“I have to admit, little sister,” Lon said, holding her out at arm’s length, “you’ve outdone yourself with your entrance this time. Destroying an entire field of hrevan crops and your ship in the process?” He grinned, his purple eyes flashing. “You’ve certainly changed.”
He always knew how to press her buttons. But Lira still smiled as she looked at her brother.
Godstars, how he’d grown.
He was at least a head taller than her now, his pale blue arms rippling with muscle, spreading up into a thick neck and strong shoulders. He wore the traditional loose, sleeveless green shirt of the Sentinels. A shiny golden Adhiran emblem was pinned on the fabric right above his heart.
“You’ve been promoted!” Lira gasped.
“Queen Alara isn’t easy to work for, as you can well imagine.” Lon grinned like a forest cat, earning another smile from Lira. He rapped his knuckles on the Adhiran emblem, the endless spiral that signified life. “A lot has happened since you’ve been away, little bug.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I thought I’d grown out of that horrendous nickname.”
He laughed, a booming thing that rivaled the mountain wind. “You can leave your planet behind, Lira. But it doesn’t change who you are inside.”
Silence swept over them, sudden and piercing.
A single scaled patch on Lon’s right cheek warmed, glowing the slightest blue. He closed his eyes and clenched his jaw, willing the emotions away.
He had always been better at controlling them than she was.
“Lon,” Lira whispered. “I’ve missed you. I think of you every day. I’ve wanted to visit, truly. It’s just that...”
That I became a criminal, she thought. That I was afraid of what you would think of me, of the person I have become.
“You stopped sending me updates,” he said. “You disappeared, Lira. All I had to keep up-to-date with you were the—” he swallowed hard, the scale flashing again on his cheek “—the updates about a certain crew of wanted girls, halfway across Mirabel. The crimes I won’t even begin to discuss.”
She closed her eyes. Looked away from the pained expression on his face, so much like her own. “Things changed out there. Situations got out of control. I...reacted.”
“There have been deaths,” Lon hissed. His voice was so low it was nearly lost in the wind.
“Not at my hand,” Lira promised. “I swear it, Lon. I swear it in this holy place.”
His jaw flexed as he gritted his teeth. “I know you aren’t a killer, Lira.”
Her heart relaxed, just slightly.
“But you left. You left me, and you chose to forget about home.”
“No.” Lira held up her hands. “I chose to protect you from who I have become, Lon.”
Silence fell between them. Somewhere down below, a bell clanged. The sound, deep and full, swept up the mountainside, trickled past Lira’s ears. It meant that Queen Alara was accepting petitions from the Adhiran people, young and old, rich and poor.
Alara was a wise leader, loving and attentive. She cared wholeheartedly for Adhira, giving her all to the care of her people.
It was something Lira could never do, could never even dream of doing.
So she’d fled. She’d made herself into someone unworthy.
She’d created demons to chase her, the kind she could never outrun.
“We don’t have much time alone together, so I’ll make this brief,” Lon said, drawing her attention back to him. “Whatever you think you’ve become...” He sighed, turning to face her. “You are still my sister. And I will always have room in my heart for you. The old you. The new you. The you that you have yet to become.” He pressed two fingers to her forehead. “I don’t have to agree with it all, Lira. But my loyalty is yours...until the mountain falls.”
Until the mountain falls.
They were the last words he’d said to her—before she ran away on a starship and took to life in the skies.
Her heart clenched again.
“It’s not all bad, what the girls and I do,” Lira said, trying to lighten the tone in her voice. She moved back toward the eyeglass and ran her fingertips across it. “You can’t even begin to imagine what’s happened in the past few days.”
“I can guess it’s quite a tale,” Lon said. “Seeing as you and your friends aren’t rotting in a cell in the belly of Rhymore right now for that crash landing. And just before Revalia, too.”
Lira winced. She’d forgotten all about the peace festival. It was a yearly occurrence on Adhira, a celebration of the end of the war against Xen Ptera.
“Let me tell you my side of the story, then,” Lira said. “Let me explain to you what’s gone on, so you can try to see it in a different light.”
Lon shook his head. “Lira...I can’t.”
“Just the good things?” Lira asked, her voice settling into that little pleading tone she’d used on him when they were younger. When she desperately wanted the last bite of his moss meringue, or to play with one of his toys. “I’m a starship pilot, Lon. Just like I always dreamed I’d be.” She placed her hand on his warm arm. “I’ve even taken up that nasty little habit you try to hide from the queen.”
His eyes flashed.
“You have your secrets, too,” she teased.
“Moon Chew, little bug?” He clicked his tongue and shook his head. But then he smiled, the warmth slowly spreading back into his features as he took the bait. “What in the Godstars led you to that?”
“You can’t even imagine,” Lira said, and turned to look up at the sky. “The things we see up there, Lon. It’s...”
“Not something the queen would approve of,” Lon finished for her. He held up a finger as Lira frowned. “But she tends to be a little uptight. Which is exactly why...if you hold back the things she doesn’t need to know...I will not tell her a single detail of what you’re about to tell me.”
She opened her mouth to share, but he stopped her with a raised brow.
