Nonetheless, Ellia looked away and murmured, “I wish you’d leave…”

Nikodemus shook his head. “Nope. Not when you need me.”

Ellia faced him, glaring at him. She hissed, “I don’t need you. Are you happy that your precious daughter survived?”

Nikodemus wasn’t sure how to respond to that. He cleared his throat. “Are you talking about Lily?”

Ellia leaned in closer to him, getting in his face. “Yes, Lily. Do you care so little about your daughters that you don’t even recognize one when you see one? If she weren’t your daughter, I…”

Nikodemus crossed his arms, matching her glare. “I didn’t ask you to save her.”

“You didn’t have to! You were practically begging me to with your miserable little face!” Ellia replied.

“You’re the leader of this tribe. My opinion on things doesn’t matter. If you wanted to save Grace, you should have saved her.” Nikodemus grumbled.

His coldness toward his own daughter angered Ellia. She slapped him across the face. Nikodemus’ eyes widened, he pressed a palm to his cheek in surprise.

“Why don’t you care more about your own daughter? I fucking sacrificed Grace for her, and you don’t seem to give a shit!” Ellia cried, swallowing a lump in her throat.

“Ellia, I possibly have more than fifty daughters out there. I refuse to get close to any of them because it hurts too much when they die.” Nikodemus answered, lowering his voice and speaking calmly in an attempt to calm Ellia. “I got close to one daughter, and I can’t even begin to describe the pain I felt when she died.”

Ellia stood up, clenching her fists furiously. “So your self-preservation is more important than your daughter’s happiness?”

Nikodemus remained calm. He crossed his legs and leaned forward, wearing a solemn face. “Yes. Thank you for reminding me of this awful fact. My self-preservation is more important than my daughters, because if I die, then there will be no more humanity. It’s quite the depressing conundrum. I can either fail the human race or fail my daughters—either way, I’m a terrible person.”

Ellia tried to come up with a retort, but could find none. In fact, she knew he was right; trying to be close with all his daughters was not only impossible, it was quite damaging to his psyche if they died.

“Besides…” Nikodemus said, hanging his head. “You saw my tears. You know she must mean something to me, if she is able to make me cry.”

Ellia forced a smile, tears in her own eyes as she chuckled hysterically, smoothing her hair back. “Then how about saying thank you, at least? Thank you for sacrificing someone I loved for your useless, sniveling daughter!”

Nikodemus looked at her critically as she sobbed, but said nothing. He waited for her to calm down. Once she did, Nikodemus finally said, “Thank you for saving my daughter. Even though I don’t know any of them… even if I never meet them… I love them very much. So… thank you.”

Ellia took a deep, shuddering breath with her eyes closed. When she opened them, she had calmed down remarkably. “There’s no way out when they pick a sacrifice. Even if one person lives in exchange for another, the whole tribe feels the loss…”

Nikodemus looked to the side. “Well… perhaps there’s something wrong with the whole system of sacrificing one of your women.”

Ellia was shocked that he should question the Zironists. “Shut your mouth! They have their reasons for sacrificing our women—not that you would understand that! You have no pressure other than fucking and having children! If it weren’t for them, we wouldn’t even have the few resources that we do. They eat our women and redistribute their bodies back into the earth—growing patches of green, water, and minerals where they can, giving us water, minerals, and food!”

Nikodemus challenged her, his eyebrows knitting. He said collectedly, “Really? What proof do you have that they do such things? How do you know that they aren’t just hungry?”

“This is blasphemy. I won’t listen.” Ellia whispered.

“It was the Zironists who divided us all into tribes to battle for resources! Males were already on their way out due to the XY problem, but they only sped things along by forcing them to fight for what they had!” Nikodemus was beginning to lose his temper, and his voice rose a little in anger.