Chapter 13: The Confession

The lock turned behind them, and the guards' boots went away down the corridor.

Veda stood in the middle of the owner's suite on one leg, with her blood soaking into the carpet.

Tobias did not touch her.

He went into the bathroom, came back with a towel, and tore it into strips.

"Sit," he said.

"I'm fine."

"Sit down, Veda."

She sat on the arm of the sofa, and he knelt in front of her and wrapped the strips around her thigh.

His hands were steady, and that made it worse.

"Say it," he said, without looking up.

"Say what?"

"Whatever you've been holding since the night you took the microphone. You knew about the storm. You knew about the monster. You knew about Damon."

She looked at the top of his head.

His hair was still damp from the bath she had given him.

"I've lived this before," she said.

His hands stopped.

"I woke up at the railing on the nineteenth day. I was twenty-eight again, and you were next to me, and Damon was reading your name."

"Last time I sat there and let him."

"Twelve days later I picked up an axe to get you the pharmacy."

She said it flat, because there was no other way to say it.

"I killed a dozen men with it. I starved a hundred more. I locked a warehouse and burned it."

"I took the galley, then the ship, then four more ships."

"You died in the third year, Tobias. I ruled four years after that, and Damon put a knife under my breast."

She pulled her shirt aside and showed him the scar.

He stared at it for a long time.

"For me," he said.

"For you."

"I never asked you to."

"You never asked me for anything!"

It came out of her like a shout, and it surprised them both.

"You sat in that chair with your hands in your lap and let them write you off. Your name was read out, and you nodded."

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