“Only the good things. If it has anything to do with Adhira, anything that might threaten this planet, I cannot hear it.”
“I swear it,” Lira said. “You know I’d never do anything to harm this place, Lon.”
He bowed his head. “Then go ahead, little bug.” When he looked back up, his eyes were eager. “Just...go ahead.”
And so they stood there, brother and sister, two halves of one whole, the Adhiran wind whipping through the temple as Lira told her tales.
He shook his head in amusement when she described Gilly and her fiery spirit. He smiled when she spoke of Andi’s dancing and her red polished nails and the way her music spilled through the halls of the ship. He grumbled something about cocky Guardians as Lira talked about Dex and hummed in appreciation when she described Breck’s exquisitely cooked meals. He laughed when Lira told him some of the New Vedan’s jokes and the banter Breck shared with Gilly.
He gripped Lira’s arms when she spoke of their high-speed chases. The way she could fly a ship like a tireless bird. The planets they’d visited, the amazing atmospheres they’d entered, the glorious worlds beyond this one. Planets made of ice. Planets made of diamond. Planets that never saw the light of day, so cold that the air nearly froze the engines on their ship before they could soar away.
All along, he listened, occasionally biting his lower lip in thought.
Lon always knew that Lira harbored a darkness in her soul. A little tug, a tiny whisper at the back of her mind, that led her to go above and beyond the pranks that Lon had always pulled while they were growing up here.
She’d fallen, not for a lover, but for the skies. For adventure.
She’d found a ship full of girls with their own affinity for darkness to mirror her own.
When she was done, Lon stared at her for a time.
“You were never meant to stay here,” he s
aid. “I’ve known it since the moment you tried to leap from this very temple with wings made of leaves tied to your arms.”
Lira laughed.
He put an arm around her and pulled her close.
“Welcome home, little bug.” She felt him inhale beside her. Exhale, deeply. “I hate to ruin your strange homecoming...but...”
“What is it?” Lira pulled away.
Lon shrugged, a lopsided smile on his face. “The queen has requested a private meeting with you. And, seeing as I’m to be your personal Sentinel for the time being...I’m here to escort you to her. And ensure that you don’t escape while she delivers whatever punishment she sees fit for the damage your ship did to the hrevan fields.”
“Of course you are,” Lira said with a groan. “And my crew? Will they be there, too?”
Lon shook his head. “No. Just you. She has no desire to speak to the crew.” He lifted his hands. “Her words. Not mine.”
“Fine then,” Lira said. “If you’re such a big, terrifying Sentinel now...” She pinched his cheek, forcing the scaled patch to illuminate with a flash of anger. “You’ll have to chase me down there.”
“Lira, I don’t have time to play childhood games.”
But she was already on the move.
“You’re already losing!” She yelled as she dashed past him, deftly slipping through the hole in the ground where the temple ladder led down into the mountain tunnels below, pretending it was a ladder back on the Marauder.
“Lira!”
Lon’s booming growl echoed after her as he tried in vain to catch up.
He didn’t stand a chance.
Chapter Forty-Seven
* * *
VALEN
THE FIRST THING he noticed was the light.
Even with his eyes closed, Valen could sense it shimmering just on the surface of his memories. It reminded him of the short springtime season on Arcardius, his favorite time of the year. On those mornings, he used to love to sleep with his windows open, a soft breeze fluttering in through the curtains.
If he tried hard enough, he could imagine he was lying in his bed, the distant trill of birdsong nudging him awake. The sound of leaves dancing on branches, the gentle patter of feet just outside his door. Likely a servant, coming in to start their workday.
But that was the past. Soon he would wake, and the harshness of reality would take its place.
Lunamere had a way of digging its claws into one’s back and refusing to ever let go.
Valen sighed and rolled over onto his side, wincing as he anticipated the harsh chill of the stones beneath his cheek, the spasm of pain that would slice through his aching body.
But instead of stone, he felt the plushness of a pillow. Instead of pain, he eased into a soft mountain of blankets. The shivering cold of Lunamere was gone, replaced instead by warmth he hadn’t felt in years.
Valen coaxed his eyes, coated with the sticky residue of sleep, open.
He was lying in a bed, his body covered by plush green blankets spun from the softest silk. At the end of the bed, Valen noted with a raised brow, was a ball of orange fur. An animal of some sort, curled up so tightly that he couldn’t tell where its head was, only that its back rose and fell with long, lazy breaths. He hadn’t seen an animal of any kind in years. His gaze swept past the slumbering creature to study the room.
It was a place straight from the storybooks he’d read as a child, and for a moment he wondered if this was his own version of the afterlife. Perhaps he’d finally died, and this was where he’d traveled to. A soul set out among the stars, finally settling on the safest place his subconscious could remember.
The walls were curved and made of rock with vines that snaked their way across its rough surface. His eyes trailed along the vines, following them to where they twisted and curled through a large, elegant window carved from the rock.
Valen’s eyes widened as he glimpsed the world beyond.
Afternoon sunlight winked in through the open window. Far below, an endless, sprawling forest spread for miles, trees so tall they pierced through the clouds in the sky.
