Page 14 of Only Hard Problems

Asterin snorted, clearly not believing my lies. She was right. Ihadlet Kyrion wound me that night to make his and Vesper’s escape easier, but I would never admit it to anyone, especially not her.

“You saw what Vesper and Kyrion did at Crownpoint,” she said, a thoughtful note creeping into her voice. “How much raw power they have. They practically ripped the throne room to pieces with their truebond. Do you really thinkyoucan capture them? A lone psion with questionable intelligence?”

I shrugged again. “As I said before, I’m very good at being an Arrow.”

“A cold-blooded killer,” she countered, her lips curling back into a sneer. “One of Callus Holloway’s pet assassins.”

“Most definitely a killer and absolutely an assassin. Just like Kyrion.”

Asterin sneered at me again. “You arenothinglike Kyrion. He has one important thing you don’t. Honor.”

I scoffed. “Honor is severely overrated. All it does is let your enemies take advantage of you. Honor gets you killed, nothing more, nothing less.”

She grimaced, but for once, she didn’t disagree with me. Instead, her face darkened, and her shoulders drooped, as though someone’s honor had caused her a great deal of pain. Who had hurt her so badly?

An uncomfortable needle of sympathy pricked my heart, but I ignored the small, niggling sting. Sympathy was something else that would only get you taken advantage of and then promptly killed. Like my sympathy for Vesper and Kyrion, which was the source of many of my current problems—

Ding!My tablet chimed with another message from Holloway, but this time, I ignored the device.

I spun Asterin around and away, following the pattern of the dance, before drawing her back to me again. “But you’re right about one thing. I’m nothing like Kyrion.” I grinned. “For starters, I’m much more handsome and infinitely more charming.”

She snorted again. “Well, you’re certainly more arrogant.” She tilted her head to the side, her lips puckering in thought. “Are you really that shallow, Zane? Doesn’t it bother you at all? What Callus Holloway does to truebonded pairs? What if you were Kyrion? What would you do?”

Anything to protect my partner.The thought whispered through my mind, and the truth of it startled me. Once again, Asterin was right. Truebond or not, if I ever cared about someone as much as Kyrion did about Vesper, then I would do everything in my power to protect that person.

Another memory flickered through my mind. Kyrion staring at Vesper in the throne room, his gaze fierce and adoring and filled with the threat of extreme pain and brutal death for anyone stupid enough to try to separate him from her. But the most surprising thing was Vesper looking back at him the exact same way, as if she cared just as much about the former Arrow as he did about her . . .

“My mother and stepfather have a truebond,” Asterin said.

Her low, tight voice shattered the memory, and I blinked, coming back to the here and now. I already knew that from Beatrice’s research, as well as my own inquiries, but this was the first time Asterin had directly mentioned her family’s bond to me.

“Is that why you’re so concerned about Vesper and Kyrion? Because you’re worried that Holloway will someday try to siphon off your family’s power?”

“Yes,” she confessed. “And because Vesper and Kyrion are my friends, and I don’t want any harm to come to them.”

“Oh, yes. I read the reports about how Vesper and Kyrion helped you stop a Techwave attack at the Regenwald Resort you own on Tropics 33.” I clucked my tongue. “Foolish of them. If they hadn’t stopped to assist you, then the other Arrows and I might have never caught up with them. Vesper and Kyrion could have disappeared to some distant planet, never to be seen or heard from again, instead of now being the two most wanted and notorious fugitives in the Archipelago Galaxy.”

“Vesper and Kyrion saved hundreds, probably thousands, of lives by helping me defeat the Techwavers at the resort.” More anger and disgust filled Asterin’s face. “They did therightthing, something you would know absolutely nothing about.”

“Rightis a relative concept that depends entirely on how much someone screws you over. Funny how doing therightthing so often involves getting exactly whatyouwant, usually at the expense of someoneelse.”

Asterin rolled her eyes again, but after a few seconds, her disdain melted away, and a calculating expression filled her face. “What are youreallygoing to do about Vesper?”

“Ireallythink I’ve answered this question already.”

“Don’t play dumb with me. You knowexactlywhat I mean, Zane. You have a . . . connection to Vesper.”

“Yes, I do, and yet no one seems to be able to actually say the bloodywordsto me,” I replied, a snarl creeping into my voice. “Especially not my grandmother and my father. They haven’t even admitted it to me yet.”

The confession slipped through my lips, and I ground my teeth to shut myself up. The last thing I needed to do was start spilling secrets, especially to someone as untrustworthy as Asterin.

She blinked in surprise. “They’re keeping Vesper a secret from you?”

I gave her a curt nod, not trusting myself to speak without revealing even more of my anger and disgust.

Her face softened the tiniest bit. “I know what it’s like to be kept in the dark about something so important,” she replied in a low voice. “When other people make decisions based on whattheythink is right or best or good for you, instead of lettingyoudecide for yourself.”

We stared at each other, and something flared between us, some small sparks of understanding and commiseration that melted through the icy artifices we were showing to everyone else—and especially to each other.

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