The Void was the only place lacking stars in the entire galaxy. A blanket of nothingness that spanned from one end of the Phelexos System to the other. But beyond the Void, unbeknownst to Mirabel, was the root of Nor’s and Valen’s true allegiance.
Exonia.
Nor pushed the vision deeper into Valen’s mind, and she heard him sigh longingly.
A galaxy that had once been full of light and grace, blessed by the mighty Godstars. Its inhabitants the chosen heirs of the Godstars’ mighty powers, like the compulsion Klaren had gifted to her children. A realm that had long been decaying, even more so than Xen Ptera, putting their mother’s people in danger of extinction. They clung to life by the thinnest of threads and dreamed of a savior, in the form of a mighty queen, a powerful brother at her side.
Soon, they would open the Void, using Nexus’s power to command all the weapons at once. And when they tore open that hole in the sky, the Exonians would enter Mirabel like a flood. Hundreds upon hundreds of thousands who would soon find deliverance here.
Nor’s vision ended, and she and Valen blinked at each other as they returned to the present. It was a sobering memory that Klaren had sent down to Nor so long ago. Each time Nor felt exhaustion weighing on her, each time she felt the fear of failure breathing down her neck, she remembered Exonia. She remembered the lifetime she’d spent fighting for Xen Ptera—only a small taste of what Exonia had been experiencing for untold years.
The door to the great room swung open, and Darai swept in, cloak billowing in his wake as Zahn and the orange-eyed analyst from earlier followed on his heels.
“We have news, Majesty.”
Valen looked away, wiping quickly at his nose again. Nor could have sworn she saw a glimpse of red there, but when she looked back, there was no trace of it.
“What is it?” Valen asked Darai with a deep sigh.
The analyst stopped before them and bowed, her sleeveless outfit revealing arms covered in glowing, silver veins. They were bright reminders of Nor’s cause, of Valen’s power. “We’ve been working around the clock, using every resource at our hands to uncover the identity of the false general. I’m delighted to report that just a few minutes ago, we had a breakthrough.”
Nor’s blood went cold.
“Who is it?” she said, the words a mere whisper.
“It’s...rather unexpected, Majesty,” Darai said. “And it will likely be a challenge to track her down.”
“Just tell me,” Nor snapped.
The analyst cleared her throat. “Androma Racella, Majesty.”
The name sounded strangely familiar, but Nor couldn’t place it. “Who?” she asked.
It was Valen who answered this time, his face paling as he turned to look at Nor. “Andi,” he said faintly, his eyes wide with disbelief. “The Bloody Baroness.”
CHAPTER 12
ANDI
The transport shot across the landscape, leaving the icy battlefield far behind them. A plume of smoke spiraled up from the attack site, trailing into the sky as if marking Lon’s final resting place.
Andi buckled herself into the passenger seat as Dex angled them toward the ghostly outline of a domed city in the distance. But she found that she couldn’t look away from the carnage in the distance, couldn’t stop seeing the dragon’s gaping jaw.
“This can’t be happening,” Andi said, as Dex laid on the throttle. “Godstars, this isn’t how it was supposed to go.”
All she could see was Lon’s face as he slipped between the dragon’s teeth. All she could think of was the horrific death that had followed. The fiery explosion. And Lira... Oh, Godstars, Lira. How would she react when Andi freed her someday, and Lon wasn’t there waiting for her return? She’d already lost her aunt Alara at the hands of Queen Nor, and now...
“He made his choice,” Dex said quietly.
But again and again, Andi saw his face. The calmness in his eyes, so willing to give himself over to the other side as he leaped from the transport into the literal jaws of death.
“He did it so that Lira could be saved.”
“Don’t say her name,” Andi hissed. Grief enveloped her in its all too familiar embrace. “She’ll never forgive me for letting him go. Godstars, I should have stopped him!” She slammed the dash in fury.
“There was nothing we could have done!” Dex insisted. “He was probably planning to sacrifice himself the moment his suit ripped open.”
