My chest tightens. “I’m sorry,” I tell him. “I know what it is to lose your home.”
He shakes his head. “The Smoke is my home.”
Another cannon fires, making the ship shudder. I wince, clenching my hands at my sides until it stills. “I can’t imagine growing up like this. Always under attack.”
He gives me a funny look and I realize what I said.
“Well, not like this, at any rate,” I amend. “Those attacks were—” I break off for another cannon blast. “Quieter.”
“They aren’t firing back,” he says after a few beats. “It’s only our fire. We must have taken them by surprise and now they’ll be scrambling. It’ll be an easy haul.”
It’s difficult to imagine the Kalovaxians scrambling. In my experience, they have always been stoic and steely warriors always two steps ahead of their enemies, but the
