“I’ll bet you did,” he muttered without looking at her.

“No means too underhanded to employ,” she added with a cheery smile. He didn’t answer or smile in return, so she sighed and went on. “Besides that, Captain Roel made sure everyone stayed professional among the ranks. All that time I thought he was a decent man, but when I looked back on it afterward, I realized it wasn’t protecting me that he cared about. It was that breaking discipline would undercut his authority over the troop. But that’s not what you asked me.”

She took a breath. Took another as they walked onward, boots meeting the ground with a heavy tread. Finally, she went on.

“Yes, Kem, I would do it again. And again, and again. I walked in on the captain raping your mother, and I killed him, and we stole you, and we ran.”

He looked away, at the sky, at the ground, at the trees and the grass, breathing raggedly, troubled, halfway to tears but holding them back. At length, still walking, he looked at her, finding refuge in anger.

“You say this all now because you’re backed into a corner. Why couldn’t you tell me before? Did you think I wouldn’t understand? That it wouldn’t have helped me understand her better, and love her better. Maybe I wouldn’t have said those things I said to her that last day right before she left for Olludia Halt—” His voice broke. The tears spilled, and he furiously wiped his nose with his wrist.

Oh, Kem. Blaming himself now. It was just like him to do so.

“You know your mother, Kem. I loved her, she was all I had to love my entire childhood. She couldn’t endure thinking even for a moment of any of the things that happened to us before we reached Orledder Halt. So I let it go, even though it meant you never knew the story. I’m sorry it has hurt you. I can’t tell you how sorry. You’re everything to me. You know that. And I also know you’re young and resilient. I trust you. I believe in you—”

“Fuck off! Just fuck the fuck off. I’m so mad. I’m so mad.”

She closed her mouth.

He wiped his eyes and sniffed, and sniffed again and wiped his nose again. But he kept walking alongside her. Not speaking. Not looking at her. Just there, sullen, angry, stumping along—bam bam bam bam—as if his footsteps could hammer the world into becoming a different place than it was.

It was enough, for now. As long as he didn’t turn his back on her and walk away.