Because, as much as it was true that everything had a cost… she had to believe also, that everything must also have a benefit too. Survival, freedom, friends, family… and love. The costs for those things didn’t always have to be high, but, even though they were for her now, Kes still believed that the costs had to be worth paying. Whether or not that was completely true or not though… it was also obviously true that the cost of not making the choices she’d made would have been worse… so very much worse.

She brought her hand to Artem’s forehead and slowly brought him back to waking. When his eyes finally fluttered open and met hers, Kes saw first confusion, then fear, then anger flash before her. He struggled and Kes shook his mind, disrupted his thoughts to get his attention. The fear was back now, and though Kes felt herself shaking inside too, she did not let that show through to Artem. ”I can just as easily kill you as keep you alive.” Kes told him softly. ”It would be easier for me, for my family, if I did kill you.” She lied. In fact it wouldn’t be easier for her, she doubted even if it would really be easier for Anara or Tresit either, or, in the end, for Lanam who depended upon them all. ”By marriage, I’m your family now too… by marriage, Tresit is my son.”

Kes felt his surprise and his disdain and she was tempted to shake his mind again to get him to stop sending out such ugly feelings, but she stopped herself from doing it. ”I can’t let you go free, not until my family is safe. So I need you to walk. If you don’t walk, if you try to attack either of us, I will burn your mind again. And, if you still will not walk… I will put a knife in your throat, just as I did with Lingen.” She told him, trying to make her voice firm and her eyes hard so that he would believe. If he believed, then he wouldn’t challenge her lies – if he believed, then he would walk. ”Nod your head if you agree.” She told him.