Chapter 419: 419. In The End, She Finally Let It Go and Apologize (Now’s My Turn Soon)

"I was trying to say that I saw something that mattered and I needed someone to hear it," Mireya said. "That’s all I was trying to say."

"We heard it," Aisella said. "We heard you."

"You heard it and you dismissed it," Mireya said, and there was less edge in it than there had been twenty minutes ago.

"We heard it, but we reached a different conclusion," Aisella said. "Those are not the same thing. You understand that distinction; you’re intelligent enough to recognize it."

Mireya was quiet.

Nerith had turned back to face the wall. Her eyes were bright, but the control had been reinstated, and the leaves had slowed to something that was less like trembling and more like the motion of someone breathing carefully.

"I’m not angry at you," Nerith said, and she said it like someone testing whether that was true and finding that it was. "I’m just—tired of being told that the things I believe are the things I’m least qualified to speak about."

"That’s not what I meant," Mireya said.

"You said people who care about him most are least positioned to see him clearly," Nerith said. "That was the exact sentence."

Mireya couldn’t argue with that because it was what she had said.

"I shouldn’t have said it that way," she said after a moment.

Aisella looked at her. That was not something Mireya had said easily. She could see the effort it took.

"It doesn’t change what happened in that hour," Talyra said, her tone devoid of sharpness. It was simply a statement, not an attack. "But it does mean something."

"I know," Mireya said.

She was looking at Nerith. Nerith was looking at the floor now.

The amber quality that Aisella associated with Nerith’s settled state had not fully returned, but it was not absent the way it had been five minutes ago. It was somewhere in the middle, working its way back.

"For what it’s worth," Aisella said to Mireya, "the fact that it bothers you this much is not a small thing. A person who didn’t care wouldn’t be standing here at this hour."

"It doesn’t matter how much it bothers me if no one in this group does anything with it," Mireya said.

"That’s probably true," Aisella said. "It is also possible that this group will choose to do nothing with it and simply wait."

"Gather additional information. Keep the question open."

"That’s not nothing," Aisella continued. "Questions that stay open stay available."

"If something else happens that connects to what you saw today, the question being open means it can still be asked."

Mireya looked at her. "You’re telling me to be patient."

"I’m telling you that a question that gets closed too early stays closed," Aisella said. "And a question that stays open can still be answered later."

"That’s a very careful way to agree with me without agreeing with me," Mireya said.

"It’s a very careful way to tell you I heard you," Aisella said. "Take it for what it is."

And then there was silence after it.

Then Talyra said, "Can I say something?"

"You’ve been saying things for the last hour," Mireya said.

"One more," Talyra said. "And then I’m done."

"It’s also because you’re still going and going and going without having a way to stop... so let’s just say this again!"

Mireya gestured with her hand in a way that meant go ahead.

"Apollo," Talyra said.

Mireya went still.

"I’m not making an argument against Apollo," Talyra said. "I want to be clear about that before I say the next thing."

"I’m not telling you Apollo is a bad person or that what he’s done cancels who he is."

"Then don’t bring him into this," Mireya said.

"I’m bringing him in because you brought him in first," Talyra said. "Tonight at dinner and before."

"You used him as the standard. You claimed that Apollo wouldn’t have acted the way Rex did. You said that Apollo reasons with people and offers them a way out. That was your argument."

"That’s still my argument," Mireya said.

"Then I want to ask you again about the district," Talyra said.

Mireya’s jaw tightened. "That’s different."

"Tell me how," Talyra said. "I’m not asking to score a point."

"I genuinely want to know how you can hold those two conflicting ideas at the same time, as I have not figured it out myself."

"He didn’t intend it," Mireya said. "It was a loss of control, and he wasn’t making a decision!"

"I know that," Talyra said. "He’s told people that."

"It’s in the record, and everyone in Aethelgard who knows about it knows that."

"So then—"

"The people who died in that district didn’t know that," Talyra said. "They didn’t know what he intended."

"They were just people who were in the wrong part of the city when his designation destabilized. They didn’t get a process."

