“Let me guess, the coldbloods wrote those history books?”
Ronad grinned wryly. “Touché.”
“Come on, we need to get to Ianthan’s cabin before the executions finish,” I urged, taking off across the shoreline, with Ronad in hot pursuit.
Upon reaching the ruins of the concert hall, I let Ronad take over as navigator. Keeping up a quick pace, we raced through the trees, getting deeper and deeper into the forest. Everything looked the same to me, with no set path to follow, but I trusted Ronad to keep us right.
Sure enough, five minutes later, we reached a small clearing in the woodland. Nestled in the center of it was a cabin, almost identical to the one that Navan had taken me to, although it seemed like a lifetime ago. To my relief, it looked like it had avoided the bombardment completely, with only a thin blanket of ash to show it was anywhere near a warzone.
I wondered if the place had alarms. Ianthan might not be alive anymore to protect his property, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t rigged his cabin to alert someone of invaders. My concerns were short-lived, as Ronad brandished a key he’d found under a fake rock.
“I am so glad he decided not to move this!” He laughed, slipping it into the lock and opening the door.
I followed him inside the musty interior. I guessed it hadn’t been used since Ianthan traveled to Earth, never to return. The thought made me sad. No matter what Jethro had done to coerce his son into treason, Ianthan had been Navan’s friend, and the loss of him still weighed heavy on Navan’s mind. For that reason, I was almost glad that Navan wasn’t here with me. The cabin was like a time capsule, frozen in the last moment that Ianthan had spent here. There were even a couple of empty blood vials scattered about, gathering dust.
“You take the bedroom; I’ll take this room,” I suggested, not wanting to go rummaging around in Ianthan’s private things.
Ronad nodded. “Sounds fair.”
He returned a couple of minutes later, while I was halfway inside a cabinet. Poking my head out, I saw the black box in Ronad’s hand and felt a wave of relief. My throat was already tickly with dust, my eyes watering. This part, at least, had been easy.
Extricating myself from the cabinet, I wandered over to the sofa, where Ronad had sat down. A nervous energy bristled between us as we looked down at the black box.
“Do you know what to do?” I asked.
“I think so.” Ronad tapped several buttons. “I just need to filter out all the generic signals and find a unique transmission wave in Northern Vysanthe. That’ll hopefully take us through to Brisha’s control room.”
“Shouldn’t we take this back to the house, save some time?”
Ronad shook his head. “Out here, there’s less risk of interference. It’s why we used to use these cabins. Plus, we’ve got no idea who might be listening in for any transmissions made from the Idrax house.”
His hands moved deftly across the tiny control panel, his brow furrowed with concentration. I watched as a small keyboard appeared, though the symbols weren’t familiar to my eyes. Ronad quickly typed a couple of sentences.
“Is that the message?”
He nodded, with a smirk. “This should get someone’s attention.”
After a long pause, a blue light lit up the screen, a ringtone peppering the silence. Then a voice crackled through the tiny speakers.
“Who is this? This is not a public channel,” the voice reprimanded. To my surprise, it was one I recognized.
“Iskra, is that you?” I asked, feeling hopeful.
There was a slight pause before a video feed flickered onto the small screen, a familiar face peering through, prompting Ronad to duck out of sight. It was Iskra—the coldblood female who’d been my sparring partner during training.
“Riley?” Iskra gasped.
“What are you doing in the control room?”
She glanced off to one side. “I’m training in intelligence ops.”
“Congratulations!”
“Thanks… Anyway, what are you doing calling here? Where are you?” Iskra pressed, looking nervous.
“I’ve been captured by enemy soldiers, but I managed to escape them to send this message. I stole a private comms device,” I explained, thinking fast. “Can I speak to Navan?”
Iskra raised an eyebrow. “I’ll see what I can do. Stay on the line!”
