For Dee Hall, who is strong and forthright and fiercely loyal. She made this book possible.

Contents

Map

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

43

44

45

Acknowledgments

About the Author

The Corridor excerpt

Copyright

Chapter 1

Aris Haan slid into wakefulness a few seconds before the lights snapped on. With a sigh, she snuggled back into Milek Vadim’s warm body and admired how the sky-blue stone in her Promise ring glimmered in the light. She tilted her hand back and forth to make the color dance.

With a sleepy groan, Milek nuzzled the back of her neck. “Morning.”

“Good morning.” Aris smiled to herself, tingles racing along her skin. She turned over to face him, and he curled an arm over her, drawing her so close that his sleepy blue eyes and pale scar blurred, until all she could see clearly was the inviting softness of his mouth.

She gave him a whisper of a kiss. “I like waking up like this.”

“So do I.” His lips trailed along her jaw, his early morning stubble tickling her skin.

Her breath caught. This moment still felt so incredibly, unbelievably new. Just a few weeks ago, when Aris’s wingjet had been shot down over Safara, she didn’t think she’d ever see Milek again.

And now they were Promised.

Commander Nyx, their superior officer, had taken the news with a single stony glance, a more effective warning to behave themselves than any lecture. She allowed them to share a room at Spiro, their stationpoint, a move no one else had questioned, though Aris could see the jealousy in their fellow soldiers’ narrowed eyes and sidelong glances. They missed their loved ones back home and resented that Aris and Milek got to be together. And Aris couldn’t fault them for that. She still fought her own niggling worry, that her happiness should be forbidden, an unwarranted luxury in a time of war.

“Do you want to use the washroom first?” Milek’s voice still had a sleepy rasp to it, and his cheek bore a crease from the pillow.

Aris kissed his stubbly chin and slid out from under their nest of blankets. In the shower, she closed her eyes, letting the hot water pummel her skin. Everything she and Milek knew about each other was tied to the war, to death and destruction. If Aris hadn’t joined Military disguised as a man, she would have never even met Milek, her then superior officer. They’d only known each other for a year and a few months. How could anyone be prepared for a lifetime together after such a short time?

Their Promise sprang from hope, not conviction.

From the hope that their love wouldn’t forever be defined by battle plans and political maneuvering. The hope that someday they’d have a chance to be together—to know each other—without death waiting just outside the door.

She tried to imagine what their lives could be without the war. At this time of day, maybe she’d still be asleep. Or deciding what to wear to work. Or attempting to cook them breakfast. Her mother, a chef, had tried everything, but Aris’s peshka came out soggy, her tea cakes leaden, and her olive paste gritty.

As she punched the panel to turn off the shower, a cold draft sent a shiver down her spine. She hurriedly wrapped her towel around herself and flung the door open into the bedroom.

“Can you cook?” she asked Milek. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, shirtless, pulling on his boots. He glanced up, one brow raised, but she didn’t give him time to answer. “Because I can’t. The last time I tried to make grouse stew I practically poisoned my entire family. When the war is over, we’re going to have to feed ourselves, and if you can’t cook . . . honestly, we might starve.”

While she was speaking, Milek stood up and, with a little smile, put his hands on her shoulders. “I promise you, we won’t starve.”

She shook her head, wild-eyed. “You can’t cook! This is a disaster. How will we—”

His gentle laugh cut through the irrational panic. “We’ll figure it out.” He cradled her face in his hands. “We can learn together. It’ll be fun. We’ll bond over burnt piggin. You’ll laugh when I nearly set our kitchen on fire.”

“You think that setting the kitchen on fire sounds like fun?” Aris stepped a little closer, bringing her towel-clad body in contact with his bare chest.

“Well . . .” He looked down at her, his eyes darkening. “This is fun.”

Her hands fitted themselves to the ridged muscles of his back, and as she leaned up to kiss him, her towel slipped, puddling at their feet. “Whoops,” she whispered.

Milek’s arms slid around her, and he smiled against her mouth. “That was an accident, right?”

“Totally. Completely out of my control.”

Before things could go much further, Milek drew back with a puppy-dog frown. “My briefing with the commander starts in ten minutes.”

“And if I’m any later to breakfast, Dysis is going to give me grief.” Aris sighed. She brushed her fingertips along his arms, wishing they had all morning to indulge in the fantasies flitting through her mind. “Someday, when this war is over, we’re going to sleep in. Spend all day in bed. Not talk to anyone or do anything for a week.”

“Sounds good to me.” With one last kiss, Milek headed for the bathroom to shave.

Aris threw on her uniform, already bracing herself for Dysis’s knowing smirk. Her fingers trembled a bit as she slid off her Promise ring and placed it on the table beside the bed. She only wore it at night while she slept, too afraid of what might happen to it during a rescue mission.

The war will end, she told herself fiercely, her index finger resting for an instant on the blue stone. You will have this future. They were the same words she’d told herself every morning for the last week.

***

“Having a good morning?” Dysis asked with a single brow raised, when Aris finally appeared in the cafeteria a few minutes later.

Dysis’s short dark hair stood on end above her smooth olive skin, full lips, and deep brown eyes. The black key Tech brand on her temple drew attention to her sardonic expression. Like Aris, originally Dysis had volunteered for Military using a diatous veil to appear male.

Aris lightly smacked the back of Dysis’s head and slid into the seat next to her. Her friends were deep in discussion about their splots game the night before.

“You didn’t have a chance, sorry.” Specialist Otto paused to shovel a huge scoop of porridge into his mouth. He was a narrow-shouldered man with an incongruous potbelly.

Specialist Tia Pallas rolled her sky-blue eyes. “We would have if you hadn’t cheated. I swear you never drew the purple lady.”

Pallas was a flyer, too, and the only other woman on stationpoint aside from Aris, Dysis, and Commander Nyx. She was the smallest of them, slight and almost fragile looking, but she held her own in combat training. Beside Pallas, her gunner, Specialist Baksen, just shook his head.

“We beat you fairly,” Dysis said. “Otto’s pure as a Ruslanan blizzard.” But even she couldn’t keep a straight face.

Aris let their laughter wash over her. There’d been little humor around Spiro in the past few months, but now Elom, Safara’s biggest war criminal, was in Atalantan custody. Ward Amadi Balias’s assertion that he had invaded Atalanta only to provide clean water for Safara was starting to splinter under the increasing evidence that his move was informed by plain, old-fashioned greed. He’d left his own people to rot while he crusaded for more land and more power, and he’d even conscripted child soldiers. To date, the Wards of Castalia and Halona had refused to intervene, but most Atalantans believed they’d soon change their policies and offer support. The tide was finally shifting in Atalanta’s favor.

But Aris knew something most of the world didn’t: Ward Balias was developing a bomb that could destroy them all. The weapon, called the flaming scorpion, was designed to destroy humans using DNA markers, leaving all other living things, as well as buildings and infrastructure, intact. With it, Ward Balias could make entire populations disappear, then roll in and take over pristine cities and untouched agriculture.

It was a weapon to conquer, to erase any who stood in his way. With it, Balias could destroy the world.

Aris had seen evidence of the weapon’s testing herself when she’d crashed in Safara. Since her rescue, Atalantan spies had wrung precious little intel about the bomb from their sources, beyond what it did and when it would be operational, which, thankfully, was still months away. Enough time, she hoped, to figure out how to stop Balias from ever using it.

Aris stood and stretched her arms above her head, releasing the tension in her back. “I need to check my comms before morning formation. Anyone else?”

“Sure,” Dysis said. Pallas followed, too.

Spiro’s rec room was nearly empty, with most of the soldiers still at breakfast. Nyal, a flyer who started the same time Aris, Pallas, and Dysis had, napped on one of the worn couches in the corner, and only two seats were taken at the long table equipped with digitablet ports. The wall of monitors that usually played news vids was powered off this early in the morning. Aris could have hooked up her digitablet in the Officer’s Lounge, but she preferred spending the extra few minutes with her friends.

“Hoping to hear from Jax?” Aris asked Dysis. Her brother Jax was a spy for the Atalantan military; he’d been injured in his escape from a Safaran prison camp but had returned to active duty recently. Dysis worried about him a lot.

With a shrug, Dysis said, “I think he’s in Panthea being important right now. Probably won’t have time.”

Aris opened her comms and found a new message from Phae, her friend from home.

Aris, I can’t believe I had to hear you were Promised from your parents! You couldn’t have sent a comm? In any case, congratulations! Rakk and I are so happy for you, and Echo is beside herself. She wants me to ask you for all the details. I have to admit it’s still hard to believe you and Calix aren’t together anymore. Then again, that’s not the only change in your life these days, is it?

Lux is adjusting slowly to our newcomers. Some people aren’t happy to have Safarans in our midst, but it’s difficult to stay suspicious of a bunch of kids. I’ve spoken to Samira and Alistar a few times. Alistar is very grateful to you for helping them get the children to safety. He asked me to pass along his good wishes. Samira just glares a lot. Is that normal?

We miss you here. Stay safe, my friend. ~Phae

Aris felt a pang of guilt at the widening gulf the war had created between her and her old friends, but she smiled at the ending of the comm. She could easily picture Samira’s hostility. It seemed to be the woman’s only emotion, as far as Aris could tell. And as for Alistar feeling grateful, well, he wasn’t the only one. When Aris had been shot down over Safara, she’d assumed everyone was an enemy. But Alistar and Samira had taken her in, treated her wounds, and kept her hidden when soldiers had come looking for her.

In return, she’d helped them get nearly thirty former child soldiers and orphans to safety in Atalanta. Child soldiers like Kori, whose skinny, scarred arms and heavy limp had affected Aris in ways she couldn’t have predicted. She’d made him a promise that she’d find his mother and baby sister . . . that she’d figure out how to reunite him with his family. The closest she’d come was contacting Jax and asking him for help. As of yet, she’d heard nothing.

