I slowly picked up the chair I’d knocked over and wrestled the memories back into the mental box where I kept them. My hands trembled and I felt sick to my stomach. “Do what?”

“You barred me from your mind. It should not be possible.”

He didn’t say “for a human,” but I heard it nonetheless. I slid back into the chair and tried to hide the fact that my legs had barely supported me. My pulse pounded in my temples. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Just before you kicked me out, you were scared, terrified. Why?”

“Do you really need to ask?” The question came out far more bitterly than I’d intended, so I took a deep breath and searched for calm. I didn’t find it, but I faked it as best I could. “I fought Valoffs for a decade. During the war, shining eyes and cold power meant death, and some instincts are harder to overcome than others.”

Torran’s expression morphed into searing anger and bitter grief, and it didn’t take a mind reader to know that he was thinking about Rodeni. It was the most infamous battle in a war full of famous battles. I’d lost half of my squad and most of my soul on that cursed planet. Others had lost so much more.

After the battle, I’d gone straight to Command still wearing my bloody uniform and turned in my discharge request, effective immediately. Lexi, Kee, and Eli had all done the same.

None of us had escaped unscathed.

“Why did you do it?” Torran asked. His voice was so quiet and pained that the words could’ve come straight from my own conscience.

I clenched my hands together. I knew exactly what he meant. That day in Rodeni was seared into my memory forever. “I was told the Valovian civilians had evacuated and that the military had taken over the building as a command center. We were being overrun. An attack on Valovian Command was the only way to buy our forces enough time to fall back. I volunteered to go. My squad followed me.”

His gaze sharpened, pinning me in place.

The memories rose, haunting me with my failures. My stomach churned as adrenaline surged through my system, but I swallowed down the acidic taste of bile. “By the time I figured out that the building still held civilians, the charges were planted. I called off the attack and got overruled.”

I didn’t tell him—couldn’t tell him—that three of my squad had died while frantically trying to deactivate the explosives. I’d already said too much. FHP Command had lied to me, killed my people, and then left us behind to die. When we’d survived against all odds, they had used expedited discharge approvals to buy our silence and compliance while they’d paraded me around as a hero.

I would never forgive them.