”Please don’t use that word.” Kes asked him a little plaintively. ”I know you didn’t mean it that way, but it’s a cruel word.”

He looked at her then. ”I… apologize then.” He said, as though the words were foreign and tasted strange on his lips.

”Thank you. And… yes, she… She wasn’t able to see things that were close up before. I’m not sure how, but I think I took that away from her last night while we slept, or, maybe we both did the healing, together. She… She called it a miracle.” Kes said. They weren’t in that harmony state right now, but Kes still felt like Anara was with her, intimately, as she said everything she was saying. She felt like that harmony was right there, and they could slip back into it whenever they wanted to. Kes found herself wishing again that she had someone who could explain all these things that kept emerging from inside her, someone who could guide her as she and Anara discovered what her mental abilities were capable of.

”That…” Artem shook his head. ”I can tell you aren’t deceiving me somehow, or, at the least, I believe I can… unless that’s somehow a deception too, but… I don’t know what to make of this. All of it. I… should hate you, hate him, or, I shouldn’t, but I feel like… I should hate someone, that I haven’t done right by my father somehow. I know what he’s done… I…”

”You just don’t want to believe it, do you?” Kes asked, their eyes meeting again.

”No, I don’t.” Artem admitted. ”My father wasn’t a kind man, but…” He sighed.

Kes smiled sympathetically to him. ”Believe it or not, I do understand what that feels like, to not want to believe something, even though it’s true.” She thought of Tae, of Tresit killing his uncle, of herself… murdering Lingen… ”I think… Things like this, they just take time… Maybe not to find peace with them, but, if not, at least to find… understanding, find acceptance. I think, in the end, it’ll just be… a part of you.”

”I understand…” Artem said, his gaze falling over to Lanam. ”Maybe I even understand how she felt too.” He admitted softly, looking at Kes as, Kes imagined, Lanam might have looked upon her brother and cousin sparing, if she were able to look upon them.