He flinched away, gasping again as his mutilated body throbbed with pain.
“Nor,” he breathed. He slammed his eyes shut, and there she was, standing over him, hands outstretched.
“She’s not here, Valen,” the queen said.
But he wasn’t listening anymore.
“Open your eyes, child,” she said. “Open your eyes and see that you are safe.”
He couldn’t. He wouldn’t open them, because he knew that when he did, he’d be back in his cell again.
“I am Valen,” he whispered to himself.
He could still feel the soft bed beneath him, but in his mind, he knew it wasn’t real.
“I am Valen. I am Valen. I am...”
The door swung open with a shuddering boom. Then there were hands on his wrists, voices saying his name, telling him to remain calm, that he was safe, that he was no longer in Lunamere.
“Not now,” he said. “Not now, not now...” He thrashed against his captors. He couldn’t get free.
He would never be free.
“Put him back under,” Alara’s voice said. “We’re going too fast.”
Valen felt a sharp pinch as something sunk beneath his skin. Warmth enveloped him, and with it came a lurching wave of dizziness, as if he were standing on a crashing starship.
He slumped back against the pillows, and as he did, his eyelids fluttered open.
The last thing he saw was Androma Racella leaning forward from the shadows across the room, half of her face aglow as sunlight spilled across her skin like paint.
Chapter Forty-Eight
* * *
LIRA
LIRA HAD FORGOTTEN how strange it was to be planetside.
She hated the feeling of extra weight on her shoulders. Like there was baggage she couldn’t shake, clinging to her bones.
But she’d made it here alone. She’d lost Lon far back in the tunnels, remembering an old hiding place she’d used as a child. She’d wedged herself between the tunnel wall and the old, hand-carved bust of the original ruler of Adhira, King Rodemere Ankara, the man who’d so strongly influenced the Adhiran creed of living harmoniously with others.
Lira stood up now and made her way through the final tunnel that led to the queen’s private quarters, doing her best to catch her breath and smooth out the wrinkled folds of her dress as she walked.
The rock floor was cool on her bare toes, the flickering blue torches lighting her way like old, familiar friends waving hello. But it didn’t feel like a homecoming anymore.
It felt like a death march.
Lira passed others from her past as she walked: a horned woman who was the Rhymore seamstress. A retired Guardian who’d moved from Tenebris to become one of Lira’s tutors. Some looked surprised that she had returned. Others—not fully given over to the idea of harmony—stared or glared or asked why she’d come back after all these years.
At long last, Queen Alara’s private quarters came into view. The massive oak doors, at least two stories tall and handmade by crafters from Aramaeia, stood closed at the end of the tunnelway.
Two Sentinels, both with the same golden emblems that Lon bore on his chest, stood waiting, stone staffs clutched in their fists.
The doors swung open as Lira approached, creaking and groaning beneath their own weight.
And there the queen was, waiting inside, her attention focused on a glowing screen in her lap.
Alara was beautiful in every sense of the word, inside and out. She had a lithe frame, perfectly proportioned, and no scales on her skin. Her posture was elegant, one she always seemed to hold without effort.
Lira had always admired Alara’s beauty, but it paled in comparison to the woman’s intelligence.
She was seated on a moss-covered bench beside a small window carved out of the mountainside. Wind trickled in through diamond-shaped holes, letting in just enough light to make it seem as if Alara were glowing.
The queen who feared none, but loved all.
“You asked to see me?”
Lira’s voice shook a little as she entered the large space, stepping past the old woven tapestries hanging on the walls and the twisting vines that curled all around, covering even the domed rock ceiling far overhead.
“Lirana,” the queen said without looking up. “Please, do come in.” She continued scrolling through the holoscreen on her lap, tapping away in a cadence that reminded Lira of a small, pecking bird.
Lira swallowed, then steeled herself.
She was the pilot of the Marauder, and despite the fact that her ship went down unexpectedly—not her fault—and despite the fact that she’d damned an entire field of crops to ashen waste—partially her fault—and despite the fact that she absolutely did not want to be here...she would accept the consequences.
She swept farther into the room with her shoulders rolled back, stopping just before the queen of Adhira.
She knew how this would go. So before Alara could speak, Lira opened her mouth to explain.
But the queen held up a palm.
Silence hung between them.
Frustration wiggled at Lira’s senses, like a worm trying to sneak its way into her skull. She gritted her teeth. Clenched her fists.
Then, finally, Alara looked up to meet her eyes. “I’ve just had a rather unfortunate conversation with Valen Cortas, the poor, tortured soul, so spare me whatever dramatic greeting you must have prepared.”
Lira’s mouth dropped open as Alara stood. “Valen is awake?”
The queen nodded. “It’s always interesting when you’re around. Welcome back, my young niece. It’s been a very, very long time.”
Chapter Forty-Nine
* * *
LIRA
LIRA’S KNEES SHOOK.
How, after all the things she’d seen in this galaxy, after all the things she had done and the enemies she had faced, did her loving, beautiful, stars-forsaken aunt manage to make her feel fear?
“You left,” Alara said, “without a word to me. You tricked my Sentinels. You boarded a ship with an outsider crew full of men and women I did not know, from a rogue planet I have not visited, and decided to take up a life where the only updates I had on you were the wanted posters appearing in my bi-moonly feeds.”
Somehow, though Alara was still seated, her voice soft and calm and even, Lira felt as if she were being screamed at while she cowered against a wall.
“It wounded my heart, Lirana,” her aunt continued, all the while keeping her emerald eyes on Lira. “But what wounded me more was to watch your brother walking through the halls here as if he were searching for a ghost. After all the two of you had suffered through together, you chose to leave him here alone.”
That was it, then.
Each word was worse than a stab to Lira’s gut.
But she’d known this was coming. She prepared herself for this speech, year after year. It was why she had not returned home since leaving to seek out a life piloting starships. It was why Andi had agreed not to take any jobs on Adhira.
Because she understood the pain of facing the past.