“She loves that baby. She will care for him.”
“Yes. As everybody knows, infants do best while being dragged from hiding hole to hiding hole. Safe, caring environments are unnecessary.”
Tusk must be truly furious if he is resorting to sarcasm. I am also realizing that he actually cared. I thought he considered the baby nothing more than a toy to appease me, but he was thinking more deeply than I imagined. And he was putting the needs of the infant above…
“I feel as though I have made a mistake.”
“You have,” he growls at me, his golden eyes flashing. “You made a decision to appease your conscience over the needs of the vulnerable.”
I truly thought I was doing the right thing, though I am no longer certain what the right thing is.
"The silver lining is that we now have everybody right where we want them. All the little pawns ready to be played.”
"That's a chess reference.”
"It is.”
“Korabi play chess?”
“Everybody plays chess, Margaret. Chess is life.”
A little tendril of doubt is winding its way through my mind and my heart. Is he right? Did I do the wrong thing? I don't know if I care. I did the thing I thought was right, and that was all I could do.
I look at him with all the bravery I can muster. “Punish me now, if you please. I don’t care. I will take whatever cruelty you can muster. I know I have done the right thing.”
He gives me a look which strongly indicates my punishment is to be forthcoming. I feel my inner self clench for him. I have never crossed him this way before, never made him so angry. He will be merciless. He will be thorough. I will suffer.
Later…
“Why do you look so miserable?” Lyric nudges me. I am sitting in the royal korabi dining room, or what is left of it. There is a hole in the upper right wall and roof which lets light and the elements in. I rather like it. It is symbolic of something or other. The entire place is in a state of decay, traditional majesty giving way to, well, nothing much at all.
“Tusk is furious at me for returning the baby to Jax. As if there was any other choice.”
“Tusk is an asshole," Lyric says in that rough way she has. She has lived a rough and dangerous life. I feel a sense of admiration for her, as well as no small amount of awe. She speaks her mind without fear for the consequences.
“He might be. But I fear he was right.”
“Krush has fucked up big time. That's for certain. I don't know what the fuck he was thinking, launching an attack like that. But Jax isn’t stupid.”
“She lost a lot of blood having the baby. She was very weak.”
"She's a survivor. More than any of us. You did the right thing. Don’t worry.”
But I do worry. I worry because Tusk’s words have wormed their way inside my brain and left me with terrible images of what might befall that sweet, golden baby boy.
Lyric takes a long swig of her brew. “Tusk didn’t want them to have the baby so he could have a bargaining chip. Don’t think for a second he gave a damn about it.”
I think she might be wrong. I think Tusk might care more than he allows anybody to see. I think he is devoted to his family. And I think he considers all those of royal blood and connection his family.
“You’re so quiet, Margaret. I never know what you’re thinking. I bet that drives Tusk crazy. He likes his puppets predictable.”
“Do you think Krush will be a good father?”
She lets out a bitter laugh. “Krush wanted me murdered slowly for his amusement over a period of weeks. So. No. But you know what? A good mom is worth more than a thousand terrible fathers.”
“Krush wanted you murdered?”
“To be fair, I did kill his father. By accident, though. I was trying to kill Rath at the time, after Rath had my family slaughtered…”
I listen with a sense of quiet horror growing inside me. I was raised to be good and decent, to value life and respect family over all things. There is not a single entity here, human or alien, who deserves anything resembling happiness. They are all craven and cruel. They are all obsessed with power and revenge, one or the other if not both.
What am I to do with them? With any of them? Every time I look for some kind of redemptive facet of their personalities, they remove a mask to show me an even greater horror.
Lyric pats my shoulder. "Don't worry. You’ll get used to it.”
I have absolutely no intention of getting used to it. I am tired of these games, these dark and terrible things they do to one another. I have not witnessed a fraction of what they have done, but what I have seen is more than enough.