I knew who she was the moment Octavia drew her to my attention, but she had changed since the last time I had seen her. Her face was thinner, more sunken in the cheeks and more bulbous around the eyes, and her figure had become distinctly wiry. The pleasant aura she had once emanated was no longer present; even from a distance, she was noticeably graver and certainly corrupted. If her soul had been visible, there would have been black cracks webbing through it.

She saw me approaching her before I was near enough to speak, and she stopped mid-stride to await my coming. When I drew close enough to exchange words, a dry half-smile lit her faded mouth, and she said casually, “It has been a long time, brother.”

Rather than responding, I closed my fingers around her forearm and yanked her none-too-carefully toward the tent entrance. To my surprise, she failed to fight against my force, and I easily removed her from the reception to the desert outside. Night had fallen an hour before. In the absence of the plentiful geodes, only dim starlight permitted me a view of her, but it was all I needed. I did not care to see her as it was.

“Why have you come here?” I hissed once we were far enough away from the celebration for the music to be no more than a dull undertone. A cool evening breeze lilted across my skin, and I inhaled an angry breath of fresh, unperfumed air for the first time since the ceremony.

“My kin was wedded,” she replied. “It seemed only fitting I make an appearance.”

A twist in her tone hinted she was amused by my displeasure, which served only to infuriate me further. “You were not invited to make an appearance or otherwise,” I bit cruelly. “Perhaps you have forgotten your exile, but we have not.”

“Oh, I have not forgotten,” she said, her upper lip curling into a snarl, “but how would it look if the devoted little sister failed to offer her congratulations? Besides, I have not yet congratulated you on your new role as Elder, either.”

“How do you know of that?”

She canted her head, the half-smile pasted back onto her leering face. “Surely, you do not think it would escape my notice my brother has been named our kingdom’s new leader? I am not so exiled as that.”

My crowning into the Elderhood had unquestionably been far from a private affair, but she had been absent from my life for so long I had come to believe she was either long gone from Ka-lik’et or possibly even dead. Neither thought brought me sorrow. “I require no words of false kindness from you,” I snapped.

“Of course,” she conceded, lowering her head rather mockingly. “You are well fit for the title, Venan. After all, you have devoted your life to Dhal’at. There was a time I believed you to be so focused your mind had narrowed against anything else life had to offer. I see that has changed.”

“My devotion to Dhal’at has not wavered, if that is your implication,” I coarsely contradicted.

“No,” she agreed. The half-smile was spreading to the other side of her mouth, pulling her lips back into a sinister smirk. “Yet, it seems you have welcomed a new array of fancies into your virtuous world. I saw you dancing with the human.”

The way she rolled the word “human” sounded as if she had first bathed it in waste and it now left a bitter taste on her palate, and I bristled. “Watch your tongue, Ola,” I warned.

“Oh, I do not judge you, brother,” she added with a slight jeer in her voice. “How can I? Zuran has just married a human, and you have always wished yourself to be more like him despite his moral shortcomings, have you not?”

My arm shot out toward her before I could stop it, my fingers closing around her throat just as they had her forearm. She grinned against my hold.

“It seems you have already taken a leaf from his book, Wise One,” she taunted. She sounded only mildly constricted, as I was not applying enough pressure to close her airway but only enough to demand her silence. Unfortunately, she was neither threatened nor obliging. “I never thought I would see the day you acted out with violence, but rumor has it this is not your first venture into the murky waters of ethics. Tell me, is it true you killed Elder Kharid to steal his crown for yourself?”

I roared with rage. My fingers tightened into the fleshy tendons of her neck, and I reacted not with reason but with anger. Lifting her a foot off the sand by her throat, I threw her on her back to the ground. A storm of powdery gold particles puffed into the air around her on impact, and I hoped she would have disappeared into nothingness by the time the cloud settled, but I had no such luck. Panting with stolen breath, she hiked herself up onto her elbows and continued to grin at me. I stepped toward her.

“How dare you suggest such an evil?” I growled. Adrenaline was coursing through me so rapidly I was unable to prevent my extremities from shaking, and my fingers were itching to seek her throat again. “I gave my life to Elder Kharid. I would have traded places with him in an instant if it meant he could have been saved.”

“I am not the source of the rumor, brother, merely the messenger,” she replied coolly.

