Page 120 of The Last Hope

Yet I’m balled up, and he’s hesitant. Space and history separating us.

“I thought it’d stop hurting.” He laughs lightly, eyes reddening, and with a deeper breath, he tells me, “The admirals. They weren’t just my superiors.” His gaze lifts to mine. “They raised me.”

My mouth slowly falls open.

He’s laughing again. “And I don’t know why I’m telling you. It makes no bloody difference. You can’t possibly understand. You lost the person who raised you and you werehappy.” He edges back and kneels, about to push himself to a stance.

“That’s not fair,” I spit back.

I may not have mourned my mom—I may have known the exact day when she’d die so I wouldn’t be sad—but I still miss her. And I can imagine losing Mykal or Court and crumbling beneath the weight of their absence.

Eventhinkingabout their death is a punishment I can’t bear. He says I can’t possibly understand, but I can try to.

Stork pauses on one knee. “Nothing in life has ever been fair. You were raised on a planet that treats death like a celebration. I was raised on one that treats death like despair. The funny thing is, right now, I can’t tell you which is worse.” He lifts his brows at me.

“I’m sorry you lost your parents,” I say, a knot in my scratchy throat. “I really am, and I know my words probably mean so little, but I feelterriblethat I had a hand in their deaths.”

I owe them.

I owe them so much more than I can give.

He takes a seat again, but he holds his legs like me, only with a looser clutch. “They weren’t my parents.”

I frown. “They raised you—”

“They never called me their son.”

I bristle, eyes narrowing.

He shakes his head at the sign of my protective glare. “Don’t hate them.” He’s told me that handfuls of times.Don’t hate them.“And the trade wasn’t your choice.”

But they still died to free us from the brig.

All this time, Stork has been around Court, Mykal, and me knowing that we’re the very reason the people who raised him are gone. They could’ve been alive instead ofus.

I’m sure he wishes that.

Stork eyes my nose and lip piercings and the green-and-blue strands of my hair. His smile gradually rises. “It fits you—”

I startle at a rough wave, rumbling the stone beneath us. And I huff at myself, mad that I startled in the first place.

“I wish I had a way to help you,” Stork says. “So you can be unafraid.”

To be unafraid of death. I thought I had mastered that. But then I learned I was human. Then I learned about lifebloods. It feels almost like an insurmountable fear now. And more than anything, I hate that my death won’t be kind.

If I die, I tear out a piece of Court’s soul. Of Mykal’s soul.

“Sometimes I think I’ll always fear, even if it’s just a little bit,” I tell Stork. “And I’ll just have to figure out how to focus on what makes me less scared. But it’s hardhere.”

“When you’re on a planet where everyone wants to kill you, yeah, I wonder why?” He flashes a smile that settles my pulse.

I hear Gem screaming louder, and theswish-swashof the sea silences her sobbing, and this time, I’m grateful for the rush of the waves.

Stork is quiet again, and I wonder if he knows what I’m about to ask.

We’ve made it to Saltare-1. He has to tell me about Earth.He promised.And after talking to Nia before we left and hearing how she was born on theLucretzia,a disparaging thought has hounded my mind.

And so finally I ask, “Is Earth gone?”