She opened a fresh comm, but before she had time to begin the message, a deep voice rattled over the intercom.

“Code 202. Code 202. Lieutenant Haan, assemble your team and report to the landing pad.”

With a sigh, she shut down her digitablet. “So much for a quiet morning. Let’s go.”

Pallas rose, but when Dysis started to stand up, Aris pushed her back into her chair. “Don’t even think about it,” she admonished. “You’re not cleared for missions yet, and you’re due at the infirmary for a med-visit this morning. That shoulder won’t heal if you don’t take it easy.”

Dysis had taken a solagun bolt to the arm during Aris’s rescue two weeks ago, but she grumbled with all the righteous indignation of an athlete sidelined by a splinter. Truthfully, the wound was fairly minor. The dark shadows under Dysis’s eyes and her frantic desire to get back to the battleground worried Aris more. Lieutenant Daakon, the man Dysis loved, had been killed during the rescue. Theirs had been a complex relationship; once Daakon discovered Dysis was actually a woman, he realized he couldn’t return her feelings. Dysis hadn’t been able to tamp down her own desire so easily, but she didn’t want to talk about his death and refused to see the stationpoint counselor. She was trying to outrun her grief, and Aris wasn’t sure she could. At least her friend’s wound gave her a short reprieve, even if it was a forced one.

“Lieutenant?” Nyal sat up on the couch, rubbing his eyes.

Aris waved him back down. “It’s just a 202. We’ll only need one recon and transport. Specialist Pallas has us covered.”

Normally Aris flew the tiny two-person recon wingjets, but their go-to transport flyer, Specialist Mann, was awaiting medical clearance. He’d sprained his ankle dancing with his wife at the ceremony in Ruslana, much to his embarrassment.

“We’ve got two soldiers down,” Milek announced, once Aris and Pallas arrived on the landing pad. Otto and Baksen were already there. “Should be a routine retrieval, but the location is of concern. The village is close to the Fex River.”

Aris’s heart sank. Safaran forces hadn’t been able to sustain a presence that deep into Atalanta yet, but that didn’t stop them from sending out small, lethal raiding parties. She hoped all nonmilitary had been evacuated from the area. The very worst missions were those in which they discovered murdered civilians.

As she coaxed her wingjet into the air, Aris tried to squelch her misgivings. It was just a routine rescue. No more, no less.

Chapter 2

High in the hills on the mountainside of Panthea, on an expansive balcony that overlooked both the forest and the city, Galena Vadim, Ward of Ruslana, sipped a cup of milky tea. Pyralis Nekos, Ward of Atalanta, relaxed in a chair beside her, holding his own cup perched on his knee.

“This is . . . peaceful,” she said. The word felt alien on her tongue.

“It was a good idea for you to come here.” Pyralis’s brown hair was streaked with gray, but he was still a handsome man. The lines that framed his mouth gave it life, and the stress of war had kept his body thin. His pale yellow tunic reminded her of the coat she’d worn when they first met, all those years ago. He’d said it made her look like a bolt of sunlight.

“I came for business reasons,” she reminded him. Or maybe herself. Ever since the ceremony in Ruslana to celebrate Elom’s capture, when he’d kissed her for the first time in twenty-five years, it had been harder for her to separate their professional relationship as allied leaders from their personal one. Their shared history, their hopeful but uncertain future, filled so much of the space between them. “Gods know there’s enough to discuss: the fact that Castalia and Halona are still refusing to provide aid, the rumors that Balias wants to ‘liberate’ Elom. . . . It’s never-ending, isn’t it? Our meetings start in less than an hour, and then all day—”

“The world won’t fall to ruin if we take a moment to breathe.” Pyralis lifted a plate toward her.

With a sigh, she took a flaky, almond pastry. As she ate it, she let the sight of tall, full-leafed trees and the distant glint of the city calm her. Soft breezes caressed her scarred face. She understood why Pyralis had chosen a home here, above the rush of Panthea. It was almost possible to pretend that this serenity extended outward, unbroken.

Almost.

“About Elom—” she began.

“He has given us no new intel,” Pyralis cut in, a hint of impatience creeping into his voice. “Speaking of him will get us nowhere.”

Elom had kidnapped Galena, tortured her, disfigured her, and orchestrated her husband’s murder. He was locked in Panthea’s most impenetrable prison, and yet they’d still learned nothing from him.

Galena didn’t push the line of conversation. “What do you miss most about life before the war?”

Pyralis shifted in his chair as he considered his answer. “It’s not so much what I miss as what I wish for. Days with no casualty reports. The lifting of the civilian-flight ban. A time when families are able to return to their homes. I dream of rebuilding. The past . . .” He broke off. “It’s not worth looking back.”

“We’ll get there,” she said. “Now that we know about the bomb, we’ll find a way to stop Balias.”

Pyralis laughed a little. “It’s impossible to talk of anything but the war. Even when we try.”

Galena reached for his hand, entwining their fingers. For one brief second, she closed her eyes and gave herself this small happiness: the soothing sigh of the breeze, the pressure of his hand, the absence of news reports and commanders’ questions. It’d never be more than a second, not while they lived under the shadow of war, but she’d steal the time she could.

As if on cue, “Excuse me, Wards.”

Galena opened her eyes.

Kellan, Pyralis’s assistant, stood in the doorway, his bright red hair catching the sunlight. “I’m sorry to bother you, but Lieutenant Latza and Alistar are here.”

“Thank you, Kellan,” Pyralis said. He squeezed Galena’s hand briefly before releasing it and getting to his feet. “Please show the Lieutenant to my office. I’d like to speak with him alone first.”

“They’re early,” Galena observed, as she followed Pyralis through the high-ceilinged living room. The room still bore his wife Bett’s touch. Vibrant artwork hung on the walls, and a thick white-and-blue carpet dampened their footsteps. The furniture here was delicate, twisted metal with cobalt velvet cushions, whereas Pyralis’s office was full of heavy leather chairs and a giant desk.

When they reached Pyralis’s sanctuary, Lieutenant Jax Latza was waiting for them. Galena took a position near the wall of windows. The bright morning light streamed across the floor, broken only by the black slant of her shadow. Jax refused the chair Pyralis offered him, pacing instead. His dark brows were drawn together, his face tight, and he favored his left leg slightly, a lingering injury from his time in a Safaran prison.

“Lieutenant, your report, please.” Pyralis drew a table on wheels into the center of the room, engaging its tech to bring up a three-dimensional war map of Atalanta.

Jax studied the map. “As you know, Ward Balias has several men posing as him around Safara, using the diatous-veil tech to take on his appearance. The men he chose to wear the veils are quite convincing and he’s effectively created confusion about his actual location. While we’ve tracked down and taken out a few of his doubles, we haven’t discovered the whereabouts of the real ward. We’ll continue pursuing all leads in that regard.

“As for the bomb, there’s nothing new to report. We know the weapon is still in the testing phase, and that it’s no longer being stored in the facility near where Lieutenant Haan went down. But we don’t know where it was taken. Everything points to the weapon not being operational yet, but . . .” He trailed off.

“But?” Galena asked, brow furrowing.

Jax glanced at her, worry seeping into his features. “Well, it’s not something we want to take a chance with, right?”

She tried to keep her own expression impassive. “Indeed.”

“We have another problem,” Jax added.

“And that is?” Galena didn’t like the look on his face.

He zoomed in on the map to show a large, familiar building. “You’ve heard the chatter—Ward Balias is seeking access to Elom. Well, my sources’ latest reports show he’s in the final stages of planning an attack on the prison.”

Pyralis put both hands on the edge of the table, his gaze turning inward. Galena wondered if he was thinking about Bett, who was locked up in the same prison for treason. She’d sold the diatous-veil technology to Safara and been integral in the plot to kidnap and replace Galena, though she maintained she did it for the good of Atalanta.

“The prison is on the outskirts of Panthea, farther than any Safaran soldiers have breached,” Pyralis said. “We’ll increase security. It’s already one of the most impenetrable buildings in the dominion, but I don’t want to risk any collateral damage to the area.”

“We haven’t been able to get Elom to talk yet,” Galena told Jax. Just the thought of him escaping sent ice through her veins. “He must know about the flaming scorpion and where the real Balias is holed up. We need that intel.”

“Actually, I had an idea about that . . .” Jax said, a furrow appearing between his deep-set, dark-brown eyes. “May I call in Alistar?”

Pyralis nodded.

Alistar, along with his sister Samira, had been in charge in Pakan, the village near where Aris had been shot down. Now he and Samira were living in Lux, along with the children they’d rescued. It had been Aris’s idea to send the Safaran refugees there, to her hometown. Lux was quiet, far from the front lines, and largely untouched by the war, even now. Also, it was one of only a handful of villages without refugees already dragging on their resources.

Jax disappeared for a moment, then returned, followed by a tall, dark-skinned man. As Alistar sank in one of the large leather chairs, his pants rode up a little to reveal a sliver of a new-tech prosthetic leg.

Sunshine shone directly onto his face, and for a split second, Galena fought a wave of panic. The mahogany skin, the bald head, the muscled frame, the wide, crooked nose . . . he looked so much like . . .

Elom.

Her eyes widened. Suddenly, she knew exactly what Jax was about to propose.

Chapter 3

Dysis grumbled all the way down the long, white hallway to the infirmary, ignoring the handful of soldiers who passed, probably on their way to combat training with Lieutenant Cruz. Lucky them. She wished she could punch someone right now.

Her arm felt fine. A few stitches and some bruising . . . it was nothing. There was no reason why she couldn’t be in the air with her team. If Aris thought she couldn’t handle it because of what happened to Daakon . . .

Dysis shook the thought from her mind. Aris wouldn’t be that dense.