"They didn’t get a chance to cooperate or surrender or explain themselves. They were just gone."

Mireya said nothing.

"And the count," Talyra said. "I’m not going to say the number out loud because it’s not the point. But the count from that day is higher than the nine in the canyon."

"It’s not comparable," Mireya said. "He was in crisis...!"

"Like I said many times...! He lost control, and it’s not the same as going into a canyon and making a deliberate choice."

"I agree they’re not the same," Talyra said. "But I’m asking you something specific."

"You called Rex a murderer tonight... that word... that fucking specific word." She held Mireya’s gaze. "Does it apply to Apollo?"

"No," Mireya said.

"Why not?"

"Because he didn’t mean it," Mireya said. "Because he’s spent every day trying to make it right, and he’s not the kind of person who would choose to do what he did."

"And Rex," Talyra stated, "chose to act against those who had spent fourteen years actively hunting reincarnators."

"These were people who had killed and were poised to continue their actions."

"That doesn’t give him the right—"

"I’m not saying it gives him the right," Talyra said. "I’m saying that when you put the two things next to each other..."

"Apollo’s accident killed more innocent people than Rex killed operational Legion members... and you come out calling Rex a murderer and Apollo a person worth defending; the difference is not about the body count." She paused. "The difference is about how you feel about each of them."

"And that’s something you should know about yourself."

Mireya looked at the floor.

"I love Apollo," she said, and it came out smaller than anything else she had said tonight.

"I know you do," Talyra said, without any edge at all. "That’s not wrong, and that’s not the problem."

"The problem is that the love is doing work in your argument that you’re not acknowledging."

"He holds himself accountable," Mireya said. "He’s not the same as Rex."

"No," Talyra said. "He’s not..."

"They’re different people, and they made different choices under different circumstances, and the consequences were different, and the intentions were different." She was quiet for a moment. "But Rex is also not the worst thing in this story."

"And if the standard you’re holding him to, when applied consistently, requires you to use the same word for someone you love, then the standard is doing something other than what you think it is."

Mireya was very still.

Aisella watched her. She was not looking at the wall or the floor.

She was looking at the space in front of her with the expression of someone who has just heard something that landed somewhere specific and is processing what it landed next to.

"He destroyed half of Aethelgard," Mireya said quietly.

It wasn’t an argument; it was simply something she was expressing out loud, perhaps for the first time in a context that demanded she truly hear it.

"Yes," Talyra said.

"And people who had nothing to do with it—"

"Yes," Talyra said.

Mireya pressed her lips together.

"That doesn’t make Rex right," Mireya said.

"No," Talyra said. "It doesn’t."

"I’m not saying you should feel differently about what Rex did," Talyra said. "I’m saying you should feel the same way about both things."

"Or have a reason why you don’t that isn’t just about who you love."

Mireya didn’t answer.

Aisella continued to observe her, noting that Mireya appeared to be at the conclusion of an argument they had initiated with more conviction than they now possessed. She seemed neither converted nor satisfied.

Just tired and quieter than before, Mireya sat with a burden that would take longer than tonight to work through.

"I’m sorry," Mireya said, and the direction of it was toward Nerith.

Nerith looked at her.

"I apologize for the comments I made regarding your reading," Mireya said. "I wasn’t careful about how I said them."

Nerith was quiet for a moment. "I accept that," she said.

"I still think Rex needs to answer for what happened in that canyon," Mireya said. "But still... I need to remember what Elizabeth said that the issue shouldn’t be discussed again."

"I know you do," Nerith said. "I’m not asking you to stop thinking that."

"And I still think you’re wrong about him," Mireya said.

"I know that too," Nerith said. "We’ve established that clearly."

Mireya almost said something else. She held it, looked at the three of them, and then looked at the stairs.

"The three of you... it seems to me that you all love Rex, huh?"

The three of them felt silent, and then Talyra answered for them. "Yes..."

Mireya pressed her lips together and went into the room where Apollo had been placed.