Her heart pounded against her ribs. Perhaps it was because freedom was in her grasp. Perhaps it was because finally, after so many years trapped on Arcardius, she would be reunited with her husband.
Her daughter.
Her precious, precious Nor.
That thought, along with the hope that she hadn’t failed her mission just yet, was what made her place the palm of her hand on the scanner, initiating the peace treaty that would end this war once and for all.
The holo beeped as her print was recorded.
“Your turn, Cyprian,” the queen said, passing the holo to him.
She waited for him to sign the treaty, to seal Xen Ptera’s fate—and the Conduit’s, far beyond. But instead of placing his hand on the scanner, he stood and walked toward his red-uniformed pilot.
“Is the fleet ready for engagement?” he asked, handing the holo to a nearby soldier.
“Yes, sir,” the pilot responded. Cyprian glanced at her without a hint of emotion written on his face, then back to the pilot.
Klaren went still.
“Cyprian,” she said. “Where is Valen? You said he would go with me. I will not leave without my son.”
She could see his jaw working, see his body go rigid at the sound of her voice. He started to turn toward her, but at the last moment, he stopped.
“Cyprian, come here,” she tried again, but her voice had lost its cool calm, replaced instead by a trembling, pathetic note. “Come, and let me look upon you one last time.”
Footsteps sounded behind her.
Hands grabbed her shoulders, and Klaren cried out as her head was yanked back against the headrest.
Then she felt the cold, unfeeling grip of a strap locking around her throat. Forcing her to stare ahead, out at the distant planet.
“Release me!” she shouted. “I am the queen of Xen Ptera!”
The strap tightened in place. So tight that she could scarcely breathe.
“Cyprian!” she gasped. “Release me!”
All around her, soldiers were moving to action, tapping on dashboard screens, speaking into coms from which distant voices responded.
But the queen could only stare ahead, eyes widening as she saw a fleet of ships soar past. Massive, hulking black warships, the largest she had ever seen.
“Cyprian!” she cried again, her voice breathless.
His voice came from beside her. She twisted, fighting against the restraint on her throat. Then she froze in horror as he said, “Ready the weapons.”
Ice flooded through her.
She knew she’d been fooled, saw her mistake in an instant.
He had bested her, discovered a way around her powers. Discovered a way to fully overcome her compulsion.
The treaty was all a ruse to get her here, to pause the Xen Pterran soldiers while their queen hovered in the sky overhead, about to be returned home.
They wouldn’t mount a defense, fearing for her safety.
And now...now, they would all die.
“Please,” she begged. “Cyprian, stop this at once. I’ll do anything you wish. Please, spare them!”
His deep rumble of laughter sent a cold spike into her chest.
Then his lips were at her ear again. His hands were in her hair, yanking at the strands as he whispered, “Fool queen. You will bewitch me no more.”
He stood and gave the command to attack.
Frozen in place, she watched as the ships opened fire on Xen Ptera.
The retort was enough to shake the ship. To sink into the queen’s bones and cause her to cry out as she watched blazing, furious orbs of light soar through the darkness, heading straight toward the planet below.
In that moment, the queen knew she had failed.
All she could see was her daughter’s face.
Nor, alive and well, her eyes on the sky as she watched her death barrel toward her from the fringes of space.
The queen reached deep into her soul. She found that tiny, shimmering thread within, and with mental fingers, gripped it tight.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. She begged the connection to work, begged for her daughter to hear her.
She sent forth an image of two ancient, bloody handprints pressing against a cold glass tower. Bodies lying beside her bare feet. The faraway Conduit, swirling and bright. The journey. The pain. The constant, trustworthy Darai, always willing to tell her the truth. To keep her in line with the light.
Before the bombs reached the planet, the queen sent forth an image of Valen’s face as she’d last seen it four years ago, tiny and screaming and so much like her own. “You are not alone. You have a brother,” she whispered.