The stationpoint mender’s head snapped up when she stomped into the infirmary. He sat at a desk at one end of the small, windowless room. Behind him, a row of doorways led to examination rooms and two surgical suites.

“I’m supposed to have my arm checked,” she said shortly.

The man blinked a few times. “Of course, Specialist.”

Until her injury, Dysis had never been to the infirmary. When female soldiers were still disguised as men, Commander Nyx had told them there were structures in place if they were injured; there was a list of names—one mender at each of the larger mender points, like Mekia and Feln—that they were supposed to ask for. Spiro’s mender—an older, sallow-faced man—hadn’t been on the list. He still looked surprised and a little aghast every time he saw her.

As he led her to one of the examination rooms and gestured to her jacket, he wouldn’t meet her eyes, and his movements were jerky, awkward. She wanted to smack him. Instead, she removed her jacket and yanked down the collar of her shirt.

“So? Am I cleared for active duty yet?” She didn’t bother hiding her impatience.

The man bent forward to get a closer look, tapping at the skin around the stitches with tentative fingers. “Now, do you, um, feel any pain when I—”

A sudden, massive quake shook Dysis off the table. A second later came the deafening boom of an explosion. The room jumped again, sending them both to the floor. The ceiling groaned.

“Watch out!” Dysis yelled, as a jagged span of roofing cracked and fell. The mender didn’t have time to move. The sharp edge of the shard caught him in the stomach. His eyes widened, and his sallow skin went deathly pale.

She swallowed, helpless to save him, as rubble thundered down all around her.

As she turned and scrambled for the mangled door, a chunk of ceiling fell against her back, driving her to her knees. Panting, she fought free of the heavy panel. Sweat stung her eyes and blurred her vision. She managed to drag herself through the main infirmary into the hallway, which was thick with black smoke and the bone-vibrating scream of the sirens.

Shadowy figures staggered through the darkness. Another explosion shook the ground, and flames erupted at the far end of the hall. A high-pitched scream echoed the wail of the siren. Dysis stumbled away from the fire on trembling legs, pulling her solagun from its holster.

She wove through the stifling air, her lungs recoiling at every breath. A red, flickering glow flashed across some of the walls like blood, but other hallways were pitch black.

How much longer did she have before the entire building exploded around her?

She shouldered through a ragged gap in one wall, only to find herself in the burning remnants of the cafeteria. Bodies were strewn across the floor, some still on fire. She tripped over the charred corpse of Lieutenant Cruz, his heavy dark brows still recognizable. Gagging, Dysis pushed through the destruction to a gap in the outer wall. Just before she escaped, Specialist Mann emerged from the smoke.

He ran toward her, leaping over bodies and dodging the still-blazing heaps of broken tables.

“Come on!” she shouted, beckoning to him.

“Go!” He waved her on, but she waited to be sure he reached her.

Together they busted through the wall into open air, just as a fleet of black Safaran wingjets zipped through the sky above them.

Dysis ducked automatically, squinting against the bright sunlight, but the enemy forces were already moving on, unpursued as the wingjets in Spiro’s fleet burned. A few other survivors emerged from the wreckage of the building: Nyal and two men who’d refused to speak to her since she’d rejoined the unit as a woman.

“You okay?” she asked Mann, still panting. Her lungs ached with every breath.

He glanced back at the rubble, eyes wild. He was a transport flyer, a thick-necked, broad-shouldered behemoth who kept to himself and commed his wife with dogged consistency. “We should get farther away. The rest of the building could go.”

A few yards away, Nyal shouted. Commander Nyx busted through a shattered door, soot covered and sagging under the weight of an unconscious soldier. Dysis ignored Mann’s suggestion to retreat. Instead, she winced against the pain in her back and lumbered over to Nyx, taking some of the unconscious soldier’s weight onto her own good arm.

A few minutes later, there was another shout. Dysis glanced up, saw the others looking toward the sky. Sunlight flashed against the bellies of two silver wingjets. She eyed Commander Nyx, both of their faces mirroring the same relief. Aris and the others had returned.

***

Mekia was a larger, uglier stationpoint than Spiro, its structures squat and flat roofed.

Dysis held herself rigidly in formation, even though her side and arm ached. No. It was more than that. The ache had wormed deep inside, through her bones and muscles and tendons, into her head. Into her heart.

Daakon was dead.

And now most of her unit was, too.

Commander Nyx had ordered the survivors to Mekia. Ten soldiers out of sixty still alive. It took two trips in Aris’s transport and Pallas’s recon, the only wingjets not blown to bits in the attack. Dysis had helped where she could, ignoring Aris’s well-meaning but irritating entreaties for her to rest, because it was the only thing she could do to keep herself from screaming.

Over the day—as she’d reported to the new stationpoint, been issued new uniforms, given her statement on what she remembered of the timeline of events— something within her had emptied. Numbed. Now, only hours later, even her anger felt far out of reach.

“Alright, soldiers!” Before her, Mekia’s Major Pova, a short, wiry man with a sharp jaw and even sharper voice, called them to order. “We have some new faces here tonight. The soldiers from Spiro will be stationed with us for the foreseeable future. They’ll join us for physical training and formations but will continue their search and rescue efforts independently of our missions. Please welcome them and take it upon yourselves to give them the space and information they need to settle in.”

Dysis shook her head, trying to break free of the haze that had drifted over her eyes, as if the smoke from that morning still clung to her. Pain lanced through her side as she twisted to follow the others back into the building, but she kept moving. She wasn’t about to let another injury sideline her.

“Dysis, are you okay?” Pallas jogged up beside her. “You look pale.”

“I’m fine. Watch out.” Dysis pushed her out of the way and accelerated, walking quickly toward the door.

Her legs wobbled. The evening sun suddenly felt unbearably hot. Sweat erupted along her brow, and the air thickened until she could barely suck it in. With a frustrated groan, she crumpled to her knees. Dysis couldn’t fight the languor creeping through her limbs, and that scared her.

In a haze, she felt a hand on her shoulder.

“Are you okay? What’s wrong?” Panic oozed through Aris’s voice.

Nothing’s wrong. I’m fine. The words echoed in her mind, but somehow didn’t make it out of her mouth. She slowly collapsed sideways against someone’s solid arm.

“She’s injured. Was she examined after the attack?” The low, husky voice sent a flash of renewed fire through her, and she struggled upright. Calix.

“I’m—I’m fine.” The words scratched out of her throat. Warm fingers drew up her shirt, landing against the bruise on her back. Wincing, she tried to pull the fabric back down. “Leave me alone, I’m—”

“You’re not fine, Dysis.” Calix spoke over her, his hand still splayed across her skin. “It looks like you’re bleeding internally. You could—this is bad.”

“What do you mean, ‘bad’?” Aris asked, her voice alarmed. “Can you help her?”

Dysis closed her eyes. The world was spinning now, the sunlight fading to a single, too-bright point. It almost looked like a tunnel, the way it bored into her. She didn’t want to argue with them anymore. She was too tired.

With a little sigh, she let go.

Chapter 4

Aris held Dysis’s cool, limp hand as Calix and another mender ran for help.

“Come on, Dysis, come on,” Aris murmured, over and over, even as Calix loaded her onto a med-bed and wheeled her quickly inside.

“She’ll need surgery,” Calix said as they ran. “The bleeding must have been slow, or she’d have died hours ago. We won’t be able to tell which organs were affected or how extensive the damage is until we get in there.”

Aris shivered at his words. But her faith in Calix hadn’t faltered, even if their relationship had. She’d seen him nurse everything from broken-winged birds to her mother’s best friend back to health over the years. If there was anyone she trusted to save Dysis, it was Calix. “You can fix this, right?”

Calix paused for one instant outside a room filled with chrome machines and a flurry of other menders and assistants, all prepping for surgery. His leaf-green eyes met hers with an expression she couldn’t read. “I’ll try, Aris. That’s all I can promise. I’ll try.”

She finally had to let Dysis’s hand go when Calix wheeled the med-bed into the room. A white door hissed shut in Aris’s face. She pressed her palms and forehead against it, tears streaming down her cheeks, and she prayed.

Milek found her there an hour later.

“Aris. I’m so sorry.” His quiet empathy nearly undid her. He drew her away from the door and laid her head against his chest, smoothing her hair.

Milek didn’t tell her Dysis would be okay, or offer empty promises. He knew as well as she did, better even, how senseless and unexpected war could be. Neither of them could promise Dysis would live. Neither could promise they would survive the next battle, the next day.

All they had was this moment, each moment at a time.

“What happened this morning? The mission . . .” They’d left Spiro expecting to rescue two stranded soldiers, but found the village eerily empty, no soldiers or villagers left. Everyone had been evacuated. They’d assumed the call was a mistake—it happened sometimes—until their approach to Spiro, when the horizon had disappeared beneath waves of smoke.

Milek shook his head. “I don’t know yet. A diversion, maybe? The timing is too strange not to be related.”

Aris stared at the blank door of Dysis’s room. “She didn’t tell me she was hurt. She didn’t tell anyone. I would have ordered her to the infirmary.” She should have made her see a mender when they arrived at Mekia. Instead she’d halfheartedly asked her to rest, a request Dysis had ignored.

“As if anyone could order Dysis to do anything,” Milek said.

Aris tightened her arms around him. “I’m afraid . . . after Daakon . . . I’m afraid she won’t fight.”

Milek cupped her face and forced space between them, so she had to meet his eyes. “This is Dysis. She doesn’t know how not to fight.”

