She dragged a ragged breath into her lungs, then stood and turned to him.
“No.”
He sighed, eyes rolling upwards. “Why must you carry on with these tiresome arguments?” His hand waved as he paced. “You could do more if you joined us. You’re not like the others—they follow orders. You ask questions. You see things.”
“I see pain,” she said, “and I try to lessen it.”
He paused and turned, facing her. “I see pain, too. Unlike you, I go to the root and cut out the rot.”
She lifted her chin. “By widening the wound?”
“By turning it back on those who caused it.”
“That isn’t healing. It’s revenge.”
His mouth tipped, almost amused. “Is revenge so wrong if it sets people free?”
“Toppling a tyrant isn’t the same as freeing people.”
“The new regimewillbring freedom.”
“At what cost?”
He examined his lacy cuff and flicked off dust. “Surely, a better future for the majority is worth the sacrifice of a few.”
“Not when you’re the one choosing the ‘few.’” Her fingers curled. “You don’t save a body by swapping one infection for another.”
He stepped closer, close enough that she could see his eyes narrowing into slits. “You think your healing makes you better than us, don’t you?”
“No,” she said. His eyes, his whole being, made her want to crawl beneath the ground, but she held firm. “It makes me accountable, and it keeps me from turning people into tools.”
He laughed—a low, unpleasant sound. “You think your self-sacrifice makes you noble. But I know the truth, Princess. You heal because it’s the only thing that makes you worthanything. What are you without it? An unwanted Omega. A crippled woman with a badly-marked face. Your healing isn’t a virtue—it’s a performance. Your way of convincing yourself you still matter.”
JingYi backed away. “You don’t know me at all.”
“Don’t I? You like the power it gives you. The feeling of usefulness. The false sense of purpose. It feeds you. In the end, you do it for yourself. You’re just as selfish as the rest of us.”
Her hands shook. She couldn’t answer. Tedric gave her a lingering, arched look before he turned toward the door.
Was he right?
The question coiled in her chest, tight and cold. Had she ever healed out of pure selflessness, or was it always, in some small way, a plea to be seen? To matter? To prove she was more than the sum of her flaws?
She didn’t have an answer.
But she thought of the Omegas—their chests rising and falling, their fevers less, their pulses stronger.Thatwas real.Thatwas fact. Whatever lived in her heart, the work was real.
Before stepping outside, Tedric said over his shoulder, “Tomorrow morning, give the other Omegas more purple limyerite. If you won’t, I’ll do it myself.”
The door shut. The room tilted, but she did not fall.
JingYi paced. Tedric would not stop. Not after this round. Not the next. He would make her do it again, and again, until the last Omega was either ‘successful,’ or . . . dead.
Pleading, reason, morality—none of it mattered to him. He didn’t want healing. She suspected he didn’t want justice either. He wanted domination. Supremacy. Proof he could break and rebuild the Nine Kingdoms into something new.
Unless she stopped him.
The thought was a clear current, cutting through the murk of her doubt. It was the first clean breath she’d taken in days. Her hands, which had trembled with uncertainty moments before, steadied.