“We could have made it to the city before he bled to death!”
“We wouldn’t have,” Dex said. “And he knew that. He saved us, Androma. So that we could continue on and save the girls. Save Lira.”
Andi’s body was rigid, every muscle tense. “We don’t know for sure if... We should turn around, go back...” But she knew her own words were foolish even as she uttered them. That Lon’s soul no longer existed in this galaxy.
“Andi.” Dex’s shoulders rose and fell as he took a deep breath. “You know as well as I do that turning around would bring us nothing but grief. He’s gone. He died a hero. A worthy death, for a Sentinel.”
The transport was finally growing warm inside, the old heating system kicking into gear, but Andi’s hands still shook as she gripped them together. She knew it wasn’t from the cold.
Dex reached over, carefully, and wrapped one hand over hers. She tensed beneath his touch, so lost in her pain. But he felt it, too. The others had been Guardians, his brothers and sisters from Tenebris, and they had died alongside Lon.
Andi hadn’t been the one to bring about their deaths, and yet her swords seemed to sing her name, begging for more tallies. How had they already lost another of their crew, so soon? In the short time he’d spent on the Marauder, Lon had become a part of them, saving Andi’s life with his own blood after they’d fled Arcardius. And now... He’d traded his life for theirs. Again, he’d saved her.
But for what purpose?
Now she had no crew. And no ship.
The realization of that finally hit her, too. The Marauder was gone. Frozen and forgotten in the Soleran wastes, the cruelest reminder that without her girls, without her ship...
She was nothing.
She thought of Lon’s final words. “What did he mean?” Andi asked. “When he said...” Again, his face flashed in her mind, like the countless others that had died because of her. “When he said to tell her what she truly was?”
Dex’s jaw tensed. He swallowed and looked away. “I...I don’t know.”
He knew something. Or perhaps that was just Andi’s own guilt tugging at her, trying to project onto Dex. She cracked her knuckles, a habit she’d always resorted to in times of stress.
It was calming, the act of doing something, however small.
“Lira always spoke so hopefully about the dead,” Andi said, remembering her friend’s words about those who’d fallen in the attacks on Adhira, after they’d crash-landed there in the Marauder. It seemed so long ago now, though it had been little more than a month since the Xen Pterran forces had invaded that peaceful planet.
How many others had fallen in the weeks since?
“She said that they live on, in the world around us,” Andi continued. “In the wind. The trees. The stars.”
Dex nodded, his eyes locked on the landscape ahead. “Then Lon is with us still, even now.”
Andi didn’t know if she believed that was true. But for this moment, for today... She wanted to believe it.
For she and Dex were now a crew of two. Alone in a frozen land that cared little for its inhabitants, and even less for its visitors. They had no idea where to find safety, other than a fragmented instruction to find the Underground, somewhere in the Briog Sector. In an ice pub.
That was practically nothing to go on.
“Klarisa was a good soldier,” Dex choked out. “A Guardian with a lot of marks upon her skin. But she had no o
ne. She died alone.”
“That’s not true,” Andi protested. “She had you.”
Both Dex and Andi had been responsible for countless deaths over the years. Her victims had always haunted Andi in her dreams, ghostly bodies that she danced with until her guilt eddied and she woke in the morning, finally able to face up to what she’d done. Able to scratch their tallies into her swords.
But those deaths had always been at her hands. And yet somehow, even though Andi hadn’t brought about these recent ones, the faces of those rebels from the Underground tugged at her in the same way. They had been so eager and excited as they shared the hope that there were more Unaffecteds out there, their minds still free of Nor’s power.
Now they’d never see the galaxy freed from the queen’s clutches.
“We’ll make it to the Underground,” Dex said, determination filling his voice. “We’ll make sure their deaths weren’t in vain. And then we’ll make a plan. Figure out what the hell is going on across Mirabel, how we can get back to the girls. We still have a mission, Andi. We need to focus on that.”
