Release(22)

She nodded.

Keirth dipped some into a bowl for her.

She sat down opposite him at the kitchen table and took a bite. After chewing and swallowing, she said, “Where are we?”

“We’re in hyperspace,” said Keirth. “I’m taking you home.”

She dropped her fork onto the table with a clatter. “What?”

She wasn’t pleased? “You need to be back with your family. You’ve been through an ordeal, and they can—”

“I can’t go back there.” She looked furious. “I’m a murderer.”

Keirth sighed. “Risciter might not be dead.”

“He’s dead,” she said. “I killed him.”

Keirth took a bite of his noodles. “Even if you did, you had to. It was self-defense. He was trying to hurt you.”

“No one will believe that,” she said. She picked up her fork again. She twirled noodles around it. “People won’t believe what Risciter was. I didn’t believe it until I witnessed it myself.”

“Well, if he is dead, his body’s on Kush,” said Keirth. “No one needs to know.”

She brought her fork to her mouth. She chewed.

Good. Maybe she was calming down. She’d seen reason. He ate another bite himself. It was really quite tasty. He’d never had dehydrated food this good.

“Even if I could lie about it,” she said, “and I’m not sure I could, I can’t go back. I’m ruined. I’ve been unchaperoned for nearly two days. I’ll never get an offer of marriage. I’ll turn into my Aunt Tildy, drinking myself into a stupor at parties every night.” She shook her head. “No, I’m not going back.”

Oh, this was ridiculous. Keirth got up to get himself a glass of water. “Where else are you going to go?”

“I...” She shook her head.

Hadn’t thought of that, had she? “Do you want some water?”

“Please.”

He set a glass in front of her and took a drink from his own glass. “I’m sorry about what happened. I’m sorry if this has really made a mess of your life. I wish you’d never been on the ship with me. I wish none of this had happened. But you have your family—”

“You don’t know anything about my family.” She sipped at the water. “They’ll be horrified. They’ll tell me I brought this on myself. I did go after Risciter without a chaperone. I’ve destroyed all my prospects, you see. And now I’ll be a burden on the family. Without a husband, I’ll be the spinster everyone has to pass around for the rest of my life.”

“I’m sorry,” said Keirth. He supposed he’d never really thought about how binding the rules were over the nobility.

“What are you going to do?” she asked him.

Keirth’s jaw dropped. “Don’t get any ideas, sweetheart. I may not want to cause you any more harm, but I’m not taking responsibility for you.”

“Of course,” she said, looking down at her noodles.

“After I drop you off, I’m going back to make sure Risciter is actually dead. If he’s not, I’m going to find him and kill him.”

“What did he do to you, anyway? Why do you want to kill him?”

Keirth pushed his noodles around in his bowl. “It was my mother. He...killed her. I was fifteen. I saw it happen. I tried to stop him, but I failed.”

“Oh,” said Ariana. “I’m so sorry. That must have been... He’s really very horrible.” Her voice trembled. “Do you really think he could be alive?”

“I don’t know,” said Keirth. But he hoped so. He’d dreamed of snuffing out Risciter’s life so many times. He didn’t want that taken away from him.

She ate some more of her noodles. “I really am sorry about your mother. And I hope he is dead. Because he was...he was evil.” She shut her eyes tight.

Keirth felt for her again. She’d been through so much. He knew that when she’d come out of the woods, her clothes had been askew. He didn’t want to push for information, though. He figured it wasn’t his business. But he knew that for a man like Risciter, raping and killing women were all caught up in his twisted ideas of pleasure. His own mother... Keirth didn’t like to think about that. It had been his mother’s profession. Keirth hadn’t liked it. He’d tried, so hard, adolescent that he was to find some way to get together enough money that she could stop, but he’d never been able to find enough work. He knew was Risciter was capable of. And if he’d...violated this girl, maybe that was why she didn’t want to see her family. Keirth couldn’t imagine what an experience like that would do to someone like her.