More clapping. The levitating cameras flashed as the general showed off his practiced smile.
“Together, we remain as strong as we were on that final day of battle over a decade ago. Today, we continue to keep our trading ports open, to share new knowledge between the brightest scholars of each system and to be constant in our communications with one another. Why, just yesterday, I caught my wife sending a com to Governor Kravan’s wife. I believe the topic of discussion was how closely they could match their gowns without too many people taking notice.”
The crowd erupted with polite laughter.
“I told you matching gowns were all the rage,” Gilly muttered to Breck.
Andi’s skin itched from this speech. This was a waste of her time.
In a few more hours, she and her crew would go free. She would take off this gown, don her bodysuit and swords and they’d be off to take back the Marauder, piloting it toward some other mission. Some distant place, far away from the shimmer and shine of Arcardius.
But for now, the speech droned on and on, and Andi lost herself in watching the crowd instead. Some smiles were genuine, like that of an expectant mother across the room, her hands splayed across her swollen belly as she watched General Cortas speak of the future and an ever-brighter tomorrow for the galaxy.
Across the room, a group of girls clustered together, giggling silently as their parents sent them looks of disapproval. A few feet away, two handsome young Arcardian soldiers, their hair groomed back and glowing under the lights, watched the girls with open interest.
Later, Andi knew, they’d walk up to the girls, try to win them over with their smooth words. Hopefully, if the girls were smart, they’d shut the boys down.
But they likely wouldn’t. They’d dance together. They’d plan their futures, set on moving higher and higher up in society until they reached the top, just as Andi’s parents had.
Andi sighed and glanced over at Valen. He stood in the shadows of the stage, his mother beside him with a gloved hand on his shoulder.
Maybe, in another life, Andi and Valen would have been the same.
Two young Arcardians with bright futures, possibly joined together as society deemed they should be.
Now Valen was staying here.
And she would be gone, never to return.
Their eyes met for a moment, and the new friendship between them made Andi’s chest ache a little. She rolled her eyes and pretended to yawn.
He smiled, as if he wanted to laugh. But then something passed over his eyes, and he looked away, his jaw tight.
“Valen,” the general said. “My son. Would you join me?”
Valen approached the podium with his mother in tow. They looked like the perfect family to anyone who didn’t know about Valen’s kidnapping, the general’s devilish dealings and the way Merella often turned a blind eye for the sake of the family’s reputation.
Everyone in the crowd craned their necks, eager to get an up-close look at the lost son, returned home at last. Andi watched, too, not because Valen was a spectacle, but because she knew, perhaps more than anyone, that he hated to be on display.
Merella stopped short, and Valen’s footsteps were the only sound in the room as he walked across the stage to join his father.
General Cortas placed a hand on Valen’s shoulder.
Andi noticed the flinch. Almost imperceptible, but there nonetheless. For a moment, Valen looked stiff and pained, as if the darkness of Lunamere was threatening to appear in this room, in front of this crowd and all the watching eyes across Mirabel.
But then he relaxed, sank into the persona of the smooth politician’s son he’d been trained to be since birth.
“We are a resilient galaxy,” General Cortas said, staring into the cameras, “fully capable of coming back stronger than ever before.” He squeezed Valen’s shoulder. “My son is proof of this. Many of you know that Valen, my precious firstborn, was taken by Xen Pterran mercenaries two years ago.”
The crowd nodded, hushed sounds of disapproval and sadness sweeping across the room.
The general pressed a hand to his heart as if he was touched by their concern. “Thanks to an Arcardian-born hired hand,” he said, pointedly not looking at Andi, “he has made it back safe and sound.”
The crowd roared, and the general raised his hands, his voice booming into the mic.
“Having my son back home after two years of imprisonment on Xen Ptera is proof of our strength and resilience in even the most trying of times. We will not be broken! We will not bow to fear!” He held a hand out to Valen.
With strange, almost broken steps, Valen moved forward.
General Cortas placed a hand on his son’s cheek and smiled.
Valen did not smile back.
Chapter Eighty-One
* * *
VALEN
THIS WAS HIS MOMENT.
The crowd was loud, the cheers meant for him booming over the sound of his father’s voice on the loudspeaker. As Valen looked out across the packed crowd, he saw the looks of adoration in their eyes, people pressing kerchiefs to their faces to wipe away freshly fallen tears, others clapping and waving beneath the glorious skies.
He’d dreamed of this, people calling his name, their sights set only on him. Not because of his father, and not because of his last name. Just Valen, standing with his sister, watching the world appreciate them, worship them.
“For you, my son,” his father said now.
Valen nodded and plastered a false smile on his face, but it was all a lie.
These cheers weren’t for him—never could be, because nobody truly knew him. Nobody truly understood the things that Valen had been through.
His father’s hand felt like a flaming whip on his cheek.