The words were a small comfort. Aris focused on Milek’s face to keep from staring at the door of the operating room. Once, when she hadn’t known him very well, he had seemed to wear masks: the hard-eyed commanding officer, the worn soldier, the worried son. Now she saw all of his facets, all of the time. The hardened officer lived in his scar, in the twist it gave to the edge of his lips. The embattled soldier in the dark shadows under his eyes, the tiny wrinkles that deepened when he squinted into the sun. And there, in the softest hint of a smile, the slow-burning heat as he looked at her, she saw the man who loved her, who saw a future for them, despite the devastation and uncertainty of war.

The sheer magnitude of what they faced suddenly hit her. “I know we have duties . . . we have to regroup, figure out . . .” she began, then faltered. This morning she’d woken with a smile on her face. There’d been two weeks of triumph, knowing Elom was captured and things were finally going their way. And now, in an instant, their stationpoint was destroyed, their unit decimated.

Commander Nyx had said they’d continue with their search and rescue missions, but they had few wingjets and even fewer soldiers. How could they continue?

Milek settled his hand on her shoulder. “You should be here. I can brief you later.”

She dropped her gaze to the square of white floor between their feet. “Just until I know whether . . . if . . .”

He bent to kiss her forehead, just above the tip of the scar Elom had burned into her skin. “Find me as soon as you hear. I’ll be praying for good news.”

***

The quiet hiss of a door rattled Aris awake a few hours later. Calix walked out of the room, his own face haggard with exhaustion. She searched his expression.

“She’s okay,” Calix said, before Aris had the chance to ask. “She lost a lot of blood and nearly lost her kidney, but she’ll recover.”

“Thank the Gods.” Aris fought back tears of relief. “Is she awake?”

“Not yet.” Calix sagged against the wall. His short dark hair was plastered to his forehead, his white mender tunic rumpled. “She’s not going to be happy when she does. This kind of injury requires at least a couple months of recovery. She’ll be out of commission for a long time.”

Aris winced. “Maybe we shouldn’t lead with that.”

Calix cracked a tired smile, then yawned. “Yeah, maybe not. Probably best to ease her into it. Let her be happy she’s alive for a little while first.”

“You should get some sleep,” Aris said. “It’s the middle of the night.”

“Yeah, heading that way.” With a soft groan, he straightened and ran a hand through his hair, shaking his head a little as if to wake himself up. “You should, too. It’ll be a few more hours before Dysis regains consciousness. I can send someone to let you know when she’s cleared for visitors.”

“Yes, please.” The moment lengthened. Aris bit the inside of her cheek. “So, I guess we’re going to be here at Mekia for a while. Hope it’s . . . okay . . .” She trailed off.

Calix lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “We’ll manage. It’s a big stationpoint. And, you know,” he added, his face softening, “it’s not a bad thing to see each other now and again, is it?”

Aris smiled. “I guess not.”

“I’m glad you’re happy,” he said.

“I hope you find happiness, too,” she said softly.

“I will. Someday. Maybe after the war.” He rubbed his eyes. “For now I’ll settle for a soft pillow and a quiet corner. See you later, Aris.” He headed down the hallway toward the dormitories.

Aris watched him for a second before starting off in the other direction, toward Commander Nyx’s makeshift office. As she rounded the corner, she almost collided with Pallas, who was pacing the hallway.

“Oh!” Aris skidded to a stop, her boots squeaking against the shiny white floor.

Pallas jumped. The bright, sterile lights of the corridor cast sickly shadows across her skin. “Aris—I mean Lieutenant.”

“You should be asleep.” Aris straightened her jacket, rumpled from the hours she’d spent hunched in the chair outside of Dysis’s room. “Haven’t they assigned you a room yet?”

Pallas ran a hand through her short blond hair. Her fingers trembled.

“I wanted to see . . . is Dysis going to be okay? There’ve been rumors that she wasn’t doing well.” Pallas’s voice was as shaky as her hands.

Aris squeezed Pallas’s arm. “She’s going to be fine.”

“Good. That’s good news.” At the rumble of voices Pallas turned, just as two men emerged from a room at the end of the hall.

Aris waited until they rounded the far corner before saying, “Try to sleep, Pallas. I know today was rough.” Aris didn’t know the final casualty number yet, except that it was too high. Always too high. “Who’s your roommate?”

“Dysis.” Pallas rubbed the back of her neck, hard, as if trying to wipe away her Military brand. “So I guess I’m on my own for a while.”

Looking at the frightening hollows under her friend’s eyes, Aris made a split-second decision. “No, you’re not. I’ll stay with you until she’s released from sick bay.”

Milek would understand. She wasn’t sure Commander Helos, head of Mekia, would allow them to share a room anyway.

For a moment, Pallas looked like she wanted to argue, but all she said was, “Thank you, Lieutenant.” Then she started down the empty hall, her footsteps echoing.

Aris hurried on toward Commander Nyx and Milek. At least amidst the tragedy, she had good news to share.

Chapter 5

Mekia’s rec room vibrated with voices and raucous laughter. Specialist Tia Pallas sat in a lumpy chair in a corner, her gaze fixed on the small group of Spiro soldiers playing splots a couple tables away.

Her gunner, Baksen, sat with his back to her. From this angle, she could see his neck tattoo: two bony hands running on either side of his Military brand, fingers bent as if ready to crush his skull. Otto, Mann, and Nyal sat with him. A white bandage covered part of Nyal’s neck. All four men sagged over their cards, and none of them looked particularly invested in the outcome of the game. Even Otto didn’t engage in his usual trash-talking.

Tia felt Dysis’s absence keenly. And Aris was busy with official Spiro business, now that she was a lieutenant and Promised to Major Vadim. That meant Tia was the only woman from Spiro in the room. Nearly the only woman, period. There were a couple female mender assistants watching a news vid, but that was it.

A row of tables along the far wall was filled with menders sending comms to their families. She thought about comming her family, but what would she say? That because of a flubbed rescue call, she was alive while most of her unit was dead? That her hands were still shaking, and she couldn’t seem to draw a full breath?

When she looked back at Baksen’s table, more soldiers had joined the game.

Oh Gods.

She gasped as she stared at their faces. Galec, with short ginger hair and kind eyes. Evander, his every inch of skin covered in colorful tattoos.

And there was Lieutenant Daakon, sitting just beyond Otto, his brown eyes serious. He was staring at her.

Tia heaved to her feet, heart pounding in her temples with the force of a hammer.

“You’re . . . you’re all dead.” The words slipped out of her throat.

Throughout the room, skeletal faces turned toward her, their skin burnt black or torn away in strips. Black uniforms of Safarans, interspersed with Atalantan green. The memory of smoke clung in the back of her throat, choking her.

She stumbled forward, knocking over a chair. Its clatter cut through the noise, louder than the roaring of her own blood in her ears. Or maybe it was their blood, rushing toward her in cascades of red.

She resisted the sudden urge to tear apart the specters that haunted her and fled instead, pushing through the crowd, oblivious to the curious or sympathetic looks she earned in passing. She gasped as she burst into the empty hall, but still the sounds of battle followed her. The pounding concussion of explosions, the hiss of solagun fire.

The screams of all the men who’d died.

Pressing her hands to her head, she tried to shut out the noise, tried to erase the memories, but they dogged her down the hall, into the washroom. She made it just before a wave of bile silenced the voices.

Afterward, she leaned back against the cold, metal wall, knees to her chest, and rocked. Tears burned her cheeks. The waking nightmares were getting worse. Even now, her heart raced so fast it felt like it might explode, and sweat slicked her neck.

The washroom door hissed open.

“Pallas?”

The tension in her shoulders eased a tiny bit. With a sigh, she said, “I’m here, Baksen.”

Her gunner squeezed himself into the washroom stall and sank to the floor across from her. His muscular body looked awkward and cramped in the small space, but his square-jawed face remained relaxed. He looked at her for a few moments.

“That’s your third episode in two days.” A small furrow appeared between his steady brown eyes. “It’s getting worse.”

Tia wanted to shrug it off, to make denials as she always did. But there was little point this time. “Everyone is dead, Baksen. We didn’t get back in time . . . and I just keep seeing them everywhere.” Her voice was hoarse, as if she’d been the one screaming in pain. “Yes, it’s worse. But I just need a few days—”

“You need to speak to Major Vadim. Or Commander Nyx,” Baksen interjected, his face drawn with concern. “You need help dealing with this. You’re not the only one who’s been struggling, you know. It’s okay to ask for help.”

Tia shook her head vehemently, a thread of panic sliding through her. “No, I can’t. They won’t let me fly. They’ll send me home.”

“Maybe that’s a good—”

“Please, Baksen,” she begged. “I can’t lose this. I need to fly, okay? This is all I have.” She didn’t want to cry again, not in front of him, but the tears slipped out anyway.

Baksen didn’t argue or threaten to tell them himself. He didn’t try to hug her, or fill the silence with empty platitudes. He just leaned his head back against the wall and waited. The only thing he said was, “I’m here. You tell me what you need.”

Tia swallowed. “I just need a few minutes. Then I’ll be okay, I promise. It’s easier . . . not being alone.”

Baksen nudged her knee with his. “You’re not alone.”

For a long time, they sat in silence on the cold washroom floor and waited for her demons to loosen their hold.

Chapter 6

Mekia’s jogging track snaked through a patch of forest just behind the stationpoint, along the tall metal fence that separated the Military installation from the village. As she ran, Aris reveled in the steady, quickened pounding of her heart.

Milek ran beside her, a gray shadow in the predawn gloom.

When they reached a thicker stand of trees, they slowed to a walk. Milek grabbed her hand and pulled her into the darkness. Aris twined her arms around his neck.

“I missed you,” she purred against his lips, even though they’d spent most of the day before together, locked in meetings with Commander Nyx and standing in formation with the other Spiro soldiers. They’d kept their distance. They were officers, first and foremost.

“I love you,” Milek said, as he kissed along her throat. “I couldn’t sleep last night without you next to me.”