She could almost feel the planet shake as the bombs hit. Like a bolt of lightning, fingers of blue fire stretched across it, weaving their way around every piece of the land.
With it, a scream erupted from the queen’s throat.
Xen Ptera went dark.
She screamed until she heard Cyprian’s voice beside her ear, his lips hot and wet against her skin.
“Scream, Klaren,” he said. “Scream, and see the proof that you have lost.”
She kept screaming, even as his soldiers gripped her head tight, and the tip of an electric blade appeared before her.
Her voice went ragged as they sliced her tongue from her mouth.
She finally fell silent as they unlocked her bindings.
As they dragged her limp body into a pod, sealed it shut and sent Klaren Solis, the Failed Queen from afar, barreling endlessly into the cold black skies.
Chapter Ninety-Six
* * *
NOR
AS AN ELEVEN-YEAR-OLD CHILD, Princess Nor lay in the rubble of the palace, her father’s corpse beside her. Around her, fires burned and people cried out in agony. Her world was gone.
Then, just as she had lost all hope, she heard a woman’s soft voice in her head, slowly growing stronger.
It was familiar, a voice she knew but did not know all the same.
It belonged to her mother.
Ten words were all she said before the connection was cut. Ten words that gave her not just hope, but a drive to fight back against the oppressors who did this to her planet.
“I’m sorry,” the voice had said. Then, “You are not alone. You have a brother.”
The voice disappeared, but Nor knew in her bones that her mother was dead. It was as if a line was cut between them that she never knew existed until this very moment.
But the message was enough to fuel her need to escape the rubble and give her a new mission: find her brother.
Thirteen years later, Nor’s men finally kidnapped Valen from Arcardius and successfully delivered him home.
When he arrived, he was a selfish Arcardian-raised boy, scared and frail, not the warrior Nor had hoped to find. At first he didn’t seem to share the family’s gift of compulsion, but Darai told her to be patient. He promised a way to bring it forward. Not in the same way Nor had accessed her abilities, but through a harsher, bloodier method.
She gave the orders Darai recommended, and threw her only brother into Cell 306 on Lunamere.
She had him tortured, day after day, until—driven by pain—his mind latched on to the compulsion ability he never knew he had.
Nor could still remember the words she’d said to him after he stopped his torturers.
She’d knelt before him. Their eyes had met, and she’d felt the power as their telepathic link sidled into place.
She’d spoken to him with her mind.
“You will join me, Brother, and together, you and I will take back the galaxy.”
Chapter Ninety-Seven
* * *
VALEN
NOR WAS AN angel of darkness sprung from the most illustrious black hole in the universe. And soon everyone would k
now her name. She would be worshipped, a goddess who walked among the stars, the ability in her grasp to destroy whole systems with one glance.
Valen looked upon his sister, her elegant midnight gown flowing down her subtle curves like a river of darkness. Power like no other radiated from her.
He would do anything for her. She was his family, his queen, his everything. If she asked him to kill, he would oblige. He would destroy every other being in the universe if it pleased her.
She’d sworn that if he killed the general, they would never be apart again. He would be by her side as they ruled the galaxy together. Brother and sister, together always.
No one could defeat them.
He shivered with pleasure as he remembered the way his weapon sank into Androma’s chest. The look of pure shock on her face before a curtain of pain replaced it.
Pretending to be the Valen that Androma had once known was easy, just as Nor had told him it would be. But he’d shed his past self when Nor found him. The pain Lunamere had inflicted on him opened his mind and led to so many discoveries.
He would happily go through it all again if she asked. He had been given a new chance to protect a sister he never knew he had, a chance at redemption after he’d failed to keep Kalee safe.
He would not waste the opportunity this time.
The only difficulty had been pretending to forgive the monster who had killed Kalee. It wasn’t an accident; Androma had killed his sister in cold blood, and it delighted Valen that he’d played Andi like a puppet on strings.
