Zahn and Darai guided her deeper into the lit space, a cavernous bunker with heavy rock walls and ceilings that made her feel small.
Lab techs in red Xen Pterran coats stood before stone tables, their hands deftly working, tapping away at dimly lit screens, stirring milky vials full of bubbling substances. Long ago, Nor had stood in this very room, watching her father move down the aisles. She’d marveled at the glowing substances, the cherished seeds that her father’s scientists had so carefully tended to in hopes of making food grow.
The mission had changed, but the feeling in the room was the same. It was a place of order. A tangible bit of progress that set Nor at ease.
“They have been working around the clock, Majesty,” Darai murmured as he led her down the aisle.
The scientists bowed their heads as she passed, Zahn behind her like a living shadow.
Another metal door stood at the back of the room. Zahn entered in the code to unlock the private lab of her lead scientist, Aclisia, and the door opened instantly.
The two-headed scientist alone understood Nor’s passion for destruction, and her equal desire to make it a true work of art. Together they would give the galaxy a show, and every eye would be watching.
Aclisia stood behind a lab table with her back to Nor. In front of her, rows and rows of glowing silver vials lined up like tiny soldiers awaiting their orders. Zahn didn’t follow as Darai and Nor stepped forward, remaining back to guard the door.
Nor approached the table slowly, appraising the view. Half of her life had passed since the idea for Zenith had bloomed in her mind, and only now, after years of dreaming, was her weapon finally coming to life.
“Ahh, my queen,” Aclisia’s two voices said at once.
Nor looked up as her head scientist shuffled over.
To anyone else, Aclisia was a shocking sight. But Nor had spent years in her presence, watching the two-headed woman work. Two brains should have meant two separate people, but Aclisia’s heads worked together, as if they were one. The right head held her rational side and could converse for hours without skipping a beat. The left head was more off-kilter, but it was the part of Aclisia that Nor perhaps admired the most. It allowed her to dream, endlessly, until even the most irrational ideas became possible.
“Are you in the final stages of finishing the weapon yet?” Nor asked.
Aclisia’s two heads swung around to look at the lab table, both hands grappling for a single silver vial. The glass clinked as the scientist produced one, lifting it out of its case and holding it up to the light.
“Slowly, you dolt!” the right head screeched to the left.
The left head huffed in annoyance. “I’m merely trying to give our queen a glimpse of her new toy.”
“It’s a wonder I’ve been able to put up with you all these years,” the right head retorted.
“You haven’t a choice, my dear,” the left said back.
Both heads glared at each other, the right with short reddish brown hair sticking out like flames, the left with pale blond curls coiled tight against her skull.
Nor cleared her throat. “My patience is running low.”
Aclisia nodded her heads, then held out the vial. “Steady now, my queen,” the right head said.
Nor cradled the vial in her hands like a newly polished gem. It sparkled in the dim light of the lab, and it was warm to the touch, rather than cool, like she’d assumed it would be.
“Each vial holds thousands of doses,” the right head told Nor.
“Now we just need someone to play with,” the left head added.
“A test subject,” the right corrected.
Aclisia looked expectantly at Nor.
“That has been taken care of,” Nor said. She raised her gloved hand to signal Zahn’s attention. “Order the guards to bring forth the subject.”
Behind her, Zahn pressed a button on his wrist com, then whispered a command into it. Less than a minute later, a knock sounded at the door, and he strode forward to open it.
In the doorway stood a ragged-looking woman, struggling against her bonds as two guards hauled her inside.
“Queen Nor! Please, grant me your mercy.” The warden of Lunamere fell to her knees before Nor, her bound wrists held out before her as if in prayer.
Nor peered down her nose at the traitor. “You had one of the Unified System’s most wanted fugitives in my prison. And instead of keeping her there, where she could have been persuaded to join the right side of the galaxy...you lost her. Not only that, but an entire squadron of guards is dead, the prisoner from Arcardius is missing and my best Revivalist is mysteriously absent from her post. And you dare ask me for mercy?”
The warden sobbed at Nor’s feet. “Please.”
“Aclisia,” Nor said, not taking her eyes from the pathetic woman before her. The scientist hurried to stand by Nor’s side. “Here is your first living trial. And for the sake of this traitor here, let us all hope that it works.”
The warden screamed as the guards hauled her to her feet. The sound intensified as they strapped her to a chair in the corner of the room.
The screams turned to furious moans as they gagged her. Then a vial of silver liquid was produced, almost glowing beneath the overhead lamps. Aclisia looked to Nor with four bright, hungry eyes.
“Would you like to do the honors, Majesty?”
Nor looked upon the scene with a sudden warmth in her heart, as she listened to the warden’s unrelenting moans.
“I came for a show,” Nor said. “Give me one to remember.”
“With pleasure,” Aclisia’s two heads said at once.
Darai and Zahn appeared at Nor’s sides, flanking her like soldiers.
As Aclisia unstoppered the vial, Zahn took Nor’s hand in his.
They held on to each other, their heartbeats pulsing in time as they watched Nor’s greatest dream come to fruition.
Chapter Thirty
KLAREN
Year Twenty-Four
* * *
THE GIRL WAS born to die.
She’d always known it; had been preparing for it since the day she was created.
Since her Yielding, and throughout all the years spent working to get to where she was, the girl had remembered the dream. For how could she ever forget? In her mind, she saw it now.
A burning black-and-red palace.
A crumbling planet, starved for life, nearly ready to explode in the midst of a battle. A king, trying desperately to save his people.
A starship heading across the skies, delivering one chance at a change of fate.
“Klaren? It’s time.”
She opened her eyes. The king of Xen Ptera knelt before her, his eyes reddened and full of tears. His forehead creased with worry. He’d aged so much since the war began. But he was still handsome, still the man who had given her and Nor a wonderful life.
“Time?” she asked.
He nodded and held a hand out to her. “The threat to the palace was true. The soldiers are closing in, and half of my troops are off-planet.” He inhaled a trembling, defeated breath. “I fear that they will win, Klaren. The Unified Systems will destroy us soon.”