“Your messages are unwanted,” I shot back at once. “Here or anywhere else.”

She idly brushed a sprinkling of sand from her belly and said, “I did not come to bring you or anyone else upset, Venan. Despite your feelings of me, not all my actions are borne of malice.”

I glared down at her, chewing on her words. “Why have you come, then?” I demanded. “You surely did not do so out of love, as the most loving gift you could have given our newly-wedded brother on his day of celebration would have been your absence.”

Her expression changed from amused malevolence to bleak despondency, and I realized she was hurt by what I said. There were no rueful puppeteers to tug on my heartstrings. “I miss my family,” she murmured. It was the first time since our conversation had begun she appeared completely vulnerable to her circumstance and me. “I did not want to miss such an important day in Zuran’s life. I can only imagine how many I have missed until now.”

“If he wanted you to celebrate with him, he would have asked for your attendance,” I said sternly. “And you very well know he is the most affected by your transgression in the family. If you are unable to see the selfishness in your being here, you truly are beyond saving.”

She shifted her weight to her palms, heaving herself to sit. I flinched, prepared to attack again if she lunged for me, but she merely rolled her head back and asked irritably, “May I stand, please, without your attempting to shatter my spine again?”

I said nothing, nor did I offer her a gesture of approval, but she clambered to her feet once more and dusted her hands on her thighs. Then, she tossed her platinum hair over her cobalt shoulder and returned to her softer, imploring tone.

“Venan, do you not think I have been punished enough?” she queried. Her swollen eyes swelled further until they were nearly round and capable of swallowing me with her plea. “Do you not think enough time has passed?”

“Adultery is one of the greatest sins of the A’li-uud creed, Ola,” was my stiff response. “It is the ultimate breach of trust, faith, and unity. If we dishonor those to whom we give our hearts, there is little more we will not do.”

“It was a mistake!” she exclaimed, throwing her arms up in frustration. I flinched again, anticipating a strike, but none came. “How long am I to suffer for a mistake?”

I stared at her unwaveringly. “You did not think it a mistake when you did it,” I reminded her. “If I remember correctly, you were laughing when Khrel confronted you in the presence of the family, and you left minutes later to meet with your debaucher.” Her mouth turned down, and a realization struck me in an instant. There could only be one explanation for Ola’s sudden reappearance in our lives, particularly as it was the first time since her banishment years and years before she had even made a single attempt. “He has left you. You are here now because you have no one else, do you?”

“It was a mistake,” she repeated firmly, opting to sidestep my inquiry.

“Indeed, it was,” I acknowledged. I felt a sense of retribution in discovering she was not to live happily ever after for her misdeeds and, though I still loathed the very sight of her, my frantic animosity was disintegrating into composed authority. She no longer held the power to thrust me into a frenzy, and it was evident by the flicker of meekness behind her stare she was aware she had lost the power.

“Please, brother,” she begged, clasping her hands together before her. “You are an Elder now. You can order Mother and Father and Zuran to let me back, and I will prove my regret to you all. Just, please, allow me to return to the family.”

The music spilling from the reception tent had sped into a cheerful fast-paced number, which was incongruous to Ola’s somber face but acted as a boost to my clout. I shook my head inflexibly. “If you are ever to rejoin the family, Ola, it will not be at my command. Your actions then and since are repugnant, and I will not force your vileness onto those I love. If you are truly reformed, you will take the measures necessary to demonstrate such. In my opinion, you are exactly the same: seeking the easiest road to gratification rather than working through difficulties and pressing onward for the sake of personal growth. Your asking me to insist Mother and Father welcome you back is a cheap ploy to supersede the rightful feelings of betrayal, disappointment, and disgust we maintain toward your character. I refuse to grant you a pardon simply because you are my sister.”

As I spoke, her mouth lifted from a frown to a tight line, and her eyes narrowed further and further until they were little more than slits. In the vacancy of her power to hyperstimulate my emotions, she was resorting to her final mechanism of self-defense, and that was sheer denial and raw vengeance.

“I am your blood,” she hissed.

“You are my humiliation,” I combatted.

She expanded with heated indignation, her chest puffing outward and her shoulders rolling back. “I will make my way back into the familial fold, Venan,” she said cuttingly. “And, when I do, you can be certain I will not be the only member with regrets.”