In her anger, she wanted it to fly open, but stone was heavy, and it rolled forward with the lazy precision of a tortoise. Still, Gio seemed surprised to see her, and that was gratifying enough. The room was lit with several lamps, though it was mostly empty. Gio stood by a shelf of old and weathered wood, sorting through books and objects she didn’t recognize. Alanga things. His gaze flicked behind her, to Atash, an eyebrow raised.

“I tried to stop her,” he said, though his voice sounded weak.

Gio put a book back onto the shelf. “It’s not your fault. Ranami is still one of us, even if she no longer thinks she is.”

His words didn’t hurt in the least. She was not some pet, begging her master’s favor.

“I just watched my wife sail away to Gaelung,” Ranami said. “And here you are, cozy in your shelter, waiting out the storm.”

He rolled his shoulders in a shrug. “Isn’t that what the wise do: wait out the storm?”

“Not when there are people out in it that need your help.”

He sighed, a weary sound, and Ranami remembered what Phalue had said about old men. “There will always be people who need my help. I can’t heed all of them.”

“So instead you just pretend they aren’t calling out for it? Instead you’ll bring your army to Nephilanu and attack us? What did the Sukais do to you, Gio?”

“They’ve subjugated the people they were meant to rule.”

“No.” She knew this went deeper than that. She should have realized it when he’d told them that all of the Sukais lied, but she’d not peeled back the layers of that statement until now. “Not what they did to the people of the Empire. What they did to you.”

His lip trembled for a moment, then stilled. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Is everyone defined by the legacy of their forebears to you? You want Phalue gone. You want Lin gone. Did you ever consider they could be different from their fathers? And what of me? My parents abandoned me. Am I now doomed to abandon any child I adopt? Why don’t you think things can be different? What can’t you let go?”

“If you knew the things I’ve seen—”

“Well, I don’t!”

“They killed everyone I ever cared about,” he snarled, his eyes wide. The scar over his milky eye pulsed with his heartbeat.