With that, she disappeared, leaving me to stare at an empty chair. I tapped my knees, knowing that time was ticking away. All the while, every worst-case scenario raced through my mind. What if it was a ruse? What if Navan was imprisoned? What if Angie, Lauren, and Bashrik were being punished, too? What if the soldiers were trying to pinpoint my location, the way detectives did in crime thrillers?
I was about to give up, knowing we had to race back to the Idrax house before someone noticed we were gone, when a figure appeared on screen. I gaped in shock as the haunting eyes of Queen Brisha herself stared back.
She did not look happy.
“Now that you’re here, would you mind telling me what in Rask’s name happened to Pandora?”
Chapter Ten
I stared blankly ahead at the video feed, having lost my voice. Queen Brisha was the last person I’d expected to come face-to-face with so soon, and the mention of Pandora left me frozen. The queen might as well have been an ambaka.
“What happened to Pandora?” Queen Brisha repeated impatiently.
“Forgive me, Your Highness, but where are my friends?” I countered, finding my courage. “Are they safe? I need to know they’re okay!”
The Queen’s striking, near-white eyes narrowed. “Answer my question, Riley. My patience has been tried enough, as I’m sure you can imagine!” Her tone was cold, her demeanor just as icy. Somehow, she looked older than the last time I’d seen her. There were more lines on her forehead and darker circles under her eyes. War appeared to be pretty stressful.
“My friends, Your Highness—are they safe?”
“My advisor, Riley—what happened to her?” Brisha demanded, mimicking me.
I held her gaze through the monitor, feeling slightly ridiculous that I was speaking to her through such a tiny screen. Neither of us wanted to back down, but I knew it would be me who broke first. She held the upper hand; she had news of my friends, and I sensed she was only asking the question to make sure my story matched what Navan, or one of the others, had told her.
On the journey back from Zai, we’d settled on our cover story: Pandora had died in a temple cave-in, after a pillar collapsed and crushed her to death. It was simple and easy to remember. Regardless, I felt nervous about telling the tale out loud. With my friends’ lives hanging in the balance, I couldn’t bring myself to take the gamble—not if my story didn’t quite match up with what she’d already been told.
I remembered something Roger always used to say: “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.” Never had those words felt more poignant.
I took a deep breath, steeling myself. “I could lie to you,” I began, hoping I wasn’t doing something even more risky, “but I respect you enough, Your Highness, to tell you the truth. I know it might get me in more trouble than a lie would, but at least my conscience will be clear.”
“Are you saying somebody has already lied to me?” Queen Brisha’s tone was challenging.
“I don’t know what you’ve been told, Your Highness, but I’m going to tell you what really happened. If my story doesn’t match up with what you already know, that’s because my friends didn’t think you’d believe them if they told you the truth,” I explained. “Right now, I’ve got no idea if you’ll believe me, either.”
Brisha arched an eyebrow. “You have my attention, Riley.”
“Pandora wasn’t who you thought she was, Your Highness. To you, she was a most-trusted advisor, to whom you confided everything, but all of that was a ruse,” I said, my heart thundering with each word. “It was a way of getting close to you, and Pandora wasn’t afraid to play the long game. You se
e, her true loyalty was to a group of rebels. I overheard her contacting a coldblood named Orion, who seems to be the leader of this rebel faction. She was giving him secrets—about the elixir, about the failing truce between you and your sister, about everything that went on within your queendom.”
For a moment, a heavy silence formed between us. I could tell my words were sinking in, but her face was impossible to read. Her pale eyes remained unblinking, staring straight into mine.
“Lies,” she said simply.
“They’re not lies, Your Highness. We discovered the truth while we were on Zai. I’ve got no idea how long she’s been contacting this Orion, but they seemed close,” I replied, keeping a few half-truths in my story for good measure. If she knew how long we’d been aware of Pandora’s traitorous behavior, we’d be risking our necks, too.
Brisha shook her head defiantly. “These are poisonous lies, to divert me from the facts. Pandora would never betray me. She has been my sworn friend and advisor for years. I have known her far longer than I have known you, Riley,” she hissed, her eyes burning with rage.