“When the war is over . . .” she began, but stopped. Too many of their conversations began that way. The war had trapped her hopes for their future behind a big black wall, unknowable and out of reach.

“Talking about life when the war is over feels like trying to plan my next dream.” Milek sighed against her collarbone.

“Maybe if we just focus on the here”—she ran a finger across his lips—“and the now”—a light touch along his neck.

Milek cupped her face in his hands and kissed her hard on the lips, and for a while, she didn’t think about the ifs, whens, or maybes.

“It’ll be lights-on soon,” she murmured at last. “We should get back.” Even as she said the words, her hands and body remained pressed into him, filling both of their minds with other possibilities.

When they jogged out of the shadows and into the bright light of the landing pad, Commander Nyx was waiting for them on the tarmac, next to a large green wingjet. One from Ward Nekos’s personal fleet.

“There you are. I’ve been looking for you.” Nyx’s steely gray glare made it clear that looking for them was a wholly unacceptable activity.

Aris straightened automatically. “We went for a run.”

“Sir—” Milek began.

“Major, your mother is here.” Commander Nyx turned on her heel and stalked into the building, not giving them time for excuses.

“That explains the wingjet.” Aris shot a look at Milek. “Did you know she was coming?”

He frowned. “I didn’t.”

Aris steeled herself as they followed Nyx into the building.

The Commander’s makeshift office was a small room with a single tiny window and a chipped desk pushed up beneath it. Low metal benches lined the walls, and dust motes floated in the early rays of sun. Nyx settled onto the edge of her desk, arms crossed, and glared at them.

Ward Vadim rose from her perch on one of the metal benches as soon as she saw Milek. She didn’t reach for him, but the tension in the woman’s frame revealed how much she wanted to.

“I’m glad you two are alright,” she said, her eyes never leaving her son’s face. “I needed to see for myself.”

Aris was grateful they hadn’t been at Spiro during the attack, but she’d spent the last few days wishing they’d returned faster, that somehow they could have gotten back in time to prevent it.

“We’re fine. It was kind of you to check on us, Ward Vadim,” Milek said formally. Then he broke into a boyish grin.

Commander Nyx cleared her throat.

A fresh focus showed in Ward Vadim’s eyes. “I’m also here because of the wingjets.”

“Ward Vadim comes bearing a shipment of invisible wingjets,” Commander Nyx clarified. The blood-red scars around the officer’s neck caught Aris’s attention, as always, but it was her words that sent a shock down Aris’s spine.

Invisible wingjets? A whole shipment?

“Those wingjets are our best hope for finding the bomb,” Ward Vadim said. “Ward Nekos and I are concerned the attack on Spiro may have been related to those jets. The shipment was originally scheduled to arrive at your stationpoint last week, but it was delayed.”

“Did anyone know about them? We certainly didn’t.” Milek sounded confused.

“Commander Nyx was the only one at Spiro who knew,” Ward Vadim said. “But the only other potential target would be the two of you, given your status and involvement in the Elom affair.” She glanced from Milek to Aris, her scarred face drawn into a frown.

Aris shivered at the thought that she might once again be in Ward Balias’s sights. “Be that as it may, you said the shipment of wingjets is here now. What are we supposed to do with it?”

Ward Vadim turned toward Commander Nyx. “Your commander can explain. Ward Nekos and I have asked her to take point on this matter.”

Nyx straightened and stepped away from the desk. “Your objective is to find and destroy the flaming scorpion before Ward Balias destroys Atalanta.”

Of course it was. Aris almost laughed, even as her heart pounded hard enough to make her dizzy. Nyx continued. “Haan, you’ll be leading a new unit of elite flyers. Only the best.”

Aris barely kept herself from staggering back a step. Commander Nyx was putting her in charge of a whole unit?

The woman shifted her glare to Milek. “Major Vadim, you’ll support the Lieutenant and help coordinate each mission. You’ll be the liaison between Mekia’s command, as well as Ward Vadim and Ward Nekos. When we have actionable intel, you’ll help Haan get the authorization from Ward Nekos to move forward.”

“Yes, sir,” Milek said immediately.

Aris registered his smile, but her mind was still processing the words invisible wingjets and leading a new unit, trying to make sense of them.

“No one on point can know that the wingjets are invisible,” Nyx continued. “Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir,” Aris and Milek said in tandem. Aris’s voice cracked a little. She cleared her throat.

Commander Nyx tapped a hand against her thigh. “I’ll work with you on recruitment. Flyers from other stationpoints, Ruslana . . . anywhere we can find skilled, trustworthy people. Everyone will need to go through additional security screening.”

Milek cocked his head. “Additional screening? That’s not the usual policy.”

Commander Nyx glanced toward Ward Vadim, who nodded.

An uncomfortable silence hung in the air a moment longer, before Nyx said, “There was a spy at Spiro. One of our own people was responsible for the attack.”

“Excuse me?” Aris burst out, just as Milek took a step back.

“How can that be?” he said.

A new tension pulled at the corners of Nyx’s eyes. “We thought at first it was just comm hacks, lucky shots at our tech. But . . .”

Aris sucked in a tiny breath, her brain still foggy. “But what?”

Commander Nyx sighed as she rubbed a hand across the back of her neck. “The attack at Spiro began within. Less than a minute before Safaran forces arrived, a firebomb was detonated inside the building. It was planted.”

A bomb within Spiro? Aris couldn’t wrap her head around it.

“There’s a team sifting through the rubble, looking for more evidence,” Nyx said. “It may have been a suicide attack. Or the perpetrator could still be alive and stationed here with us at Mekia.”

Milek shook his head. “Most of the survivors were instrumental in rescuing Aris from Safara. Our team. They’re not, they can’t be . . .”

“Then let’s hope the traitor blew himself up,” Ward Vadim said shortly. Her hands clenched into fists at her side.

Aris swallowed.

“You must choose your team wisely, Lieutenant.” Nyx’s eyes narrowed. “Be very careful who you trust.”

Chapter 7

Galena woke up sweating, with the phantom feeling of restraints pinning her to the bed. The glitter of stars through the window was a comfort, even as she gasped down the memories of white prison walls. Months later, she still dreamed of that hell almost every night.

It took some time for her heart rate to settle. She knew she should lie back down, curl into Pyralis’s side, let his even, sleeping breath keep watch with her until dawn. But she couldn’t. Sleep wouldn’t find her now.

She sat up and slid to the edge of the bed.

“Another bad dream?” Pyralis’s voice was drowsy.

She glanced back at him. His eyes were wide open, alert. Her stomach sank. She turned away.

“It’s the middle of the night, Galena. You can’t go now. Not again.” Concern threaded through his warm voice. “You just got back from Mekia a few hours ago. You need to rest.”

She stared at her feet. “It’s nearly dawn. It won’t be so early by the time I get there.”

“I don’t think your speaking to him is helping.” The bed sagged as Pyralis sat up and moved closer to her. He slid both arms around her, and even though his touch was gentle, it felt almost like a restraint. She pulled free and stood. “It’s dangerous,” he added in a sharper tone.

Chastened, Galena turned and cupped his cheek in her hand. “There’s still more for us to learn from him. I think . . . I think if I keep trying, he’ll tell us what we need to know.”

“The interrogators—”

Galena moved away, throwing on black pants and a storm-gray tunic, soft as a cloud. It was no use trying to explain. They’d had the same fight almost every day since Elom had been taken into custody. It’d been almost a month since his capture, less than a week since the attack on Spiro. Now that Milek and Aris had the invisible wingjets, they’d begin recruiting soldiers for their unit, but they needed intel on which to act. Elom hadn’t given up Balias’s real location. Or any information on the bomb.

Atalanta was running out of time.

But Galena didn’t want to admit that her nearly daily visits to the prison were of a more personal nature. That it helped her, seeing him like that, imprisoned the way he imprisoned her. She supposed it was small of her, but she felt powerful there, with him at her mercy.

“Be careful,” Pyralis’s voice sounded behind her, and Galena thought perhaps he knew, somehow, how much of her soul was still trapped in that windowless room.

Atalanta’s highest-security prison was situated at the northern edge of the city, on Panthea’s mountainside. The building climbed the foothills in a series of interconnected, cantilevered cubes, all windowless. The seemingly precarious structure was impenetrable, the different levels of cells creating a complicated maze within. There were no points of entrance or egress beyond a single gate with one highly fortified door.

The guards scanned Galena and her driver’s identification passcards before waving the terran through the gate. As soon as she emerged from the terran, it followed the circular drive back down the steep hill. The driver would wait in a large lot a few miles away and return when the prison commed him. No terrans or trucks were authorized to stop for more than a minute in front of the prison, and the airspace above was restricted. In many ways, Galena felt safer here than she did anywhere else in Atalanta.

Two guards escorted her through the labyrinthine hallways, which turned sharply at right angles before pitching up short, steep flights of stairs. They hadn’t gone very far when a sudden, piercing whine filled the air, pressing painfully against her eardrums.

“What is that?” she screamed over the noise, covering her ears.

Both guards shared a knowing look, unholstered their solaguns, and grabbed her arms. “We need to get you to a safe room,” one shouted.

They led her back the way they came, to a chrome door at the top of one of the short staircases. One of the guards pressed a pad against the wall, and the narrow door slid open.

The other guard ushered her into the tiny, dimly lit room.

“We’ll be back as soon as we get the all clear,” he yelled over the screaming siren. “You’ll be safe here!”

And, in seconds, Galena was alone in a room smaller than Elom’s cell, while Gods knew what occurred outside the door.

Her heart pounded, and the tiny, empty room swam before her eyes. For the second time in her life, she was locked away.

Chapter 8

When Dysis was twelve years old and Jax was fifteen, their father died in a wingjet crash. Two months later, their mother fell ill. Their home became a hushed, frightening place, where blank-faced menders came and went, their expressions turning more and more grave each day.

