Kalee was dead.
Andi sobbed, her entire body trembling as her mind screamed, You killed her, you killed her, you killed her.
The fires raged, and Andi felt torn from her body as the transport door suddenly groaned and fell away.
Cool night air washed in.
“I’m so sorry,” Andi sobbed as she looked at her friend. Kalee almost looked peaceful, as if she were only sleeping.
Andi couldn’t leave her. How could she leave her?
She had never felt as alone as she did in this very moment.
The fire swept into the small space, so close now. The metal shard in Kalee’s stomach had gone straight through her, pinned her body to the seat. Andi couldn’t free her, couldn’t drag her from her grave.
Fear swept over Andi like a poison, caused her to tear herself away from the transport as the flames raged.
She crawled away from the inferno, coughing smoke from her lungs, her eyes burning so badly she could scarcely see.
She blinked through her tears, fighting the darkness as it threatened to overcome her. This wasn’t happening. This wasn’t real.
Kalee couldn’t be dead.
Andi looked back for a final glimpse of her friend.
The last thing she saw was Kalee’s eyes, bright blue as the moon, opening wide to stare at her.
Alive, Andi’s mind screamed. She’s alive.
Andi reached for the girl, desperate to save her.
The transport exploded in a final blast of raging, furious light, catapulting Andi backward.
As Kalee burned, tendrils of black slipped into Andi’s mind and stole her away.
Chapter Ninety-Three
* * *
DEX
DEX PACED IN the med bay of the Marauder, watching the life force drain from the general’s eyes.
“Tell me what you know!” Dex yelled.
The general was a lost cause. Without doctors or med droids, Dex was helpless to save him. The damage Valen had done was too severe. It was a wonder the man had survived this long already.
On the table beside General Cortas, Andi was still holding on to life. She was pale, cold, her chest wrapped in bandages that Dex had wound around her himself.
He hadn’t been trained in medicine or healing. The bartending droid who’d helped him haul the general here wasn’t programmed to heal, either.
But Lon Mette could.
Dex hadn’t been aware of Lira’s plans to move Lon onto the Marauder before the Ucatoria Ball, but he was thanking the Godstars now that the Sentinel was on board.
When Dex had shown up with only Andi and the general, both of them dying from their injuries and blood loss, Lon had asked him to choose. Along with his scales, Lon had inherited something else from his radiation-affected ancestors: he was a universal donor.
“I can’t save them both,” he’d said. “I only have so much blood to give.”
When Dex chose Andi, Lon had accepted his decision without question. He helped to stabilize the general as best he could. Then he’d gotten to work on Andi. He sat beside her now, a tube connecting his arm to hers, as his blood flowed through to her. Giving her a chance at life. The silent droid held a cloth to Andi’s forehead with humanoid hands, doing its best to help.
The ship was on autopilot, soaring through hyperspace as it carried them toward the only place Dex knew to go. Back to the place he’d learned his skills, back to Raiseth’s headquarters outside Tenebris. The one place where they might be safe, where someone would be able to help Andi.
The knife had gone so close to her heart.
Dex tried to calm himself, but anger raged through him.
He needed information. Needed to know why, of all people, Valen Cortas had sided with the queen of Xen Ptera.
They had all been so wrong about him. How had they not seen the signs? How had they not known?
“Tell me!” Dex yelled at the general.
At first the dying man didn’t answer. Dex knelt down next to him, gently lifting the general’s head so he could speak without blood pooling in his mouth.
It took him a moment to find his voice.
“I didn’t know this was—” he cleared his throat, a line of blood dripping from his lips “—going to happen.”
He paused, once again taking a shaky breath.
“Tell me what you do know,” Dex growled.
“He is dying,” Lon said. “He deserves peace.”
“He may be the only man in the galaxy who knows what the hell just happened back there,” Dex said, voice rising. He looked back to the general. “Tell us.”
General Cortas’s face was already paling, white as the stars that streaked by. He looked down at his bleeding chest, as if he could still see Valen’s hand digging in the blade.
“I knew he had evil in him.” He coughed again. “Because of that demon who was his mother.”
“Merella?” Dex asked.
“Not her.” His teeth were red from blood. He grimaced. “Oh, Godstars, what have I done?”
“Tell me,” Dex pressed, because he knew that when the general died, the truth would die with him. “You don’t have much time.”
General Cortas closed his eyes, and Dex was afraid he was already gone.
But then they opened again, blue as a summer sky. The light in them was slowly fading. “I’ve held on to this secret for years.” He swallowed, tears slipping from the corners of his eyes. “So listen closely—not for my sake, but for Mirabel’s. I don’t think I have enough strength left to say it twice.”
Chapter Ninety-Four
* * *
KLAREN
Year Twenty-Six
SHE WAS A MOTHER AGAIN.
Not a mistake this time. Rather, a plan that fell perfectly into place.
Her second child sat in her arms, staring up at her. A boy this time, with dark hair and hazel eyes.
He was gentle, this one, but he was strong.
Stronger even than her daughter, Nor, had been.
The queen could feel it when she held the boy, like a spark that jolted from him to her. Sometimes, when she asked him not to cry, he carried on. Sometimes, when she asked him to sleep, he stayed awake for hours, glaring up at her. Screaming until his face was sunset red.
When his father held him, he squirmed as if he, too, hated the man as much as she did.
“Someday,” the queen said, as she looked down at her young son, “you will learn who you truly are. And you will understand why I did everything.”
The baby cried.
She did not love him.
Not in the way she had loved Nor.
“Take him,” she said to the servant beside her. The many-armed woman took the baby into one set of her arms, rocking him gently. “I am going to see Cyprian.”
She swept out into the halls, passing by servants who cast their eyes down.
They had begun to fear her since Cyprian had given her free rein of the estate. Since the place on his arm was no longer taken up by his wife, but instead by the woman he’d ripped away from the battleground on Xen Ptera two years ago.
She found him in his office, seated behind his desk as he pored over the maps of the galaxy. Deciding how best to attack Xen Ptera and the other small planets in the Olen System in the coming days.
“Cyprian,” she said as she entered the cavernous room.