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“So do I, mi lim.”

“We should’ve done better by them.” Her bottom lip quivered, head shaking. “I don’t know what we did wrong, but we failed them, Nix. We did wrong by those boys.”

It wasn’t that I thought we were perfect, but I didn’t know what we could’ve done better. We didn’t smack them when they misbehaved. Was that a mistake? Should we have? We were kind to them, and we showered them in affection. Had we been too lenient?

Was it our fault that they were who they were? Was it Lux’s? Was it simply having seen and lived on Matriaza in those early developing years of their lives?

“We need to do better by our babies,” she whispered, tears rushing down her cheeks now. “We can’t let them end up like the boys. We have to be better. I don’t know what we need to do differently, but we need to teach them to be good people. Do you think we did with the boys? Do you think we paid enough attention to them? Maybe-maybe that’s why this all happened. Maybe w-we didn’t love them enough, or we loved them too much, or—”

“Mi lim.” I took her face in my hands, thumbing the tears from her cheeks. “It isn’t our fault. We aren’t even their parents.”

“I was with those boys for the first year of their life, day in and day out. So were you. We played a large part in raising them, and—”

“What did we do to them that our parents didn’t do to us, Véa?” I asked. “Stella and Cere didn’t treat them any differently than Brynn treated you and Venark. Lux is many things, but for the most part, he was good to those boys. Should we refuse to be decent to our children simply because we were kind to them, and they turned into monsters?”

She turned away.

“Rafael didn’t turn out like them,” I whispered. “It isn’t all nurture, Véa. Nature has to play a part.”

She stayed quiet for a moment. Finally, she said, “I still want to do better by our babies, alright? I don’t want them to grow up prideful, and vying for a stupid crown, and… selfish. I don’t want to question myself later. I want to do well by them, Nix.”

“We will.” I pinched one of her curls, spinning it around my fingertip. “He isn’t ours, but Heylel turned out well, didn’t he?”

Véa grew quiet for a moment. Her eyes softened. “Why do you think that is?”

“Maybe because he was mostly secluded from the Angels? He saw Lux periodically, and Pa, obviously, but he wasn’t surrounded by people from Matriaza prior to our rule. The boys were encompassed by people like that in those primary years. People who hated our leadership, people who hated us, people who probably told Michael he was the rightful heir.”

She silenced for a few heartbeats. “And Heylel was only ever really around us.”

“Never even visited Matriaza,” I said. “Only made a few trips to Matriax to visit his father as well.”

A few more ticks of silence. “It did take centuries for the culture on Matriaza to change.”

“And they’re only younger than us by two decades,” I said. “They were exposed to that society in a way that our children never will be.”

Relief shined in her eyes for a few cricket chirps. She pulled our fingers, still clasped tightly together, to her chest, cuddling them just beneath her chin. “I’m still sad for them.”

“So am I,” I whispered. “But perhaps imprisonment will change their perspectives.”

A few more moments of silence. “Venark and Hana are a bit fuzzy still. They only remember bits and pieces. They’re at Mum’s for now, but she suggested a dinner tomorrow after Lux’s official sentencing.”

That was a wonderful change in subject. “That’ll be lovely, do gràs.”

“I told the children their last bodies were damaged, so they have new ones now. None of them asked many questions.” Véa laughed quietly. “Mirobhail said, ‘oh, good, because Venark was always too short for Aunt Hana.’”

I chuckled too. “He’s just convinced that a wife should be two heads shorter than her husband because of us.”

Another faint laugh. “They miss the Land of Light.”

“We’ll make a trip once things settle down.” I leaned in and pecked her forehead. “But we have an early morning. May as well get some sleep, no?”

CHAPTERTWENTY-ONE

NIX

The sentencing was nothing spectacular. It went just as planned, in fact.

The twenty-four of us gathered in the Elder’s Hall. Véa was the one to announce his crimes and his punishment.