Dysis watched as her mother transformed from a sphere of boundless energy to a gray, human-shaped shadow. Her mother could barely breathe, let alone care for herself. She needed to be dressed and washed, spoon-fed a thin protein gruel. Until machines ate and breathed for her.

Until she died.

Jax said he remembered the years before the illness, and Dysis clung to his stories, but they were never enough to erase those months when her mother had become a ghost. Dysis promised herself she’d never be like that, never let herself get so weak and helpless. She’d be like her father, go down in a blaze, one bright blip and then gone.

Except here she was, not dead, lying in a bed with menders poking and prodding at her, just like they’d done to her mother.

“Get that out of my face,” Dysis snapped, pushing the tiny light away.

The mender stepped back, his mouth open to protest.

“Don’t even bother,” she growled. This one was new; a young guy with wide brown eyes and freckles that made him look like a little kid. In the week that she’d been trapped in this bed, she’d scared off plenty of menders and assistants. This one would be easier than most.

The mender put his hands up and tentatively shuffled closer, as if she were an animal about to attack him. “But I need to check your vitals.”

Dysis struggled to sit up, ignoring the deep and throbbing pain in her side. “See? Breathing. Heart’s beating. I’m vital. Now go away.”

The mender was staring at her in confusion. “But they said I had to—”

Behind him, the door slid open. Dysis collapsed back onto the bed, huffing, when she saw the newcomer. Of course.

Calix glanced at the other mender, then back to her. With a frown, he tilted his head toward the door. “Thank you, Wex. I’ll take it from here.”

The young mender shuffled out.

Dysis braced herself for a lecture, and Calix didn’t disappoint. “Really? You know these men helped save your life. You can’t—”

“I can’t. You’re right,” she interrupted, venom in her voice. “I can’t do anything.”

With a sigh, Calix held her head down and shone the light in her eyes, quickly, before she could break away. Then he released her, ignoring her protests. “You’re not a caged animal, Dysis. You’re getting better.”

She struggled to sit up again. “Then let me out there. Let me fight.”

“You had major surgery a week ago. You’re not well enough for that. Not yet.” He pushed her back down, more gently this time, and grabbed her wrist, his warm fingers finding her pulse.

For a few seconds they were both quiet, locked together by the beat of her heart.

He eyed her, some of his impatience fading. “You get that this is temporary, right?”

Dysis shifted, yanking her wrist from his hand. She stared past him to the vid strip that ran the entire length of the room, projecting an endless parade of bright landscapes. It was supposed to enliven the stark white med room, but she hated it. She’d rather have a news vid playing. Those bland, peaceful images were a lie.

“How much longer, then?” she asked. “Ever since the surgery, you’ve been cagey about the timeline.”

The bed shifted as Calix sat beside her. She didn’t look at him as he guided her onto her side so he could inspect her sutures. The pressure of his hands sent shards of pain through her. She’d stopped taking her pain meds yesterday; she didn’t like the way they fogged her up, slowed her reflexes. Not that she needed her damn reflexes for sitting in this stupid bed.

“Your body still has a lot of healing to do,” he said. “Your kidney was severely damaged—it’s a miracle we didn’t have to remove it. With the amount of blood you lost, the pooling—”

“If you tell me one more time that I’m lucky to be alive, I will break your hand.” Her own fingers clutched the edge of the bed. “Do not assume I’m too weak for that.”

“Don’t worry.” He helped her lie back down. “I know how strong you are.”

She didn’t like the familiarity in his eyes. Her anger didn’t unnerve him as it did the others.

“You should have let me die,” she said. One bright blip. That’s what she wanted. Because what if Calix was wrong? What if she didn’t get better, but festered in this bed until she died, like her mother had?

Calix didn’t blink. She’d said the same thing often enough when she’d first regained consciousness.

Her time in the sick bay had been one indignity after another, an agony of them: the changing of her surgical dressings, her clothes. She’d needed help doing everything, even using the washroom. She could still barely walk on her own, her legs weak as a newborn foal’s. Every moment, every second reminded her of her mother.

And Calix had been there for it all. He’d seen her at her most vulnerable, when she couldn’t muster the angry facade. He’d seen her break.

“In a month or two, when you’re running around kicking ass as usual, you’re going to be happy I didn’t,” Calix said.

“Two months?” She bit back a scream of frustration. “You’re not seriously telling me I could be like this for another two months?”

Calix shook his head, a hint of sympathy flashing in his green eyes. “Not like this. A couple months before you’re cleared for combat, but you’ll be able to get back to most of your usual routine in another week or so.”

“My usual routine is combat,” she grumbled.

“The fastest way to get there is to be a good patient,” he said. “And stop scaring off the menders.”

Dysis wished she could scare him off.

Calix pushed back the sleeves of his mender coat, revealing wiry forearms. “Wex said you haven’t walked yet today. Up and at ‘em.”

Without any hint that he heard her protests, he slid his hands under her arms and helped her sit up slowly and shift her legs off the edge of the bed.

“Why don’t we head out to the training grounds today?” he asked. “You could use some fresh air.”

“No,” Dysis snapped. “The hallway’s fine.”

Her feet prickled as she stood up.

Calix tightened his hands on her torso to steady her. He was only a couple inches taller, and they were so close her lips nearly brushed his chin.

“You need to get out there, Dysis,” he said. “I know you don’t want the others to see, but—”

“But you don’t know what you’re talking about.” She pushed against him, creating distance between them, but her legs betrayed her, and she swayed.

He wouldn’t let go.

“Hey, Dysis,” Aris stepped into the room. “How are you feeling today?” She nodded at Calix.

Dysis shuffled a few steps closer to Aris. As much as she wanted to walk freely, her watery legs made her grudgingly grateful for Calix’s support.

“Just going for a walk,” Dysis said. “Would you like to join me?”

Her friend’s dark blue eyes lit up. “I’d love to! It’s a beautiful day, do you want to—”

“No.” Dysis ignored the look Aris shared with Calix. They could take their annoying, well-meaning interference and leave her the hell alone.

Without saying anything more, Aris took her other arm and Calix let go. Their walk was painfully slow and a little jerky, as Dysis tried to balance on brittle legs. Almost immediately, she regretted offering to walk with Aris. No one, not even her best friend, should have to see her this way.

“Heard you’ve been working on something new,” Dysis said. She didn’t add how gutted she felt not to be included, not to know what was going on.

Aris shrugged. “Just planning stages for now. I wish things were moving faster—” She broke off and shot a pitying glance at Dysis. “Don’t we all, right? But maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe by the time we’re sorted out, you’ll be ready to come back as my gunner.”

Dysis scoffed. “I don’t think it’ll take you two months to get organized.”

Aris paused, surprise widening her eyes. “It could be worse. And for what it’s worth, we’re miserable without you. The whole team has been asking me when you’re coming back. I hope, when you feel ready, you’ll hang out in the rec room sometime. Or let Otto or Pallas visit you. I think they need some reassurance, you know . . .” She paused. “Well, reassurance that you’re still you.”

Dysis turned around and headed slowly back to her room. “But I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.” Aris’s voice echoed down the empty hallway.

“You don’t know, Aris. You don’t have any idea.” Dysis was done talking. Done walking down this blank white hallway like some invalid.

Aris grabbed her arm and yanked until they were facing each other. Her eyes narrowed, she hissed, “Don’t I? I spent my childhood learning to walk again. I know how it feels, like your body is this all-important shell, and if it doesn’t work, you don’t work. But it’s not true. And you will get better.”

Dysis didn’t know what to do with the fire in Aris’s eyes, the determination lining her mouth. She didn’t want to feel Aris’s conviction. She preferred to wallow. But she could see the weakness in that.

All she’d ever wanted was to be strong.

“Fine, fine. I’ll try to make it to the rec room soon.” She sighed. “You and Calix will be the death of me.”

Aris smiled. “I’ve got to go.” She started to pat Dysis’s shoulder, but the glare Dysis shot her stopped that. “Specialist Mann wants me to fly with him. He’s desperate to get med clearance as well, and wants to show me he’s fit. I think he’s doing better, so . . .”

Something niggled at the edge of Dysis’s mind. Something about Mann . . . she shook her head, trying to shake loose the thought. It was just at the tip of her brain—

Aris trailed off. “What is it?” she asked. “You have the weirdest look on your face.”

Dysis paused. “I don’t know . . . something you just said—”

The thud of running boots interrupted her. Aris whirled as a soldier Dysis didn’t recognize skidded to a halt a few feet away.

“Lieutenant Haan, Commander Nyx has called a meeting with the entire Spiro team, and she needs you there right away,” the soldier panted.

Aris shot a worried glance at Dysis. “What’s happened?”

The soldier straightened. “Haven’t you seen? It’s all over the news vids. The Safaran operative, the one you captured, has escaped.”

Dysis’s stomach dropped to her feet, every other thought blown from her mind except one: Elom has escaped.

Chapter 9

As Aris took her place at the back of the briefing room between Milek and Commander Nyx, she could barely restrain herself from pounding a fist into the wall. The rest of the Spiro survivors, even Dysis, settled into the tidy rows of chairs before her.

The monitor affixed to the far wall blinked on.

A reporter in a cheerful pink flowered dress was speaking. “We have it on good authority that the escaped prisoner is the Safaran operative, Elom, who Ward Nekos and Ward Vadim put behind bars a little over a month ago.” She stood a few hundred feet away from the prison. Behind her, one side of the building boasted a ragged, smoking hole.

“The most secure prison in our entire blighting dominion,” Aris muttered under her breath. “How could they let this happen?” And why are they announcing it to the world?

Milek touched her arm briefly, a gesture that did nothing to calm her.

The reporter continued. “Authorities are striving to reassure the residents of Panthea that the attack was isolated and should not be seen as a direct threat to the city, but there’s been no official statement from Ward Nekos as of yet.”

