“There’s still hope,” she whispered.
He shook his head. “No, my heart. Hope is as dead as our planet. I’m going to continue this war, but...time is fleeting. We must hide, now, before they breach the palace gates.”
She let her husband sweep the blankets back and help her from their bed.
The queen had fallen ill over the past several months, her body worn from breathing the tainted, war-torn air on the planet. Even with the iron shutters closed, she could still make out the hint of greenish light slipping through the edges of the window. Could still feel the rattle in her lungs with each breath she took.
Now she could hear the whine of ships outside. The shouts of soldiers, as yet another battle waged. How many more would there be? She could hear the screech of ammunition seeking out living targets. She could nearly taste the hot, metallic tang of all the blood that had been spilled already, all the lives lost in the endless fighting. Women. Men. Children. No one on Xen Ptera was safe.
So many years the planet had held on to life.
And today the queen had a choice.
She already knew, as she’d dreamed years ago, which one she would make.
Her body was racked with trembles as she lifted her hands to her husband’s face. She wasn’t supposed to feel this way for him, for the life they had made together. For the daughter they shared.
Just thinking of Nor, so young, so unprepared for what was to come...
Tears slipped down the queen’s cheeks.
She wished she could go back. She wished she could change that passionate night they had shared, the careless days after and the tonic she’d forgotten to take...
“Go to the bunker,” she whispered. She looked into his eyes, leveled her voice to a calm state of solid steel. “Take Nor with you. Go now.”
He parted his lips to speak, but she kissed him with all the fierceness in her heart, all the fire of the battle raging beyond. Behind her, Darai slipped from the shadows, his ruined face grim as he watched the queen draw herself away from her king.
“I will care for them as I have cared for you,” Darai said, placing a hand on the queen’s elbow to steady her. “Remember the mission, Klaren.”
Together, they watched the king leave the room without looking back.
She kept her eyes on him as she spoke.
“I fear I am not strong enough. That all these years have made me weak. That...love...has made me weak.”
“We do not have room for love, my queen. Just as we do not have room for you to remain here, wasting away where there is no hope.” Darai squeezed her elbow and forced her to pull her gaze from the retreating king. “You will go and create it for us. You will carry on toward our goal. You are the strongest Yielded I have ever known.”
“And my child?” the queen asked. “What of her?”
“Where you go, she cannot follow.”
The queen’s heart twisted in her chest.
Darai smiled sadly at her, even though she knew it pained him because of his scars. “The light will guide her. Just as it continues to guide you.”
The queen placed a kiss on his cheek, committing his face to memory. Somewhere outside the palace, screams rang out. There was an explosion. A rattling that shook the walls.
The soldiers were here.
Klaren gripped Darai’s hands in hers.
“You will train her in the truth. You will see to it that she is strong.”
His eyes were like fire. “I swear it upon the Light. I swear it upon the Conduit.”
The queen smiled, thinking of how fiercely her daughter always held on to things. How stubborn she was. How devilishly determined. “She will be a great queen, Darai. Teach her, just as I would have taught her, that she should always choose her duty over her heart.”
Even now she could feel her own shattering in her chest.
“Go. Into the next world, my Yielded,” Darai said, placing a finger beneath her chin. Lifting her gaze to his. “Do not look back.”
The queen swept from the room.
She did not pause, even as smoke began to curl through the hallways. Even as footsteps pounded up the spiral stairs and the dark forms of her soldiers swam into view, fighting back the intruders who dared enter her crumbling palace.
No bullets touched her skin as she walked gracefully to the doors.
No one stopped her as she unlocked them and slipped out into the battle raging beyond.
Enemy soldiers swarmed her at once.
Outside the palace walls sat a starship coated in deepest blue, the symbol of an exploding star on its side. The ramp was already open as a figure marched down it, guards flanking his sides.
He marched slowly to greet her, that devil from her dreams with eyes like the sky.
“What’s this?” he asked. “A Xen Pterran rat, caught wandering outside her cage?”
“General Cortas,” the queen said. She smiled at him, a practiced thing that had yet to fail her, and was pleased to feel the familiar, warm spark ignite in her chest when their eyes met. When, through his war-honed hatred, he noticed her beauty and hungered for more.
“Take the fool queen aboard,” General Cyprian Cortas commanded. “As my personal prisoner.”
She did not fight the soldiers as they escorted her onto the ship, as her feet crunched across Xen Pterran soil one last time. She did not look back at the palace, not even once.
Her husband was wrong.
Hope was not dead.
Hope, in the form of the queen’s sacrifice, had only just flickered to life.
Chapter Thirty-One
* * *
ANDROMA
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”
Andi whirled around.
Valen stood at the bottom of the staircase with his arms crossed over his chest, his hair rumpled as if he’d just woken from a long sleep. Or finally resurfaced from hours of painting abstract images on the canvases littered about his room.
He’d never spoken to Andi much before she was a Spectre. And now, even with her living in his home, their rooms a short walk away from each other’s, he’d spoken to her even less. But he always seemed to be listening when she and Kalee were giggling about the latest drama to spill across the streets of Arcardius. During meals, when Andi and the other Spectres stood guard, she’d watch him curiously. Valen usually sat in the farthest seat from his father, hunched forward as if he were battling some deep, silent pain. Sometimes she’d catch him staring at her with his strange, unblinking hazel eyes, his paint-stained fingers gripping his golden fork like a weapon he didn’t want to use.
And several times over the years, Andi had caught Valen following her and Kalee through the twisting halls of the estate, quickly ducking into open doorways with heat flaming on his cheeks when she’d whirled around to catch him, worried it was an intruder come to harm Kalee.