It was telling that Graydon made no move to stop her as Kira rose. Confirmation that she was in the right.
"I, Kira Forrest, so named Layana by my parents, daughter of House Roake and the Phoenix of the Consortium, do hereby swear on the Mea'Ave to do everything in my power to remove your young from the influence of the Tsavitee's masters. I won't stop until I'm dead—or they are."
An invisible force wrapped around Kira, squeezing once before it was gone. The universe seemed to blink, resuming a second later as if nothing had happened.
Except Kira and Aeron knew that it had. Her vow was witnessed and accepted. Whatever came next, she was committed to this course.
"You fucking idiot," Raider said with a regretful shake of his head.
Although he wouldn't have felt the Mea'Ave's presence as a human, he was acquainted with her personality. He knew that she'd never make a promise she didn't intend to keep.
Graydon leaned his chin on his fist, seeming entertained. "How very interesting this all is."
Raider ignored him. "You realize he's a general. Our enemy."
Kira did, in fact, realize that.
"It's not much different than what Jin and I have been doing anyway."
Ferreting out the camps and rescuing the children she found within. At least this time she'd have help.
Finn was the only one in the room who looked like he knew what Kira was talking about. He'd met some of the children she'd saved.
Graydon glanced at her in curiosity. "More secrets. Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever get to the bottom of you."
He didn't sound upset by that prospect. Instead, he seemed almost delighted.
Kira pretended she didn't hear as she focused on Aeron. "I did what you wanted. Your turn."
"About that—I don't rightly know."
Kira went very still. "What do you mean you don't know?"
"As I said before, I can't give you the answer you seek. Not because I don't want to. But because I don't know it. The location of the home world is one of the most closely guarded secrets we have. A fact I'm sure you're aware of given the difficulty you had procuring the stars maps in your possession."
He wasn't exaggerating about that. It had taken Kira years of searching. Every Tsavitee wreck she'd come across had led to one disappointment after another.
"Even we aren't trusted with that information," Aeron said.
"How is that possible?" Wren asked.
"We're each given a piece of the location. It's rare for those sent out to return. In those cases, you need at least one other key to find your way back."
Raider folded his arms over his chest and glared at the side of Aeron's face. "Like I said before. This is a giant waste of our time. Forget your promise, Kira. Let's just throw him out of the airlock."
"I agree," Wren spoke up from his position in the corner.
Finn remained silent, but Kira could tell he was in favor as well.
Graydon watched Aeron intently, giving no hint of which direction he was leaning.
For Kira's part, she was tempted to go with Raider's suggestion. She didn't like being made a fool of and right now Aeron was dangerously close to doing exactly that.
"Don't get your panties in a twist. All isn't lost," Aeron said. "I may not be able to give you an exact location, but I have been there. If your Sye and I compared notes, I'm sure we could come up with something."
Well, well, well. Would you look at that? Raider's continuous threats had yielded results. Just like always.
"You're saying you can get us to your home world," Kira restated, wanting there to be no doubt.
"Possibly."
Kira glanced at Raider. It was better than a no.
"Tell me you're not considering this," Raider asked with a disbelieving look. His eyes widened as he read the answer on her face. "He's a general. An enemy. Not to be trusted."
Wren and Finn's expressions had gone suspiciously blank.
"We did break him out of prison," Kira pointed out.
The whole point of this exercise was to get something useful from it.
Raider's face held stubbornness.
"If you have a better plan, I'm all ears," Kira said.
They were up against the wall, and it was time to do something crazy to shake things up.
"This probably won't work, and he'll try to betray us before the end," Raider warned.
"Maybe, but we could also get lucky and find something unexpected on the journey," Kira shot back.
This was a familiar refrain from their time as Curs. Something they'd said more than once on missions that were tantamount to suicide. It meant don't give up just because all looked hopeless. Keep moving forward. Because it might work.