Neither would I. She loves me the way I am—even if I am now only half a Titan.”
There was something that’d been gnawing at me ever since my brother’s death…
“It should have been me on that shuttlecraft,” I said. “I was meant to be the one to head to the front lines to support you. I should have been the one to get shot down.”
Qale wrapped his beefy hand around the back of my neck.
“It would have broken my heart to see you fall, little brother,” he said. “If I lost you… I don’t know how hard I would have pushed the men. I would have sacrificed our people for my own selfish reasons. Besides, you never would have survived the crash. Better it was me.”
“You would have fought for honor,” I said. “The Titan way.”
“You were right not to attack. You told me to hold fast. You were right, little brother. They would have slaughtered us. You saved us. Rushing into a berserker rage was what they wanted. You called their bluff and now they’re here, buried in Titan land deeper than a tick. Now is the time to strike, while they’re greedy and feeding on the lifeblood of our people. Now is when we light the beacon.”
“I tried,” I said. “But Zes turned against me.”
“Zes?” Qale said, shaken by the news. “He’s a traitor?”
“We took the passageway to get to the beacon but he attacked us,” I said. “That’s how I ended up in here.”
Qale scratched his chin.
“That… complicates things,” he said.
He thought the situation over before shrugging his shoulders.
“Things will work out in the end,” he said. “They have to.”
I’d never known my brother to be so calm and self-assured before. He usually flew off the handle at the slightest problem.
“That’s it?” I said. “No tantrum? No beating on the prison bars?”
“What good would it do?” he said.
“None. But that never stopped you before.”
Qale smiled.
