“You did so well. They all have your brown eyes. And if we are lucky, they will grow up to be as strong as you.”

I bask in his praise for a minute but then remember. “You lied to me.”

“The Republic took my title. I never lied to you.”

“But you never thought to mention it to me, which is almost the same as lying.”

“You married me thinking I was a pirate. And that is what I am and what I will always be.”

“But you purposely kept me from finding out about your past. Is this the only reason why you wouldn’t let me use a computer, except to send messages and for the cultural and language programs? Why would you do that? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Because I was ashamed. I did not want you to think I was a male who could not keep what was mine or that I could not keep my family safe,” he tells me more emotionally than I have ever seen him. “My family was executed while I was serving with the Royal Fleet, and I could not protect them. By the time I returned, their bodies were still on display in the capital city’s main square, and I had to bribe people to cut them down and bury them. I have so much shame and did not want you to know. I never wanted you to see those images of me. You never looked at me with pity. And since I married you, fewer people have looked at me with pity, so I never wanted you to know.”

I realize that I was so selfish, thinking that this was about me and his keeping something from me when it actually was about him. “I am so sorry. That doesn’t make you weak,” I say.

I open my arms, and he comes to me. We embrace. Then he whispers, “Let’s start over now.”

“Husband, I almost died giving birth, but we have some healthy children.”

“I am so proud of you. There’s something I would like to tell you; I used to be heir to the throne when the Home Planet was still a monarchy. But now I am a pirate. However, by the law, our children still hold their titles.”

“Are they in danger?”

“No,” he says. “Because their mother is a Water woman, no one would support them for a coup.”

“So you married me for your own reasons as well?”

“I needed freedom as much as you did,” he admits.

CHAPTER 36

COMMANDER

I look at her and brush some of her brown hair back from her face. “You have another new name now,” I say to my wife. “You’ve come a long way from your Water woman name to a volunteer, to my valet, to wife, and now the most prestigious name in the Silver language. “Mother,” I say.

“Mother,” she repeats back in her Water language and then adds in the Silver language, “Freedom.”