“I knew you’d react like this, Your Highness. This is why it would’ve been easier to feed you a lie,” I countered firmly. “Pandora fooled all of us. She made a mockery of your friendship and your trust. I know that hurts, but the truth does, sometimes.”
My words appeared to make Brisha pause for thought. To be honest, I was just glad I’d managed to get through a sentence without stumbling or needing a fresh set of underwear. She looked pretty freaking scary, with her strawberry-blond locks plaited in the same shieldmaiden style as her sister and dark green patterns drawn across her pale skin, giving the impression of two elongated fangs beneath her bottom lip.
“Then what happened to her, in the end?”
I sighed. “I killed her, Your Highness.”
“You dealt the final blow?” She seemed surprised.
“I had to. She’d given information to Orion and promised to bring him back a vial of Draconian blood, to assist in his immortality elixir experiments. She was always rooting for them, not you.” I knew the last sentence would cut through her like a knife, but she needed a dose of tough love.
A tight laugh barked from Brisha’s throat. “Not that it would have done him much good. Maybe we should have let him have it, to set him back a rebel or two in the testing phase.”
I realized she knew about the blood being unusable. So, she’d definitely spoken to at least one of my friends. Now, all I had to do was convince her to let me speak to them—even if it was just a few moments with Navan, so I could ensure he didn’t come rescue me.
“I suppose that would explain a few puzzling incidents that arose in the past few months,” she mused, seemingly appeased by my explanation. “I could never find her when I needed her, you know?”
I nodded, remembering the way Pandora would suddenly appear from nowhere, always running from job to job, as though she didn’t have enough time for it all. I supposed juggling two lives had to have been tricky.
“I know of this Orion,” Queen Brisha continued. “If he has managed to breach the security of my closest circle, I must discover where he’s hiding. Perhaps I shall enlist you and your friends to help me. At least some loyalty remains from all of this. Although, I have to say, I did not expect it to come from you.”
The prospect of Queen Brisha going in search of the rebel base terrified me. Of all the planets in all the universe, why the hell did Orion and his band of not-so-merry men have to choose my planet to use as their evil hideaway? My hatred flared.
“We’ve never given you any reason to distrust us, Your Highness,” I said boldly, knowing it wasn’t entirely true. Still, she didn’t know that—and that was the point.
The queen made a doubtful face but said no more about it. “Your friends have explained to me that you were kidnapped upon your return to Northern Vysanthe. They are most desperate to retrieve you. However, I would like to hear events from your mouth, before I make a decision. There is a war going on, after all, and I can’t risk more lives just to rescue you.”
“I completely understand, Your Highness,” I assured her. I couldn’t have put it better myself, especially with Gianne’s paranoia putting everyone in danger. As quickly as I could, I explained that one of the Idrax brothers had been responsible for my kidnapping, with the end goal of luring Navan and Bashrik back to the family home, in exchange for my safety.
Once I’d finished, the queen sat silent for a moment. Her painted face was blank, offering me nothing. Then, without warning or explanation, she scraped back the chair and stood up, before disappearing offscreen. I waited for her to come back, only to be met with the same empty background.
I flashed a look at Ronad, who’d been crouching to one side of the sofa this whole time, keeping his body out of sight and his mouth shut. He looked just as worried as I did.
“Where did she go?” I mouthed, keeping one eye on the screen.
He shrugged. “I don’t know, but time’s running out. We can stay on this channel a while longer, but the executions will be over soon, and we need to make sure we leave enough time to get back,” he whispered.
“I really wish one of us had wings,” I muttered.
He smiled. “Me, too.”
We sat in tense silence for the next ten minutes, staring at the flickering screen, feeling our time dwindling. “I say we turn this thing off and get going. She’s obviously not coming back.” I sighed, cursing her under my breath. I knew she was busy being a military mastermind, but where did she get off, just leaving like that?
