Augustus was merely the respectable face.”
Corvin’s breathing became shallow.
“You said you discovered it.”
“I did.”
Samuel snorted.
“He discovered what he’d become.”
Elias looked at Corvin.
“I was young.
I thought I was protecting settlements.”
“You sold weapons.”
“At first.”
“You started the killings?”
“No!”
Samuel’s grin widened.
“Not personally.”
Elias turned toward him.
“Shut your mouth.”
“Tell your son.”
Corvin raised his gun at Elias.
Nalin stared at him.
“Corvin.”
“Tell me!”
Elias closed his eyes.
“We armed both sides.”
The words barely existed.
“We created fear.
We exaggerated attacks.
We paid informants.”
Corvin’s hand shook.
“And people died.”
“Yes.”
“My mother?”
Elias looked broken.
“She discovered what I was doing.
She threatened to expose us.”
Corvin’s heart stopped.
Samuel began laughing again.
Something inside Corvin understood before his father spoke.
The attack on their childhood home.
The fire.
The fake body.
Everything.
Corvin whispered:
“You weren’t escaping Blackstone.”
Elias cried openly now.
“No.”
“You were escaping her.”
“Corvin—”
“You let me believe men came to kill you.”
“They did.
Later.
When I tried to stop it.”
“But that night?”
Elias’s silence became unbearable.
“That night,” Corvin whispered, “you ran.”
Elias nodded.
Corvin almost shot him.
His finger tightened.
Nalin stepped between them.
“Move.”
“No.”
“Move, Nalin.”
“No.”
“He destroyed my family.”
“He also spent thirty years trying to destroy what he created.”
“That doesn’t erase it.”
“I know.”
Her voice broke.
“Because I lost my mother to it too.”
Corvin froze.
Nalin looked at Elias.
“My mother did not die from fever.”
Elias went still.
Nalin’s eyes filled with tears.
“She discovered his past.”
She pointed at Elias.
“She was going to tell me.”
“Nalin—”
“She left our camp to find evidence.”
Her voice trembled with fury.
“Blackstone men killed her.”
Samuel smiled.
“Now you understand.”
Nalin turned toward him.
“No.”
Samuel’s smile faded.
“You think this makes you honest?”
She took one step forward.
“You murdered people to preserve a machine built by a coward.”
Samuel reached for his gun.
Nalin moved first.
She drove her shoulder into him.
The weapon fired into the dirt.
Corvin lunged.
Yiska shouted.
Gunfire erupted again.
Then Yiska did something nobody expected.
He turned his rifle.
And shot Samuel Gann.
The bullet struck Samuel in the chest.
Samuel staggered backward.
Everyone stopped.
Yiska fired again.
Samuel fell beside the box of ledgers.
Dead.
The traitorous warriors on the ridge stared.
Yiska dropped his rifle.
Nalin looked at him.
He spoke.
She listened.
Tears ran down her face.
“What did he say?”
Corvin asked.
Nalin swallowed.
“He was not working for Samuel.”
“What?”
“He pretended.”
Yiska pointed toward the traitors.
They slowly lowered their weapons.
Nalin looked around.
“They were not betraying us.”
Corvin’s mind raced.
“Then why?”
Yiska walked toward the open box.
He pulled out several papers.
Then he tore them in half.
Elias shouted.
“No!”
Yiska threw the pages into the fire burning beside the wagon.
Corvin lunged, but Nalin stopped him.
“What is he doing?”
Yiska continued feeding documents into the flames.
Nalin translated.
“He says the ledgers will cause another war.”
“They’re evidence!”
“They contain names of innocent descendants.
