Page 39 of The Enemy's Daughter

“No.” Tristan fills our cups with the boiled water. “Our founding families discovered this place because my father had a dream. They walked, half-starved and fighting for their lives every step of the way. But after a few months, they located it like an oasis in the desert. Or as my father would say, ‘a miracle.’” Pain flickers acrosshis face. “It was abandoned but intact. Truthfully, I think the original residents evacuated when the bombs started, but the location of the town meant that it ended up sheltered. The mountains on one side protected it from the fallout and tainted dust, which also kept the watershed clean. It’s taken work, but we’ve maintained everything the best we could. As more people arrived, we took them in until violence escalated, and then we built an electric fence to keep out the thieves. Vandals. Attackers.” He gives me a funny look, but when I only wait for him to continue, he does. “Nothing much has changed. We’ve been fighting to protect ourselves and what we have ever since.”

That’s a delicate way to say they use terrorism to hoard resources. I cross my arms. “So in your mind, the clans are nothing more than thieves and vandals. You think the decades of fighting between us boils down to the clans wanting whatyouhave?”

He holds my gaze, his face remaining neutral. “Yes.”

“No.” My head shakes so hard my hair falls into my eyes. I run my fingers through it and flip it out of my face. “How can that be when we didn’t even know you have all of this? Which I see was your intent. It’s easier to hide what you have when you don’t let us get close.”

“We don’t let you get close because when we do, people die.” He exhales. “But we’re not the ones perpetuating this, and we certainly didn’t start it.”

I have never been more grateful for all the stories I learned at morning academy. “But you did start it. The first slaughter of our people was over three decades ago. There were ten mutilated bodies found on Hanook land, all missing their eyes and some fingers.”

Tristan turns away to pour the boiling water into our mugs.“You think we just decided to murder a bunch of clansmen one day? For no reason?”

“There’s only so much land that’s habitable. Only so many supplies left over from the old world. Are those not reasons?”

He shakes his head.

I can’t believe he’s denying it. “We’ve found beheaded animals. Guards that have gone missing and never returned. Dead bodies along our border. Your terror is intermittent, but it has never ceased.”

“Violent vagrants,” he says flippantly. Too flippantly. “We have them as well.”

No. He doesn’t get to pretend that they haven’t been anything but barbarians to us. “What about our soldiers who have come back with gruesome stories of torture? All of them missing their eyes, thumbs, and forefingers as a result ofyoursoldiers, a disability that guarantees they’ll never hold another weapon again. As a healer, I’ve mended them. I’ve seen it all myself. We know it as your trademark.

“And then there’s all the raids on us and our traders, limiting supplies,” I continue. “The little bit that does come through needs to be searched for booby traps and poison. Your army is nothing but a terror.”

When Tristan finally turns around his face is hard. “So you’re saying we should just let you ride through with a cart of weapons to be used against us? We’re not that stupid. But booby traps and poison—that’s your father’s playbook. He’s the sole reason we have our own traders and trust no one except our own people. And raiding you—” Tristan laughs, almost cruelly, and something hot stirs in my gut. “You live in a shack, Isadora. What exactly is it that you think we want?”

I step closer, my face flushed. “And whose fault is it that we live that way, Tristan? You kill our animals, pick off our soldiers. Then you take from our traders so we can’t replenish our supplies.” But making us weak isn’t their only goal.Why does a bully crush a bumblebee?“It’s really about power, isn’t it? Because what you ultimately want is to control everything.” I boldly meet Tristan’s eyes. “And you’re well on your way. Look around. The evidence of your people’s crimes is everywhere.”

His eyes tighten. “Or, these things you see”—he gestures to the room—“were here from before the bombs, or they were traded for. The Republic is a big place, and although most of it is uninhabitable now, if you search hard enough, anything can be found. You can’t fault us for having more resourceful traders.”

He really is a master manipulator.

Tristan pushes off the counter and takes a step closer. “You know, I’ve trained most of my life to be an elite guard, and we are very good at what we do. But there hasn’t been a single time we’ve struck first. As far as I’m concerned, the tolerance, even lenience, we’ve shown is unjustifiable. Criminal. It can’t be sustained, especially now, after what the clans have done to my father.”

Impossible. Again, I shake my head, but my thoughts are derailed by the tightening connection between us with every inch he moves closer. We’re far from touching, but his anger and zeal are leaking into me with increasing intensity. There’s something else there—a swirling heat that stirs in my gut. It’s so contrary to the rest of him.

And so very pleasant.

I clear my throat as if that might help push Tristan’s emotions away from me. It doesn’t work, so instead I hold on to what I know: he wants to hurt the clans. “So now you’ll get your revenge.”

Tristan’s cheek pulses.

“I’m right, aren’t I? You’re planning an attack.”

His anger coats my mouth, burning like scalding oil and reveals the truth before his words do. “Of course we are,” he says. “Someone must pay for my father’s murder. And something must be done to prevent mine.Your fatherwon’t stop until he takes it all.”

He’s lost his mind.

But as Tristan’s pain, thick and heavy, burrows between my ribs, I can’t help but see his side. Even his need to retaliate against my father is beginning to sound like a good idea. I push against it. “And then what? How does this ever come to an end?” There’s no doubt in my mind that the bad blood between our people started, and continues, because of the Kingsland’s greed. But if they attack us, then we will attack them, and this never-ending bloody cycle will continue, leaving the clans to never know peace.

“There is no end without justice,” he says.

But what does justice look like to him? Killing Father? Or slaughtering a path through the clans?

And even if there is no end without justice, can there ever be justice in revenge?

Our breath falls hard in the air. We’re getting nowhere. “Then take me with you,” I say.

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