“My son,” the general said, the mic sending his voice out across the crowd, where it echoed back and into his ears and his brain. Valen wanted it out. He never wanted to hear that voice again. “Welcome back to Arcardius. Welcome home.”
The crowd roared louder, a wave that was cresting, ready to break on top of him.
Valen had made it back to Arcardius, that much was true.
But he wasn’t home. He was far, far from it.
Lunamere had been full of terrors, but those terrors had given way to his salvation.
In the back of his mind, he heard a young woman’s voice, tender and loving, yet full of power and presence as she spoke to him. He saw golden eyes, dark hair and a heart intent on bringing light back into the galaxy.
It was time.
Valen felt it, as much as he felt the tainted blood pumping in his veins, as much as he felt the separation between himself and the man who stood before him now, pressing a too-hot hand to his cheek.
In Lunamere, Valen had learned of the true darkness his father harbored. A soul as black as the night with secrets as sharp as thorns. They may have shared a lineage, but that was only half of who Valen was.
The other half had taken over him, helped him to become who he had always been beneath the surface.
It all began tonight.
Home, his father was saying. Home.
“This is not my home,” Valen said as he stared into the eyes of the man he’d once been so desperate to be loved by. “It never will be.”
Valen’s hand was steady as he retrieved the blade from the inner lining of his suit pocket.
I am Valen Solis, he told himself. Vengeance will be mine.
He smiled and drove the knife into his father’s chest.
Chapter Eighty-Two
* * *
ANDROMA
FIRST THERE WAS the silver flash of a knife.
Then there was blood.
Andi watched, frozen in horror as it bloomed like a crimson nebula on the general’s chest.
He staggered back once. Twic
e.
He reached for Valen with a trembling hand. The knife was soundless as Valen pulled it from his father’s chest. General Cortas tumbled to the stage with a sickening thump.
A woman’s scream pierced the air.
Andi saw Merella, Valen’s mother, fall at her husband’s side.
Then an explosion rocked the ballroom. Glass shattered as the walls were blasted open.
All around her, soldiers clad in crimson began to swarm through the crowd, the symbol of Xen Ptera painted on their armored chests.
A young man screamed as he pointed them out. Then another scream came, and another, and another, until the entire room had erupted into terror.
When the first shot rang out, Andi already had an electric dagger pulled from her thigh holster, the blade sizzling with electricity, eager to protect, eager to kill.
Chapter Eighty-Three
* * *
DEX
XEN PTERRAN SOLDIERS swarmed the room.
One second they weren’t there, and the next, they were everywhere, all around the crowd, black rifles held before them like beacons of death. It was Adhira all over again.
Onstage, Valen still stood over his father’s body, knife held in his hand, a strange, absent look on his face as on-duty Arcardian soldiers lifted their own rifles and readied themselves for battle.
They’d only taken down a few enemies when Valen gripped the microphone.
He turned to face the Arcardians, his hand raised in a lazy gesture.
“Stop!”
The soldiers froze, accepting the command immediately. Their limbs were unmoving, and their eyes were vacant in their slack faces.
“Lay down your rifles,” Valen said.
The Arcardian soldiers dropped their weapons.
Then Dex saw the purple crackle of electricity as Andi’s dagger appeared in her hands.
“Wait!” he yelled.
But she sprinted past him, heading straight for Valen.
Chapter Eighty-Four
* * *
ANDROMA
ANDI DIDN’T THINK; she just moved as her feet carried her across the room toward Valen.
Her grip tightened on the dagger as she reached the stage, leaping onto it and skidding to a stop in front of Valen, prepared to do what she had to.
He spun around just in time, arm held before him with the knife still clutched in his fist.
“Why?” Andi asked. “Why would you do this?”
Behind Valen, six Patrolmen stood frozen, still as statues, midstride, their weapons discarded on the floor. And yet they did not move. Not even to blink. They only moved when six gunshots rang out, and they all fell to the floor in a heap.
General Cortas lay a few feet away, gasping as Merella pressed her hands to his wound, screaming for help, her voice ragged as all around the room, soldiers from Xen Ptera fired their guns. Andi watched as a woman dropped, her head hitting the floor with a sickening thump. Her arms splayed out against the swirling floor, limp.
Andi couldn’t see her crew, could barely see anything in the chaos.
“Androma,” Valen said. She whirled back to him. The knife in his hand shone red with blood, all the way to the handle.
Time froze around the two of them.
“I had to do it,” he said. She could barely hear him above the screams. What could only be bullets flying from the guns, striking partygoers and shattering glass. Merella was still screaming as Xen Pterran soldiers angled guns at the other system leaders, who sat stunned in their seats, arms raised in surrender.
“He’s still alive,” Valen said. A smear of blood was trailing from the general as he gasped and tried to crawl away. Valen sighed. “I have to finish the job.” He turned, twirling the knife so that he held the blade like a paintbrush, ready to render death upon his own father.
