Her stomach cramping, Sumi flinched as she remembered Kyr showing her what he was doing to Safir Jari. And all because Jari had been taken and used as a hostage by The Sentella during one of their escapes. She still didn’t know how Jari could live, given the torture Kyr had heaped on him. It was horrible and wrong.

And Safir Jari was Kyr’s own brother.

How can I turn Dancer over to that madman?

What choice did she have? Jari was Kyr’s youngest brother. She was nothing to the prime commander, and her daughter even less so. Their torture and deaths would be far more horrific than anything he’d done to Jari, whom he should, in theory, love and be loyal to.

And still the sounds of battle reached them.

Needing a distraction, she turned her thoughts to the way Dancer had looked when she kissed him. The way he’d felt in her arms.

But with that came an even bigger fear.

“Thia?”

She glanced at Sumi over her shoulder.

“I’m still a little fuzzy on Andarion customs. Why is it such a big deal that Hauk was alone with your stepmother?”

Thia let out a sinister laugh. “Because Andarion females are extremely predatorial, like their male counterparts, and they have ferocious appetites in all things. No pledged male is ever supposed to allow himself to be alone with any female he’s not pledged or related to. Case in point, it’s why Uncle Hauk’s parents are his parents.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Uncle Hauk’s father, Ferral, was originally pledged to my yaya. The day before their unification, Endine seduced him. When he admitted to it during Disclosure, my yaya refused his pledge and sent him home in disgrace.”

Sumi cocked her head at something that made no sense to her about Andarion weddings. “Wait, Disclosure? I thought all Andarions had to do was admit to a third party that they were husband and wife and they were deemed married by Andarion law.”

That was what Fain and Omira had done. Fain had said that by Andarion law, it was completely legal and binding.

“It can be that informal… in fact, that’s how my father and stepmother were married, and most Andarions aren’t big on ceremony as a rule. However, that’s like eloping and the high-lineaged Andarions frown on it. Greatly. So much so that even my dad and stepmother were later remarried in our Andarion ancestors’ temple.”

Sumi furrowed her brow as she tried to understand. “Why would it matter?”

“In a traditional, high-lineaged Andarion family, it’s considered shameful to marry that way, like there’s something wrong with one of the partners, and many times the parents force a divorce from the couple. The tying of pure, high-ranking bloodlines is seen as a very serious matter that isn’t taken lightly.”

“Really?”