“The Ward has requested your presence in Panthea,” Commander Nyx murmured to Aris, her eyes never leaving the vid.

“Why? The damage has already been done,” Aris hissed.

Elom was out there again, walking free. Balias’s murderous, powerful right hand. His last mission had been to capture and kill Aris.

What if he comes after me again?

Nyx shot Aris a look. “It’s not your job—or mine—to ask questions. You and Major Vadim should leave now.”

Aris glanced at the monitor, where the reporter was gesturing toward the damaged prison. “What are you going to tell the team?”

“That this is war,” Commander Nyx said, her voice low and tight. “We suffer victories and defeats. We stay on guard. We wait for orders. We do our jobs.”

Aris and her team had done their job. They’d captured Elom and discovered the flaming scorpion.

Milek pulled her away, but not before Aris shot another glare toward the monitor and the image of the supposedly impenetrable prison.

***

“Will Ward Nekos move up our timeline? Is that why he wants to meet with us?” Aris asked, as she and Milek sped away from Mekia. She was already schooling herself to remain professional instead of cursing anyone out.

“Probably. Or he’ll want us to change objectives and go after Elom.” Milek’s voice was even, but his hands gripped the gunner controls too hard. He was frustrated, too.

So far they’d only had time to create a list of possible recruits for their invisible wingjet program. Milek had been busy interviewing the survivors of the Spiro attack to see if he could flush out the spy. Even after the recovery efforts, Commander Nyx’s team had been unable to tell whether it was a suicide bomb. The thought that one of Aris’s fellow soldiers could be working for Safara added to the churning in her stomach.

When she and Milek landed in Panthea, a terran was waiting for them, with a burly driver and a frazzled-looking man with red hair.

“I’m Ward Nekos’s assistant, Kellan,” the man said as they slid into the terran. “Thank you for coming. The ward is expecting you.”

Aris opened her mouth to reply, but Kellan raised the frosted glass divider between them. She watched the city zip past, all glass and shining silver. The sidewalks disappeared beneath a constant flow of people in and out of the tall buildings. An unexpected chill washed over her. These streets would be empty, the city full of nothing but ghosts, if Ward Balias dropped the bomb here. How long did they have to stop him? Could they stop him?

The terran swept into a tight turn, throwing her against Milek. He held her close to his side and bent to whisper, “You look pale. Are you okay?”

Aris wanted to sink into the embrace, let it erase the horrors slithering through her mind.

“If we lose, we won’t just be a conquered dominion,” she murmured, “we’ll be an exterminated one. We’ll be . . . gone. All of us.” Her hand drifted up to gesture to the vibrant city outside the windows. “I was just thinking of all the people here, all that’s riding on us finding this weapon.”

Milek’s cool blue eyes stared calmly into hers. How did he stay so unruffled? So in control? “Don’t do that to yourself. We haven’t lost yet. We won’t let Atalanta fall.”

“How are you so sure?” Aris asked.

“Because I have to be sure,” Milek replied. “I refuse to believe our fate has been decided. I will have faith in our victory until the very moment we fail. And even then, I’ll . . . well, I’ll probably be looking for some kind of loophole, some way to pull survival from the darkness. I just . . . I can’t function any other way.”

Aris smiled, because he was so earnest, so hopeful even now. He’d seen so much death and pain, and yet he still believed they’d win. She leaned up and kissed him, and let his surety fill her. Whatever her doubts, she’d never stop fighting either. She couldn’t. She didn’t know how. It wouldn’t matter if she were bloody or broken. She’d keep on until it killed her.

The terran slowed and Aris looked out of the window.

“This isn’t the capitol,” she said, confusion drawing a furrow between her brows.

Before them, a boxy, cantilevered structure climbed into the mountain.

“It’s the prison,” Milek said, sounding just as perplexed.

Kellan opened the door, and as they stepped out, Milek asked, “Why are we here?”

“Ward Nekos will explain everything.” Kellan led them to a door flanked by guards in hunter-green combat gear, their solaguns at the ready. Above them, workers perched on one of the boxy levels of the prison, laying beams over the gaping hole in the wall. Elom’s exit point.

Aris swallowed and kept her eyes firmly in front of her. At Kellan’s nod, the guards opened the door. The hushed building swallowed them. Aris immediately lost all sense of direction, though the twisting passages and door-lined hallways seemed to be leading gradually downward. But the building climbed upward into the hills. How were they going down?

Finally they reached a long hallway with no cells lining it and followed Kellan into a lift overseen by another set of guards. One pressed a code into a panel on the wall and instead of shooting upward, as Aris expected, the lift plunged even deeper into the mountain.

“Where are we going?” she asked Milek.

He just shrugged.

At long last, they were led into a long, narrow room. Ward Nekos and Ward Vadim sat at one end of a table next to a familiar woman with a snake tattoo curling along her skull.

Aris gasped. “Dianthe?”

The tall woman unwound herself from her chair, her black eyes staring impassively at Aris. “Hello, Lieutenant Haan.”

Dianthe’s Atalantan uniform accentuated the knife edges of her angular body—sharp elbows, broad, bony shoulders. It had been Dianthe who had fitted Aris for her veil and trained her, pushing her until Aris could make it as a soldier.

“What are you doing here?” Aris blurted as Ward Nekos and Ward Vadim rose as well. Milek smiled at his mother, and Aris saluted her dominion’s leader belatedly.

“Good morning, Major Vadim. Lieutenant Haan,” Ward Nekos began. The narrow room’s metal walls reflected strange shadows against his weathered face. This room, unlike most in Panthea, had no glowing ceiling tiles, just a few bright lamps set on black tables in the corners. A long table in the center filled the rest of the space. “No doubt you’ve heard the news about Elom’s escape.”

With an effort, she restrained herself to a simple nod. Beside her, Milek said, “Yes, sir.”

“Well, it’s a lie,” Ward Nekos said.

“What?” Aris glanced from him to Ward Vadim, whose face revealed nothing. Even Dianthe remained calm at this news.

Milek shifted on his feet. “What do you mean, ‘it’s a lie’?”

Ward Nekos shook his head. “That’s exactly what we wanted.” He gestured to one of the guards stationed behind Aris. He pressed a hand to a panel on the wall.

As the silver wall dissolved into transparency, Aris took an involuntary step back. A man who looked like Elom paced the small cell, not like a wild animal but more like an officer inspecting his troops. Back straight, face blank, he gave no indication that he saw them.

Aris narrowed her eyes.

“I don’t understand.” Milek stepped closer to the glass and studied the man beyond.

“The man the world thinks is Elom, who escaped two days ago with the help of a Safaran airstrike, was not, in fact Elom,” Ward Vadim said. She glanced at Aris, a strange intensity in her eyes. “Your new ally, Alistar. He agreed to impersonate Elom to gain intel for us.”

Aris opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

Dianthe quirked a brow at her. “The diatous veil can be very convincing, as you know. It took three days to map Elom and Alistar, and then it was just a matter of waiting for Ward Balias to stage a rescue. The prison’s defenses were eased slightly to allow Safara to succeed.”

A tiny flare of hope ignited in Aris’s chest. “So that’s the real Elom,” she said, tipping her head to the cell. “And Alistar is out there, disguised as Balias’s top operative.” She shifted her gaze to Ward Nekos. “You let them break him out, knowing you had the upper hand. You planned for it.”

The Ward gave a small smile. “We did. Alistar, as Elom, will be able to get close to Balias. He’ll feed us the location of the weapon without Balias ever knowing.”

“Dianthe will return to Mekia with you,” Ward Vadim said. “She’ll monitor Alistar’s movements and reports. His voice modulator has been fitted with a recording device. It will transmit to Dianthe’s radio in real time. We want her with you on point, so you can move as soon as actionable intel crosses the comms.”

Aris nodded.

Ward Nekos stepped closer to the glass partition and watched Elom pace. “As soon as your recruits pass additional security screening, you should begin training immediately. We expect Alistar to give us useful information within a matter of days.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but are you sure you trust Alistar?” Milek’s voice cut through the room. “I know he helped us rescue Aris, but he’s a Safaran. He could join forces with Balias, feed us false information. It could be a trap.”

Ward Nekos broke in. “I appreciate your skepticism, Major Vadim. I felt similarly when Lieutenant Latza shared his proposal with us. Alistar went through a rigorous vetting process, up until the day we gave him the diatous veil. His loyalty should not be questioned.”

But Milek wasn’t finished. “What about his knowledge? He was in a small village on the outskirts of Safara. How will he know Elom’s mannerisms? His interactions and history with Balias? Surely, the Ward will see right through the disguise. He uses veils himself. It’s not as if he’s unaware of their existence.”

“That’s why we waited for Ward Balias to stage a rescue, rather than allowing ‘Elom’ to break free on his own,” Ward Nekos replied. Aris was surprised at his patience, given that Milek was more or less questioning the Ward’s judgment. “Alistar was given footage of Elom moving around his cell. He had time to practice before Balias’s extraction. And our spies gleaned enough about Elom’s routine to ease Alistar into Balias’s circle. Our interrogators will continue working on Elom. We’ll ensure Alistar is as knowledgeable and protected as possible. It is a risk, but isn’t every worthy endeavor a risk?”

Aris watched Elom through the glass. At least he wasn’t out in the world. And if Alistar pulled it off, Atalanta would have the bomb.

They’d win the war.

Chapter 10

As Aris stepped out onto the tarmac into the warm night, a small breeze ruffled her short hair. For a minute, she watched the group of soldiers milling around talking quietly. No one knew why they’d been called to Mekia or what their mission would entail.

Four of them—Pallas, Baksen, Mann, and Otto—were comrades: flyers, gunners, and retrievers who’d been through nearly every mission with her.

