But now even under her steady gaze and presence, Bek struggled to breathe, and his condition worsened. The veins on his neck bulged. The capillaries along his face darkened as if for an instant oil pumped through his vessels. He hadn’t responded to any treatment so far. All the healers managed to do was make him comfortable. And all she could do was watch from an adjoining room while medical personnel cared for her son. Did her job. Leaving Stacia powerless. Again. Scared. Not knowing what course to take next. The doctor was right. In this moment, she wasn’t a captain. She was a mother. And this was the worst place for a leader—a mother—to be.

“You don’t have to do that with me.” Yahya’s voice grated on her thoughts.

“Do what?”

“Walk around having been emptied out, then pretend you have to hold it together in front of them.”

“I have to hold it together. For everyone’s sake. I still have to captain. The rest of us actually cared about Xola, too. We can’t just turn our emotions on and off like some robot.”

“Don’t you dare act like your loss was somehow deeper, more profound than mine,” Yahya snarled. “I knew him for decades before you were born. Loss marks each of us.”

“And some cut too deep to keep moving.”

She turned her back to him.

“There, at least you finally admit something. Your way is not the Muungano way. Any here would gladly come alongside you to weep with you. Would want you to weep with them.”

“I’m fine.”

“Well, if you’re so fine”—Yahya’s voice had the pout of hurt about it, as if she spoiled the scene he had imagined with his rehearsed speech—“we need to decide how to proceed. About Bek.”

His words were a scalpel of rebuke, cutting into her pain by exposing other pain. She slowly lost the rising swell of wanting to pick a fight with him for distraction’s sake. Over her shoulder, she said, “You think I don’t know how to care for my son.”

“Our son.” He emphasized as if she forgot his contribution to the process. “You think I don’t?”

“I wonder. Sometimes. No. It’s just that you’re so fully convinced in your desperate grasps at theories that you sucked me in, almost having me convinced.”

“Wait? I did? My prion theory.” Yahya rushed around to face her. “I know you, Stacia. If you went down that road, you were thorough. What did you find?”

“Nothing. Always nothing.” She stepped back, shielding herself from his intensity. The longing for her to believe him. His stare.

“I don’t believe you.” He raised her hand. She didn’t remember him grabbing it.