21

My throat tightens and my heart is pounding in my chest.

We have to get this just right, be so careful about what we say. We will only get one shot at this.

“Where would the two of you like to start?” Arden asks. “I have a feeling there is a lot of ground to cover.”

Valen and I look at each other. We talked about this. We planned. We strategized.

“I’ll begin by saying that in some things I had my own free will,” Valen starts, looking right at Arden. “I’ve never known what it was to do good, or that influence and power could be used for anything other than domination. But even someone like me can change under the right circumstances.”

He goes into his history. He talks about his childhood on Starvis. He talks about the tribes and how they worked, how savage life there was. He talks about finding his tribe slaughtered, and how he and the other children nearly starved to death.

And then comes Dominion and Cyrillius. He talks about being rescued by the company and the man and being given