He sounded like he was saying it as much for himself as he was for her.
On the dash before them was a screen, its glow barely visible beneath thick layers of dust and grime. Dex wiped it with his gloved hand, revealing a map of the planet’s surface.
A small red dot showed where they were headed—Craatia, the capital domed city of Solera. It was a straight shot from here, three hundred clicks away.
The Soleran landscape was known for being one of the harshest in Mirabel, but it was beautiful all the same. As they journeyed on, their transport hovering a few yards above the snow, Andi took in the view, willing it to overcome her mind. To make it as numb as her body was from the cold. But all she could think about was that damned ice dragon. How it had erupted from the earth out of nowhere, overtaking them in an instant.
It only made her think of Nor’s power, and the might of her threat to Mirabel.
“It’s so empty here,” Dex said, clearing his throat. Andi looked at him as he ran a hand through his hair. It was getting longer, the front now shaggy enough to cover his brows. “Sorry. It’s just...talking helps. To distract my mind.”
Left and right, spanning as far as they could see, was a world blanketed in white. There were countless frozen lakes across Solera, snow bounding across their surfaces in a dance that went in time with the wind. The wreckage of the Marauder was long behind them, the poor ship abandoned to the cold, half-buried in the ice. Already, it probably looked as if it were becoming a part of the planet. As if everything that visited Solera was claimed by it eventually.
Jagged ice mountains, like splintered bones, were scattered across the landscape, some of them twisting in spiraline forms, purple and deep blue in color. But Dex was right—there were hardly any signs of life, save for the few scattered outposts that they passed. Many of them looked abandoned, as if everyone had picked up and left for more populated areas, perhaps the better to find a place where others praised Nor.
It made Andi want to scream—or drive her swords through the queen’s throat, the way Nor had done to all the other planetary leaders.
“How did it happen so quickly?” Andi asked. Grief still marked her heart, but Andi had lost enough people in the past to know that Dex was right—talking about something, anything other than the loss, would help make it easier to bear.
“I guess Nor had more resources on Xen Ptera than we always assumed,” Dex replied. “Or she used the advanced tech on Arcardius, once she gained control. I hate to say it, but she was smart to pick Arcardius as her target for setting up shop.”
“Did you just compliment that witch?” Andi growled.
Dex looked like he regretted it already.
“Smarter, still,” Andi said, changing the subject, “for Arachnid to choose one of the most unforgiving planets in the galaxy for his headquarters. Nor would have a hell of a time bringing the battle to this tundra, especially if the Underground has already overtaken some of the domed sectors. She’d have a hell of a time infiltrating it, too, if it’s really underground.”
“Doesn’t bode well for us,” Dex said with a deep sigh.
“We’ve made it through worse,” Andi said with a shrug. “Or have you forgotten Lunamere so quickly?”
Dex muttered under his breath, his hands gripping the wheel tighter. “You know, I never suspected Valen was a part of this. Did you?” When Andi remained silent, he added, “You didn’t see the way he bowed to her that night. Like she truly was his goddess come down from the stars. To think, you’re both from the same planet, born and raised, and yet somehow, he has this impossible power to—”
“That is incorrect, Dextro Arez.” A voice squeaked out from Dex’s wrist.
“What the—” Andi yelped. Dex nearly crashed the transport into an ice spiral as he whirled around, forgetting the gears for a moment.
“Dex!” Andi screamed, reaching over and grabbing the wheel. The transport spun as both of them grappled for control, finally slowing to a near-stop. They hovered over a broad expanse of frozen lake, colors shifting beneath the surface.
Dex looked down at the watch on his wrist. “Alfie?” he asked incredulously.
“Artificial Life Form Intelligence Emissary,” the droid reminded him.
“You scared the hell out of us, Alfie,” Andi gasped.
Alfie’s voice was as dry as ever. “Impossible. Hell cannot be contained in a human body, nor can it be proved that it is, in fact, real.”