“Good idea,” Ronad agreed, moving forward to turn the device off. He was just about to power it down, when a shadow arched across the screen. Someone was coming. With a stifled yelp, Ronad jumped back to his corner of the sofa, his eyes wide with panic.
A moment later, Navan appeared, sitting down in the chair that Queen Brisha had so brusquely vacated. I was speechless at the sight of him, tears pricking the corners of my eyes. He was dressed in the green-and-silver uniform of a North Vysanthean soldier, his hair freshly buzzed on either side, some sections shaved into patterns similar to the ones painted across Brisha’s face. A smile tugged at his lips, making them more kissable than they’d ever been before.
“Navan?” I gasped, wanting to reach forward and press my hand to his, but the screen was too damn small.
“Riley,” he whispered, his voice thick with emotion. “I’ve been going mad without you, not knowing if you were okay. You have no idea how good it is to see your face!”
I smiled. “I’ve got some idea.”
“I love you so much.”
“I love you so much.” I laughed through tumbling tears.
“I should never have let you out of my sight—I should have fought harder to keep Kaido away from you,” he insisted bitterly. “Is Ronad okay? Is he with you? Are you safe?”
I nodded, glancing at the man in question. “Ronad’s with me. He’s fine—we’re both fine. Stop blaming yourself for what happened. Kaido is a skilled fighter, and he hasn’t harmed us in any way,” I said firmly, wishing I could somehow flow through the screen, into Navan’s arms. “We can’t change what happened. We just have to figure out where we go from here.”
“How about a faraway moon with tropical beaches and scantily clad women?” Bashrik’s voice chimed in, shattering the somber mood.
“Hey!” Angie teased, punching him in the arm as they came onscreen, peering over Navan’s right shoulder. Lauren appeared over his left, waving enthusiastically.
“You look thin. Are you eating?” she asked, sounding like a mother hen as she squinted down the lens.
I grinned until I thought my face might crack. “I promise you I’m eating. In fact, if I never see another fruit platter again after this, I’d be totally fine with that,” I joked. “It’s so good to see you all! Are you being treated well?”
“It was touch and go for a while, but we’re okay now,” Lauren replied, making
me frown.
“Wait, are you all fighting?” I asked, realizing that everyone was wearing a uniform. The two brothers were dressed identically, except for different badges on their chests and sleeves. Navan had two crossed swords, while Bashrik had crossed wings. My friends were dressed in similar clothing, but they wore lighter green jackets with two red stripes across each shoulder and a bottle of some kind on the badges.
Navan nodded. “We’ve been drafted to fight on the battlefields. I’m in elite infantry, while Bashrik is on aerial ops.”
“Yeah, and we’re in the medical corps, helping in the hospitals to heal the injured soldiers that get brought in from the fighting,” Angie added.
“And you’re all okay?”
They nodded, smiling. “We’re fine. Nothing to fear here!” Lauren confirmed.
“Well, aside from bombings and fighting,” Angie added with a cheerful grin, though I felt anything but cheerful.
“I thought you’d all be in a prison or something. I was so worried something awful had happened to you.” I felt a wave of emotion welling up inside me. “What happened to you after I got taken?”
“And tell us quick, because we’ve got to go really soon!” Ronad chipped in, ducking into frame. He put a comforting hand on my shoulder, easing the tension of so much pent-up worry and sadness. I saw Navan’s eyes flicker toward the hand, his brow furrowing slightly. Ordinarily, a glimpse of jealousy would have amused me, but right now all I wanted to see was love in his eyes. He would never have anything to worry about, where that was concerned.
“After Kaido took you, we hitched a ride on one of Brisha’s military ships,” Bashrik said. “Navan wanted to go after you straightaway, but I managed to convince him otherwise. We had no ship, no weapons, no resources. It would’ve been a pretty sad excuse for a rescue mission!” he added, laughing.
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