Swift startles. She lifts her head, her half-there hair flop-
ping over as she twists to look at me.
“You and the other lack—trainees,” I continue. “Only
one of you is going to be captain in the end, right? Shouldn’t
you all be at each others’ throats?”
For a moment I think she’s not going to respond, but then
she rolls over to face me, and something seems to soften in her.
“We’ve been through a lot of shit together,” she says.
“When you work like we do, when you hunt side by side—it’s
something that bonds you. Sometimes the captain does stuff
like this. She sets up situations where someone’s clearly getting
special treatment, and yeah, it gets messy sometimes. But when
you suffer with someone, you learn them. And it’s hard to kill
a person you’ve learned.”
I nod. I’ve seen that kind of suffering-bond firsthand
every time we have a pup in the stables—the caretakers of the
newborn Reckoner become caretakers of each other. “But it
can’t last, right?”
“It might have,” Swift sighs. “But then you came along.”
I don’t know what to say. Does she expect me to
apol-
ogize
for being dragged bodily aboard this ship to raise a
beast I want to destroy more than anything?
“You still on those pain meds?” she asks. “You’re awfully
talky today.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Reinhardt weaned me off them a
week ago.” My ribs still twinge on occasion, but I don’t want
Swift to know that—she’d probably jab them if she knew.
“Ah, so you’re just getting more comfortable.”
“Well I
am
sleeping in your bed,” I grumble.