Dex burst out laughing, the sound strangely out of place after the attack, but welcome all the same. “Took you long enough to show up. Finally found a connection?”
“We are on Solera,” Alfie said, as if he’d just noticed. Likely his chip was finally done calibrating into the watch, re-tethered to the feed. “Why are we on Solera?”
Dex kicked the engine back into gear, turning them back toward Craatia. “You’ve been a little under the weather, pal. Last we saw you, you were supposed to be delivering the results of those blood tests you performed on Valen, before the Marauder crashed on Adhira. You said there was a team of scientists in Averia that needed the information.”
“Then someone murdered you,” Andi said. “But I saved your memory chip, so you could tell us what the hell happened, and who did it.”
“Incorrect again,” Alfie said. “I cannot be murdered, for I am not alive. I was dismembered by Sir Valen Cortas. He commanded me to allow him to do so.”
Dex cursed. “Of course you were. What was he trying to hide, besides the fact that he was related to Nor? And why am I incorrect again?”
“You said Valen Cortas was Arcardian, born and raised. Valen is half Arcardian, yes,” Alfie said. “But according to his DNA, he is also half...”
His words trailed off. Dex’s watch screen flickered, as if it were malfunctioning.
“Alfie?” Dex asked. He shrugged and knocked the watch against the transport’s dash.
The screen flickered back on. “I cannot compute.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Dex sputtered.
“He should be half–Xen Pterran, right?” Andi asked. “Because of Klaren?”
“Evidently Klaren Solis was not Xen Pterran,” Alfie replied. “But there is nothing in the entire Mirabellian database that explains where her DNA originates from.”
Andi met Dex’s gaze, the uneasiness in his expression mirroring her own feelings. “So you’re saying that Valen’s mother isn’t from Mirabel?” Dex asked. “But how is that possible? Maybe her people just haven’t been discovered yet?”
Andi relaxed a bit. Mirabel had countless races, some of which kept themselves very secluded. Surely Klaren hailed from one of those, though how she’d then ended up marrying Xen Ptera’s former king was a mystery.
“Still incorrect,” Alfie responde
d. “There are no more undiscovered races in Mirabel.” The transport lurched with a gust of frigid wind, prompting another round of cursing from Dex.
“So what is she, then?” Andi prodded, tired of the questions, eager for answers.
It was Dex who spoke next. “She’s not Mirabellian at all.”
Alfie nodded. “That is my calculation. The DNA strands that make up half of Valen Cortas’s blood are not Mirabellian. Nor are they from any of the known galaxies nearby, many of which would have been too far for Klaren Solis to travel in a lifetime. Even with cryogenics.”
The transport fell silent, as both Dex and Andi were lost in their thoughts. Alfie’s revelation was a welcome distraction from their grief, albeit a disturbing one.
“So he’s not from here,” Andi mused. “I mean, Klaren wasn’t from here, anyway. And I’m willing to bet that means Nor’s DNA is the same. And if Valen knew Alfie was delivering that news to Cyprian before their planned attack on Averia...then trying to murder Alfie makes sense.”
“Not murder,” Alfie corrected.
Andi ignored him, turning to face Dex. He held himself rigid, chewing on his bottom lip as he seemed to process all of this.
“Was Kalee...?” Dex seemed like he didn’t know how to form the question.
But Alfie seemed to sense what he was getting at. “The late Kalee Cortas was the daughter of Cyprian and Merella Cortas.”
Andi loosed a sigh of relief, but the feeling was short-lived. “So we have no idea who we’re really dealing with, as far as Valen and Nor are concerned,” she said, watching the landscape outside. The snow was scattered with what looked to be purple clouds, thick groups of them clustered together, their heads to the ground.
One of them bleated as the transport passed by. Roaks, a species of feral sheep native to Solera. They were known for their thick furs, which could withstand the cold—and the fact that when food was hard to come by, they often feasted on the weakest from their herd.
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