Valen looked down at his hands, covered in the dried remains of Andi’s and Cyprian’s blood. It was beautiful, the color a deep matte red. He brought his hand up to his face, and his tongue tasted the blood of his enemy. The blood of the man who’d kept Valen from his true mother, the monster who’d lied to him his entire life about where he’d really come from and what he could do.
The sharp, metallic flavor seeped into him.
Revenge did taste sweet. It tasted like justice.
He returned his gaze to his sister, who stood surrounded by her advisers. His gaze met hers, and she lifted her golden hand, motioning him forward.
His feet couldn’t move fast enough as he entered her inner circle, standing on the ballroom stage.
“Valen, my brother,” Nor’s heavenly voice said when he approached. “Darai and Zahn just gave me some wonderful news. We have successfully established control over Arcardius and will soon have dominion over the remaining capital planets.”
Valen nodded; this had always been the plan. The Adhiran attack had been a bit of a deviation, but crash-landing on the planet had allowed for Valen to contact Nor through their bond and given her an excuse to have some fun. To wage war in the bloody ways of old, in a place where he knew she would win. They’d given the people of Adhira something to distract them from passing along the knowledge of Valen’s altered DNA.
The only other flaw in their plan had been the general’s obnoxious AI, who had noticed the change, along with the Marauders. The crew, Valen knew, were to be destroyed during the ball. The AI, however, he’d silenced himself, before it could deliver the message to the general’s doctors and destroy the mission before it began.
It was fortunate that Dex and the Marauders hadn’t thought to mention it to the general, either—there would have been no way to eliminate them before the ball without arousing suspicion. They had likely assumed that Alfie would pass along the news to the medical team looking after Valen, since the AI had been charged with his care.
Valen looked to Nor again as she spoke.
“Will the Bloody Baroness pose a problem?”
Valen thought of how his knife had met its mark when he sunk it into her chest.
“No. She’s dead.”
Nor’s rouged lips lifted at the corners.
Chapter Ninety-Eight
* * *
DEX
“SO NOW YOU know the truth,” General Cortas said.
Dex sat back on his heels, staggered at the revelation. “So Valen is...half–Xen Pterran?” he asked.
“Or something else,” the general said, coughing. “There was something strange in Klaren’s blood...something I’d never seen before.”
“That’s why you never named him your heir,” Dex said, realization dawning on him. “You didn’t think he could be trusted.”
“And I was right,” General Cortas agreed. “But Arcardius...the Phelexos System still needs a leader.” He paused, gasped for air. “Get me a holo, boy,” the general said faintly.
Dex fetched a holo from the storage room and brought it back to the dying general.
“What would you like me to do, sir?”
“I need to get into my files on the Arcardian database. Do as I say quickly because I can feel our time coming to an end.”
The general guided Dex through the various steps that bypassed the Arcardian servers. A few moments later, General Cortas let out a breath.
“Place my right hand on the screen.”
Dex did as he said, watching the general scan his clammy, ashen palm.
“Now have it scan my left eye.”
Once again, Dex followed his command, and when it was done, he waited for further instructions.
“Now do the same to Androma—hurry.”
Dex wasn’t sure he trusted the man, but the general seemed so determined. He followed his orders, scanning Andi’s palm and eye as quickly as he could.
When he returned to General Cortas’s bedside, the man took a moment to speak. Using up his remaining strength, he finally told Dex what he’d done.
“The fate of the galaxy is at stake. The leaders are dead, and I’m sure their successors soon will be, as well.”
He took in a ragged breath. “What I just did goes against every bone in my body. But Androma is the only Arcardian on this ship once I die.” He coughed, and blood wetted his dry lips. “I cannot let my personal feelings about the girl overcome my duty to my planet.”
He paused as he tried to regain his breath. “If she survives, she will lead Arcardius upon my death.”
Dex was sure he must have misheard. “Sir?”
