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really believed I could talk the Romero clan into coming to the rescue. I walked all night and got there the next evening, but they had fled. Must have known about the attack somehow and relocated.”
    I shook my head. “You just sat there. Hid and watched your own clan fall, one by one. Watched your own family get gunned down.”
    Edyn jumped to her feet and began to pace, running a hand through her hair. She always did that when she was frustrated. “I watched you fight.”
    “And that makes it okay?” I snapped.
    She stopped pacing and looked at me, pleading. “I was fifteen, Vance. What was I going to do? People were being gunned down in every direction. But I didn’t dare look away from you. For some reason I thought that if you could stand against them, everyone would be fine. I watched you ducking behind things, stealing rifles from bodies and shooting, then ducking again. And then that last stand. You fought just like your father.”
    I tried to hold on to my anger, to keep it from slipping through my fingers, but it began to dissolve. She was right. Edyn had no weapons, no training. Few of our settlers had. They had depended on my father and the circle to protect them. I couldn’t blame her for that.
    “I’ve relived that nightmare for two years, Vance. Nearly every night. I see you out there, fighting for us like it was the last thing you’d ever do. Like you expected to be killed any second and didn’t even care.” She folded her arms and stared me down with a strange intensity. “But there’s something I don’t understand. After all that, they didn’t even shoot you. Everyone else ended up on the ground, but not you. Why?”
    Suddenly weary, I sat back against the bars. “That’s irrelevant at this point.”
    “If I’m going to represent you, I need to know why our clan hates you so much.”
    “You already know the answer to that.”
    She sat again and curled her legs beneath her. “I want to hear it from you.”
    I didn’t answer for a long time. She just cocked her head and watched me as if she had all the time in the world. The prison that had seemed so empty before now felt too small. Edyn wasn’t going away until she had what she wanted. And, frankly, I had nothing better to do.
    So I told her. The Demander and the deal he’d backed out on, the empress and her extermination order, Treena and her climb to the throne. I left out the more pleasant moments with Treena and the fact that I’d brought her unconscious body to the hospital. The memory of her peaceful expression, eyes closed in sleep, was as vivid as if it had happened this morning.
    Her physician had tried to usher me out several times, but something wouldn’t let me leave until I said good-bye.
    And then her Rating had changed. One moment it was red; then, in a blink, it was green. In half a second she’d gone from the bottom of her society to the very top.
    I knew then that it was a hopeless cause. She’d gotten what she wanted. I was a fool to stay. It was time I shoved my feelings aside and moved on.
    “So that girl,” Edyn said slowly when I finished. “Treena. You helped her take the throne so our clan could escape under her direction?”
    “Yep.”
    “And that’s the only reason.”
    “Of course.”
    Edyn cocked her head at my tone. “There were no personal feelings involved there at all.”
    “I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”
    Disappointment filled her features. “We don’t have much to work with, then. It’s not like there’s any doubt you switched sides. Mills will have tons of witnesses to that effect. And you negotiated with my dad as a representative of NORA, trying to get us to help you and Treena.”
    “Them,” I corrected. “Don’t say us . You weren’t there.”
    Her lips pursed, but she didn’t argue. “We’ll have to hide the fact that you tried to run instead of letting yourself be arrested and tried for your crimes.”
    “What I intended to do isn’t the point. I showed