Valen could just barely see a massive white waterfall tumbling in the distance, and when the wind blew, he could almost imagine the taste of the water on his lips.
He wished his sister was with him in this moment to drink in such beauty—fresh and cool and so full of life.
This room, these blankets, this view. It was like a painting rendered by an artist far more skilled than he. Valen shifted slightly, wincing as the all-too-real pain of his ruined body finally hit him. If this were a dream, he’d have imagined that pain away. He waited for the darkness to sweep back in and steal him away.
“Marvelous view, isn’t it? There’s nothing like an Adhiran afternoon.”
Valen turned his head at the sound of a woman’s voice.
Behind him, the side of the rock room had seemingly opened up, revealing a hidden doorway he hadn’t seen before. Standing in its opening was a beautiful woman who reminded him of a palette of paints.
Her body was a patchwork of colors all melting together, some an orange as bright as the ball of fur still sleeping at Valen’s feet, others a pink that reminded him of the sunsets that swept across the Arcardian sky. She wore a thin gown of green fabric, the color such a stark contrast to the sunset shades of her skin that Valen nearly sobbed at the beauty of it all.
She was incredible. His fingers twitched with the need to paint her.
But strangest of all...Valen knew this woman.
It all came rushing back to him now. Memories of her face on holos with his father, speaking about trade. Photographs of her in books as he studied the leaders of the other capital planets.
“Your Royal Highness,” Valen said, somehow finding his voice. His throat felt ragged, like he hadn’t used it in weeks. “But...you’re Adhiran. How?”
He’d never been to the terraformed planet of Adhira—strange, that he’d dream it up in his afterlife.
The woman inclined her head, a small smile on her lips like she was holding back a laugh. “I prefer simply Queen Alara, young Mr. Cortas. And to answer your question as to how I am Adhiran...well, I’d imagine that would be akin to me asking you how you’re Arcardian. We simply are who we are. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Valen nodded his head, wincing as he felt a stab of pain.
A strange dream, indeed.
“I meant,” he said, focusing more closely on his words now, “why am I here?”
“You must be confused,” Alara said, smiling gently. She smoothed out a wrinkle on her dress with delicate fingertips. “You’ve been through quite a traumatic experience, Mr. Cortas. It’s lucky your father sent along a medically programmed AI with your rescue crew. Otherwise...” Her hairless brow furrowed. “You and I would not be here having this conversation.”
“My father?” Valen’s stomach turned.
He tried to push himself up from the pillows, but it was as if something tore in his spine. The pain in his back blossomed. Valen closed his eyes and breathed deep, trying to imagine it away. But it didn’t leave.
With each breath, it got worse, and suddenly he found himself groaning, gritting his teeth so he wouldn’t scream.
Alara swept silently across the room and stopped at his bedside. “Oh, dear. It seems you’re overdue for another dose of JemArii. The lacerations on your back were quite deep. The sedative is likely why you slept through the entire crash.”
“What crash?”
“The details don’t matter right now, Valen. What I’d like to know is...what is the last thing you remember?” She stepped closer to him, that cool smile still on her lips. “You were in Lunamere for a very long time.” He felt her cool fingertips on his skin, and suddenly an image of another person flashed into his mind.
A queen of darkness.
; A demon wearing a woman’s skin.
He flinched away, gasping again as his mutilated body throbbed with pain.
“Nor,” he breathed. He slammed his eyes shut, and there she was, standing over him, hands outstretched.
“She’s not here, Valen,” the queen said.
But he wasn’t listening anymore.
“Open your eyes, child,” she said. “Open your eyes and see that you are safe.”
He couldn’t. He wouldn’t open them, because he knew that when he did, he’d be back in his cell again.
“I am Valen,” he whispered to himself.
He could still feel the soft bed beneath him, but in his mind, he knew it wasn’t real.
“I am Valen. I am Valen. I am...”
The door swung open with a shuddering boom. Then there were hands on his wrists, voices saying his name, telling him to remain calm, that he was safe, that he was no longer in Lunamere.
“Not now,” he said. “Not now, not now...” He thrashed against his captors. He couldn’t get free.
He would never be free.
“Put him back under,” Alara’s voice said. “We’re going too fast.”
Valen felt a sharp pinch as something sunk beneath his skin. Warmth enveloped him, and with it came a lurching wave of dizziness, as if he were standing on a crashing starship.
He slumped back against the pillows, and as he did, his eyelids fluttered open.
The last thing he saw was Androma Racella leaning forward from the shadows across the room, half of her face aglow as sunlight spilled across her skin like paint.
Chapter Forty-Eight
* * *
LIRA
LIRA HAD FORGOTTEN how strange it was to be planetside.
She hated the feeling of extra weight on her shoulders. Like there was baggage she couldn’t shake, clinging to her bones.
But she’d made it here alone. She’d lost Lon far back in the tunnels, remembering an old hiding place she’d used as a child. She’d wedged herself between the tunnel wall and the old, hand-carved bust of the original ruler of Adhira, King Rodemere Ankara, the man who’d so strongly influenced the Adhiran creed of living harmoniously with others.
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