Andi slid past him and stood in his way. “Valen. Stop.”
Whatever the reason, this was wrong. This wasn’t Valen standing before her—not the sensitive boy she’d known, nor the sad, broken man she’d found in Lunamere. This was a killer, cold and heartless.
This was someone like her.
Valen’s jaw twitched. “Move.”
Andi remained in position. “You don’t have to do this,” she said, her heart hammering. She frowned at him. “What did they do to you in Lunamere? What did they say?”
“The truth.” He closed his eyes, rolled his neck from side to side, a small frown on his lips. When he opened his eyes, they were full of an evil she never would have believed him capable of harboring.
“Please, Valen,” Andi said. “You don’t have to do this.”
“You’re wrong, Androma,” Valen said. His eyes fell on the dying man between them. “It’s all I’ve ever had to do.”
“I’ll stop you,” she whispered.
“No.” He tightened his grip on the knife and stepped forward. “You won’t.”
Chapter Eighty-Five
* * *
DEX
SPARKS FLEW AS steel clashed against steel.
Andi and Valen were a blur as they fought on stage, too far away for Dex to jump in. The crowd roared around him, people sprinting and bodies falling, their extravagant clothing tripping them up as they tried to escape the chaos.
The Xen Pterran soldiers shot heartlessly, their bullets striking down everyone in their path. It was Adhira all over again, despite what the general had said, despite Arcardius’s so-called invulnerability.
Now General Cortas was dying, by the hand of his own son.
Valen the weak.
Valen the painter.
Valen the murderer. It didn’t add up.
A man screamed as a soldier began raining bullets in his path. The weaponry was older, outdated, and yet the ammunition was not. Dex saw the moment the man was shot. He watched, horrified, as a silvery substance splattered against the man’s forehead where the bullet had gone in. The liquid shimmered and sank beneath his skin, like water into a drain.
The man crumpled to the ground, where he lay faceup, staring up at the sky.
Move, Dex told himself. Get the hell out of here.
He could see the exit, a perfectly straight path to freedom, with only a few bodies in his way.
But he couldn’t leave Andi behind.
Then he heard her scream.
It was a sound he knew like the beat of his own heart, like the roaring of the blood in his ears. He whirled around, his vision tunneling to focus on her.
Andi was down on one knee before Valen. Blood dripped from her collarbone, seeping from a deep wound.
Andi’s knife was on the ground between them, the electricity crackling a single time before it winked out.
She grabbed it and shook it once, like the snap of a whip. The electricity fired back up, swimming across the sharpest edge.
Dex was close enough now to hear her voice.
The shots were fewer, lessening to the point that he knew they had no time. That in seconds, he would probably be next.
But he couldn’t look away.
When she stood, somehow hauling herself up on shaky feet, Dex knew that Valen would die.
Because it was not Andi who rose, but someone else in her place.
The Bloody Baroness.
Chapter Eighty-Six
* * *
ANDROMA
ANDI FOUGHT LIKE Valen was her past come back to haunt her, and with every swing of her blade, she saw the chance to erase him.
But he was too quick. Too skilled. Too other.
Not the Valen she’d grown up with, not the Valen she’d rescued.
Lies.
Betrayal.
Take him down, Androma, take him down.
It was not her voice, but Kalee’s, that called to her mind.
She advanced on him with fire in her heart, pain lancing through her veins like a poison. The shaky friendship they’d built was gone. She wasn’t even sure if it was ever real.
“Kalee wouldn’t have wanted this!” Andi screamed. “She wouldn’t have...”
Her words trailed off as she saw a flash of blue in the crowd. Lira, rushing toward her, Gilly and Breck just beyond.
She opened her mouth to yell at them, to tell them to run.
Her words were cut off by a gunshot.
The horrible, heart-shredding sound of Lira’s scream as she fell face-first to the floor. Another two shots. Another scream, this time from Andi’s own lips, Breck howling along with her as she and Gilly fell.
A soldier stood behind them, rifle aimed, blue smoke trailing from its barrel like a demon’s hot, hateful breath.
“You can’t win this battle, Androma,” Valen said. His lips were close to her ear, but his voice was far away. As distant as the safety of the stars.
When Valen dug his knife into her chest, she didn’t even feel the pain.
“You shouldn’t have gotten in the way,” he said.
Andi fell to her knees. She gasped, looking down to see the hilt of his knife sticking from her chest. She pulled it out. Dropped it to the floor and fell beside it into a pool of her own blood.
Valen’s image blurred as he walked away from the stage.
The last thing Andi saw was Dex’s face in the crowd.
Then the darkness arrived and swallowed her whole.
Chapter Eighty-Seven
* * *
DEX
HE WAS TOO LATE.
For a heartbeat, Dex thought she was dead.
All around him, the room was growing quieter, the screams dying down.
A few more shots here.
A few more there.
The thump of a body hitting the floor.
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