“When I die—” General Cortas looked up at Dex with his fading bloodshot eyes “—Androma Racella will be my successor. She will be the rightful General of Arcardius.”
Before Dex could ask him any more questions, the general let out a bloody, wet cough.
Dex had seen people die before, many times. But seeing the light fade from General Cortas’s eyes marked the end of an era.
And the beginning of another. One with a dark, unknown future.
* * *
All across Arcardius, silver explosions rained down from the skies.
At first, the Arcardians were transfixed by the sparkling orbs that came from the clouds. But when they touched the ground, sank into their skin, their minds were altered in a way they could not have foreseen.
The enemies of Xen Ptera turned their eyes to the sky, smiling as they thought of their new queen.
An evil, long thought dead, had been reborn.
A queen without power had taken up her new throne, a prince of compulsion at her side.
And far away, hidden within the swirling colors of a nebula, a general in a glass starship died.
The Bloody Baroness took his place.
* * * * *
Acknowledgments—Sasha Alsberg
TRANSFORMING FROM A girl who struggled with dyslexia and couldn’t read to a woman who wrote a book is, to me, a miracle. My own kind of fairytale.
To my magical co-author, Lindsay Cummings, for being my friend and teaching me the secrets of being a writer. It is surreal that four years ago I was in your acknowledgments, and now we are writing acknowledgments for OUR book!
To the woman who believed in me and my
career, Joanna Volpe—words cannot express how grateful I am to have you as my agent. Seriously, I’m at a loss for words. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
To Peter Knapp—so happy you joined our team as Lindsay’s agent. You complete our four musketeers!
To the fearless members of #TeamZ...
Harlequin TEEN: Lauren Smulski, Siena Koncsol, Bryn Collier, Amy Jones, Evan Brown, Krista Mitchell, Aurora Ruiz, Shara Alexander, Linette Kim, Natashya Wilson and Erin Craig.
New Leaf Literary & Media: Devin Ross, Kathleen Ortiz, Mia Roman, Pouya Shahbazian, Chris McEwen and Hilary Pecheone.
And to everyone at Park Literary & Media.
To JD Netto for being not only a great friend over the years, but also the talented artist who made our gorgeous cover. *hearteyes*
None of this would be possible without the love and support of my family. To the man who never fails to brighten up my day: Dad, you have inspired me every day to live out my dreams. You are my cheerleader, and without you, I would be lost. Mom, you jump-started my love for reading during a time when I didn’t believe in myself. I love and miss you so much. To my amazing twin, Marisa (we are fraternal, if you’re wondering), and my lovely sisters Jennifer, Nicole and Stephanie. To Marina and Aunt Marcia, I am so grateful to have mother figures like the two of you in my life. To Fraser, you are a menace, but you’re my menace. To Myles, Oliver and Kolin, you are my little puppers of joy.
To my amazing friends: Gabby Gendek, Jackie Sawicz, Ben Alderson, Annmarie Morrison, Sam Wood, Natasha Polis, Zoe Herdt, Connor Wolff, Tiernan Bertrand Essington, Hannah Sun, Theresa Miele, Kaitlyn Nash, Gemma Edwards, Casey Davoren, Regan Perusse, Christine Riccio, Jesse George, Kat O’Keefe, Emma Giordano, Jenna Clare, Rebekah Faubion, Kayla Olson, Carmen Seda, Emma Parkinson, Francesca Mateo and Molly and Anna Gottfreid. I wish I could name all of you, but you know who you are!
To Sarah J. Maas, Roshani Chokshi, Susan Dennard, Victoria Aveyard, Danielle Paige, Adam Silvera, Val Tejeda, Alexandra Bracken, Renee Ahdieh, Elizabeth May, Laura Lam, Soman Chainani, Dhonielle Clayton, Kerri Maniscalco, Adi Alsaid and Amie Kaufman, for inspiring me as a writer and just for being wicked cool people.
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