So why didn’t it feel good?
“When they told me exactly what you had done to Kalee—not only allowing your charge to die on your watch, but the fact that you’d caused it? A part of me—the Guardian part—wanted to turn you in so you could face the traitor’s punishment you deserved.” He looked down at his hands. “But the other part...my heart, Androma, told me that you were only a girl when it happened. A soldier, yes. But so young, with so much responsibility. It was a mistake. No matter how strong the person, everyone makes mistakes.
“I tried to warn you, so you would at least have a head start. When I left that morning, Andi... Don’t you remember my words?”
She racked her brain, searching.
And there it was.
Dex, leaning against the door frame. He’d been ill all morning, puking up his guts in the sick bay.
He got dressed slowly and came to sit beside her on the cot, watching her with sadness in his eyes.
“You know you always have to be on the lookout when I’m gone,” he said. “You know you’re never truly safe in this galaxy.”
“The Marauder is my home, Dex,” Andi said. “I’m perfectly safe when I’m here.”
He sighed. “I’d feel better if you kept a weapon on you at all times.” He glanced beneath the cot. “Your stash of knives is freshly sharpened.”
She’d laughed then and told him he was worrying for no reason. Told him she’d be fine until he came back. That she knew how to take care of herself.
She’d thought he was just talking nonsense. That he was exhausted and worried for her, because the job he was embarking on would be a longer one than usual.
“I pleaded with them,” Dex said now. “I begged them to understand that you had made a mistake. You could never return to your home and wasn’t that enough of a punishment? But they wouldn’t listen. They just wanted you, Androma. They wanted General Cortas to have justice. They offered me money and a position as a leading Guardian for Arcardius. They also said they would let my father go. If you had been there, Andi...” He looked down at his boots. “If you had seen the fear on my father’s face in the video they showed me of him, captive and bound in chains...if it were one of your Marauders, and if it were my life or theirs on the line...you would know why I did it.”
He looked up at her now, his eyes pleading, the emotion so raw on his handsome face.
“I’m so sorry, Androma,” Dex whispered. “I will never forgive myself for what I did to you.”
His shoulders slumped.
In her mind, she saw that final, fleeting moment on the fire moon. The knife in his chest, his shirt blossoming green with his blood.
She felt the pain of her heart breaking in her chest. The feeling that she could hardly breathe.
“Andi,” Dex whispered. “Please. Look at me. Tell me we can move past this. We both made mistakes. We both made our choices, and we’ve had to live with them.”
She turned away from him, unable to look at his face.
“We can’t ever go back to how it was before,” Dex said. “But...if you’re willing...we could make something new.”
She didn’t look at him as she said, “Just go, Dex.” Her voice cracked on his name.
He slipped past her silently and left her room without another word.
She settled down on the floor again.
There, alone in her quarters, she picked up her swords and added more tallies, the blades turning slick with the flow of her tears.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
* * *
KLAREN
Year Twenty-Five
“LET ME GO,” the queen whispered. “Cyprian...please.”
In the darkness of her private chambers, lit only by the moonlight, all she could see was the general’s ghostly outline as he stood before her, pressing her up against the wall. His ruffled shirt was half undone. His blue eyes looked like flames trying desperately not to flicker out.
His hands, curled into fists, were tangled in her hair.
Wrapped around her throat, as he pressed her harder against the wall.
“I will kill you,” he growled. “You have...done something...to me...”
His grip grew tighter. She could hardly breathe. Her vision grew dim. For a moment, panic called her name.
“Let me go.” She choked out the words, fighting for air.
Even in her hatred, she made herself reach out and touch him. With trembling hands, she ran her fingers down his back. Felt the shudder race up and down his spine. She dug her fingertips in, pressing so hard she drew blood.
“Let me go.”
“Damn it, Klaren!” His entire body shook as he finally released her. “Damn you!”
He stumbled backward.
She slipped down the wall, gasping for air. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Cyprian was strong. Stronger than she’d ever anticipated. She hated this fight. Hated the lack of control. The queen looked up, meeting his gaze as he stood across from her, hunched over.
“What are you doing to me?” he asked, his hands outspread before him, as if he were afraid of them. Afraid of himself. “Every night, I find myself here. You plague my dreams. You come to me in visions. Your name forces itself to my lips when I wake.” He ran a hand across his creased face. “When I am with my wife...I think of you.”
Two years she’d waited for this. A queen away from her planet, a prisoner deep in the belly of the Cortas lair.
Two years she’d endured questions from his men, allowed herself to be removed from her quarters and forced to sit in front of a camera. To record videos that were sent across the galaxy to her husband.
“Tell him to surrender, Klaren,” Cyprian had said. “Tell him to surrender, and you can go free.”
“Do not surrender,” she’d responded into the camera, using her eyes and her voice as she’d been taught. Knowing her husband would obey her demands. “Do not give in. You can still win this war, my love.”
The Unified Systems continued to blast Xen Ptera with bombs, spreading more death.
And so the war had carried on.
“Tell me!” Cyprian screamed now, in her room. He ran his hands through his thinning hair. The war had changed him, turned him into something fractured. “Tell me what you’ve done to me!”
The obsession had spread. She could sense it in him, like a disease that festered.
Even now, as he sank to his knees before her, tears welling in his eyes...
He couldn’t look away.
She may have been his prisoner, but he was her toy. A wad of putty to mold and shape to her own liking.
It was time.
Time to make her next move.
All her life, she’d waited for this moment. And so it was with a smile that Klaren looked up, stared into his eyes, and whispered, “It is because you love me.”
He froze.
He glared at her, still three steps away, as he got to his feet. “What did you just say to me?”
The queen swallowed and gathered strength from deep within. She was born to do this. Born to sacrifice herself. Her heart, to the king of Xen Ptera. Her daughter, unplanned, had been sacrificed, too.