Traitor Born (Secondborn #2)(13)

“Was it worth it?” I ask, my voice taut.

Dune stops pacing. His entire focus is on me. He arches an eyebrow. “Was what worth it?”

“Killing all those people with your Fusion Snuff Pulse. Was it worth it?” The bitterness in my voice is clear. My eyes fill with tears.

“Daltrey didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“The attack against Swords on your Transition Day wasn’t us.”

“What do you mean? I was there. I saw . . .” I growl, trying to keep the tears in my eyes at bay. My fingernails dig into the soft fabric of the chair.

“It wasn’t the Gates of Dawn.”

“But even Daltrey said—”

“Daltrey was probably trying to protect you, Roselle. He told me you were fragile when they found you. You were beaten almost to death and barely able to move. He didn’t want to add to it.”

“What are you saying?”

“Those soldiers—the ones dressed like the Gates of Dawn—that wasn’t us. Those were Swords dressed as Gates of Dawn—Admiral Dresden’s special death squad, your mother’s people. Her spies uncovered our technology, the Fusion Snuff Pulse, and she used it, attempting to kill you on your Transition Day and make it look like an enemy strike.”

I shake my head in denial. “No! They had on uniforms. They had masks.” A tear slips from my eye. “She wouldn’t do that! She wouldn’t risk her firstborns like that—her reputation—”

“She would—for Gabriel, she would. They knew our protocol. They knew our route. They knew everything. If they’d been Gates of Dawn, explain how they got into Swords.”

“You let them in!” I accuse. “You told them where and when to attack us!”

“I would never risk you in that way. Those ships could’ve easily killed us—we barely survived. You saw my face, Roselle. You saw me.” I did see him. He was surprised. He wasn’t expecting what happened that day. A part of me believes him—the other part of me feels murdered by what it means, left bleeding beneath the broken ships.

“Gabriel knew,” I mutter numbly, putting it all together. “He sent Hawthorne to find out if my mother had killed me.” Hawthorne had been told to search for me and make sure the Gates of Dawn didn’t take me, but really, that was just a cover so that no one would know The Sword did this to her own people—so she could murder her own daughter.

“Deep down, you’ve always known it was her,” he replies, “and you’ll survive it.”

“Will I?” I ask in the same kind of shell shock that I’d felt that day.

Dune squats down in front of me, using his large thumbs to wipe away the few traitorous tears that escape. “I’m your family. You’re more my daughter than you’ve ever been hers.”

“Did you ever love her?” I wipe my cheeks with my sleeve, relieved when no more tears fall.

“No, I never loved your mother, but I know you do, even as unworthy of that love as she is.” He stands and goes to the bar, still within the whisper orb’s sound bubble. A holographic menu appears at a wave of his hand. A fat tumbler rises from the surface of the bar. Ice clinks inside the glass.

“Why were you with my mother if you never cared for her?” I watch him pour water over the ice from the pitcher beside the tumbler.

He turns and faces me. “I was her lover so that I could exert influence over her, to make sure that no harm came to you. She was more afraid of you than she was of anyone. The more powerful you became, the more she feared you and The Virtue.”

“Why have you brought me here?”

He walks to me and hands me the glass. I accept it, taking a sip. He sits on the tufted sofa. “The Virtue knows he has to protect you if they’re to have any future.”

My tears are gone now. “I know your endgame, Dune,” I reply, setting the glass down on the low table between us. “You want the complete destruction of the Fates. That’s what the Gates of Dawn desires. Why not kill The Virtue yourself and have your way?”

“Killing one man or two will do nothing. The regime keeps going—”

“Unless you kill it from within.”

“You can bring us peace, Roselle—an end to the barbaric society we live in.”

“What if I can’t? What if I don’t want the job?”

“Unacceptable,” he growls. His eyes pierce me with a predatory stare, just like they used to when I’d forgotten some lesson he’d taught me.

“What about Harkness Ambersol?” I ask. “From what I’ve heard, he’ll kill it from the inside by sheer incompetence.” This kind of insolence is new territory for me. I’ve never spoken to Dune like this in my life, but I find I don’t care what he thinks of my tone.

“You jest,” he replies, “but you hold the lives of every secondborn and thirdborn in your hands. For Harkness to be in a position of power, you’d have to die, and that is completely out of the question.”

“There has to be another way.”

“You think I want this for you? I tried with everything in my power not to destroy the sweetness in you. If there’s another way, I don’t know it.” His definitiveness scares me. He always seemed to know every angle of every situation.