Page 81 of Vengeance of the Pirate Queen

“Aren’t they?”

“He didn’t touch me, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“It wouldn’t change the way I see you if he had.”

“I don’t care how you see me.”

“I know.”

Another moment where I want to argue but cannot because he agrees.

“You do not have to tell me, Sorinda. But my ears are always open, if you want someone who won’t judge you to listen.”

He says that, but he doesn’t know. Not what I did. How I allowed the maid’s daughter to die in my place. No one can know my greatest shame. That is a pain that only I should have to carry.

“You were five,” he tacks on, as though reading my thoughts. “Children that young are blameless for anything they do. They are too young to know better.”

I knew better, I think darkly. I knew better, and I let her die anyway.

“You didn’t kill your family. That horrible man did. You couldn’t have helped your sisters if you’d tried. You were the youngest.Youneeded protecting. There was no one to protect you except yourself. You did what you had to to survive. I know that.”

“Just stop talking,” I say, regretting that I shared anything at all.

“You wish you didn’t survive, don’t you? You wish you’d died with the rest of them, so you wouldn’t harbor such guilt. Guilt that you now find magnified because you woke up this undead guy who’s killing the natives as we speak.”

How? How does he do that? Just pull secret thoughts straight from my mind? I slip my fingers under my clothing in an attempt to reach for a dagger, but Kearan says, “Don’t bother. You need every soul you’ve got to get away from this horrible place.”

My hand drops down to my side.

We continue walking, and I consider the matter done. Kearan, it would seem, does not.

“When I was five, I ran away from home, seeking adventure. Probably scared my mother to death. I came back after two days because I ran out of food.”

I roll my eyes. Does he think his sins could ever compare to mine?

He’s hopeless.

“When I was seven, I stole my neighbor’s cat, because I wanted to keep him, and he liked me best. So I reasoned that I hadn’t done anything wrong.”

I resist another eye roll.

“Never gave him back, either,” Kearan continues. “He got run over by a cart only a few days later.”

“What a monster you were,” I say sarcastically.

“When I was ten, I beat up a boy who made fun of a friend of mine. Knocked him unconscious. That was the day I realized how strong I was and that I had to be careful.

“And when I was seventeen, the girl I thought I loved died, and I was happy for it.”

At this, I pause and look at him.

“Just for a moment,” he says. “Just because of how much she hurt me. And then the guilt ate at me, and I wondered if it wasn’t my fault all along that something bad happened to her.”

“You thought you were a bad person because you wished someone ill for the span of a few seconds?”

What would he think of me if he knew the truth? I actually did cause someone’s death. A lot of someones. Bad men, mostly. But not the first one. Not little Sleina, who had swapped clothes with me earlier that day for a game of dress-up. We never switched back. That’s why Samvin thought she was me, and I didn’t correct him. I could have spared her, and I didn’t. Instead I watched as she thrashed her limbs in my pretty dress. Clear up until the point where her lungs filled with water.

Kearan must realize that his words are making things worse, not better, so he finally, finally quiets until we reach camp.

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