Lieutenant Theo Riatta, the soldier who’d initially recruited Aris to Military all those months ago, stood in the front row. When Aris had met Theo, the talented flyer had been disguised as a man. Now, her more delicate female face sported a jaunty, up-for-anything grin. Next to her stood her gunner, a woman named Seren Tekla. Seren held herself like some kind of warrior queen, her pointed chin up and shoulders back. She wore her straight black hair slicked behind her ears.

Beside them stood Lieutenant Illias Santos, a flyer Aris had rescued nearly a year ago, on one of her first missions. When Santos had arrived on point the night before, Aris was surprised to see the woman was still veiled as a man.

But it made sense, really. When Aris had transported the woman, bleeding and near death, to a mender stationpoint, Illiana had told her that she’d found peace with her disguise. She hadn’t fit in at her Commerce job, or in her home village. But as Illias, a male soldier for the Atalantan military, she had found her place.

Now Aris watched Lieutenant Santos closely. He held himself with a calm detachment, showing no evidence of the significant injuries he’d suffered. He’d returned to active flying a few months ago, but Aris wanted to be sure he was ready for this.

His gunner, Specialist Renz, certainly looked ready. The man’s eyes glinted beneath heavy brows, two broken teeth visible when he smiled.

The last two newcomers, Specialists Nesta and Yannis, were gunners Commander Nyx had selected. Both men were taller than the rest of the unit. Nesta had a full, boyish face and clever brown eyes that belied his apparent youth. Yannis was dark skinned, with a muscular body even larger and sturdier than Specialist Mann’s.

The fact that these soldiers were waiting for her—that this was her team—sent a ripple of pride through her. When she’d first met Dianthe, Aris had been convinced she wouldn’t make it through the physical training to become a soldier. She’d almost walked away. Now, she was in charge of her own unit. As a woman. An officer. Somehow, without quite realizing it, she’d become a leader.

“Are you ready?” Milek asked, quietly.

Aris shot him a quick grin. “Oh yeah.”

Together, they stepped into the center of the brightly lit landing pad.

“Fall in!” Milek yelled.

The ten people they’d recruited turned to face Aris and Milek, stepping briskly into two five-person lines.

“Good evening,” Aris began. “You’ve all been called here because of your skills in the air. This unit has been tasked with a very important mission, one that could mean the difference in this war.”

Aris looked at each of them in turn. “I’m sure this all sounds very much like what you’ve heard at every stationpoint, from every commander. But our situation truly is unique. We have something no other unit in Atalanta or Safara has.” She cut a quick look at Milek before issuing her warning. “What you’re about to see is classified. You will not discuss this information with a single person beyond the group standing here tonight. The consequences of going against this order reach far beyond your own punishment. Is that understood?”

A chorus of “yes, sir” echoed across the empty tarmac. Wide eyes stared back at her, and Pallas and Otto even looked a little green. She didn’t blame them. The pressure—the importance—of this mission had stolen sleep from her almost every night since she’d found out she’d be leading the unit.

Milek turned to her. “Now?”

“Yes, sir.” This was the moment she’d been looking forward to for the past few weeks. At the far end of the tarmac, beyond Mekia’s two clunky med-jets and the single recon and transport Aris and Pallas had flown from Spiro, three tiny, shining recons and two larger transports glittered in the floodlights. She jogged toward the wingjets.

Commander Nyx, Aris, and Milek had decided it was safest to train at night, well away from point, so the risk of unauthorized soldiers seeing them would be minimal. Still, Aris couldn’t resist a little fanfare. With a practiced leap, she climbed into the closest recon, eyes on the small group of flyers, gunners, and retrievers below. As the wingjet warmed up, she smiled. With the flick of a switch, the nose and wings of her jet shimmered . . . and disappeared.

Below, Lieutenant Riatta took a step back, bumping into Otto. Renz clapped a hand on his head, jaw slack. Even above the hum of the wingjet, Aris heard the team’s voices explode with questions.

She turned the invisibility off, opened the dome, and climbed back down. With a single raised hand, the group fell silent. “Now you understand how important your discretion is,” she said. “These wingjets will allow us to slip past enemy lines undetected. But if Safara were to discover we have them, we’d lose our advantage.”

Most of Aris’s audience stared at the wingjet in wonder, but Lieutenant Santos glared. “How the hell am I supposed to fly a wingjet I can’t see? And what if someone tilts off course and boom, we all blow up?”

Otto and Baksen shared a look. Mann kept his gaze on the wingjet, his fascination obvious.

“Valid concerns,” Aris said. She’d expected questions and hesitation. Still, her pulse raced, knowing she was the one who would calm their fears. “We’re not going to put you in the sky in an invisible wingjet and expect you to immediately know how to fly it. Tonight’s your first training session. Each flyer will go up individually, with me, to get a sense of what it’s like. I promise, we’ll give you enough time to get comfortable.”

“And as for colliding with each other, these wingjets are equipped with advanced nav systems,” Milek added. “You won’t be flying entirely blind. Each jet has a signature you’ll be able to see on the nav.”

These wingjets were upgraded from the original prototype Aris had flown—and crashed—in Safaran territory. The nav features had been improved, and all the glitches she’d experienced during the storm that had damaged her veiling tech had been resolved. She hoped.

Specialist Mann rubbed the back of his neck, his gaze still fixed on one of the transport jets. “Sounds complicated,” he said. “And overkill for our usual S and R gigs. We gonna be retrieving more kidnapped wards?” His lip quirked, but the joke was a questioning one.

Aris took a deep breath. She and Milek had discussed the next point with Wards Nekos and Vadim at length. Ultimately, they’d decided on the truth. The ten soldiers that stood before her had each gone through additional security checks: a lie detector test, a psych evaluation, and an interview with their commanding officer. If anyone could be trusted, it was this group.

She tapped a hand against the recon’s wing. “Ward Balias is in possession of a very powerful, very dangerous weapon. Our job, as a unit, is to find and retrieve it before it can be used against Atalanta.”

Specialist Tekla raised her chin a fraction. “What are we up against? What does it do?”

Aris glanced toward Milek. This was one detail they’d been asked not to reveal. “The purpose of the weapon is classified, but believe me when I say that this is not a resource you want Ward Balias to have.”

Her eyes skimmed over the other soldiers: Pallas looked about to hyperventilate. Baksen’s stony expression hadn’t changed. Otto hung back, arms crossed over his chest, while beside him Specialists Nesta and Yannis whispered something to each other. Theo kept glancing at Specialist Tekla, and Renz studied the booted foot he scuffed along the ground.

“Who wants to fly first?” Aris asked. For a moment, no one responded.

Then, to her surprise, Lieutenant Santos stepped forward.

Aris channeled Milek’s cool demeanor—she hoped—as she said, “Specialist Renz, Otto, you’ll be accompanying us.” She headed for one of the transport jets and climbed into the gunner seat, gesturing for Renz to strap himself into the cargo hold with Otto.

Lieutenant Santos climbed into the flyer’s chair and shook his head. “Invisible wingjets. This is insane.”

“I know. But you’re Atalanta’s best flyers. You can handle it.” Aris strapped herself in, letting Santos run through warm-ups. They wouldn’t turn on the veiling tech until they were well away from point.

Santos scoffed, but he took the wingjet up smoothly enough. Aris even thought she caught a smile as he banked and whisked them into the darkness.

“You sure about this, Lieutenant?” Otto called from behind them.

Aris swiveled in her seat. Both Otto and Renz were holding tightly to their harnesses. “Have I ever lied to you?”

Otto shot her a look. “Well, there was that one time. You know, when you pretended to be a dude.”

“Fair enough.” Aris turned back, hiding a grin.

When she told the lieutenant to flip the veiling switch, he waited a long moment before completing her request. At night, the invisibility wasn’t nearly as dramatic as in full daylight. Still, Santos gasped when the wingjet’s nose shimmered and disappeared.

Aris’s hands itched for the controls—she wasn’t used to flying as a passenger—but the tension in her shoulders eased anyway. This is what she loved: being so close to the stars. She hoped Dysis healed quickly. She wanted to see the look in her friend’s eyes when the wingjet vanished, leaving only sky.

Lieutenant Santos guided the transport into a few experimental dips and whirls. His scowl shifted into a look of excited concentration.

Aris settled back into her seat. This was going to be fun.

Chapter 11

This time, when Galena visited the prison, no sirens wailed and no guards shuttled her into hiding. Inside Elom’s cell, she stood for a long time with her back to the secure door, two guards on either side of her. Her hands turned a thin cylindrical cannister end over end.

Elom’s voice slid like oil into the silent room. “You won’t use that.”

He sat on the edge of his bed, facing her, hands clasped casually in his lap. He was larger and more muscular than Pyralis and a good ten years younger, but his face showed the wear of a violent life. Crooked nose, hard eyes, deep ridges framing his mouth. Even now, his smugness belied the tension in his frame. He was spoiling for a fight. “Though you wish you had the strength to, don’t you? You want to hurt me. Your revenge.”

Galena stiffened. The weapon in her hand—similar to the one Elom had used to destroy her face—paused in its rotation. “Do not presume to know anything about me or what I plan to do.”

Elom stood, slowly enough that the guards did not restrain him. His bald head gleamed beneath the unforgivingly bright lights. “I know everything about you. I unmade you.”

“Does Ward Balias know how much you enjoyed torturing me?” Galena asked, even as a sickness spread through her at his words. “Is that why he trusts you? Because you’ll do whatever evil he asks of you without a second thought?”

A tiny muscle jumped at the edge of Elom’s eye. But he smiled. “Ward Balias trusts me to use my judgment. Your imprisonment was my idea.”

Galena hid her thoughts behind her scars, let nothing else show. This was why she came. Elom thought he’d unmade her, and maybe he had, but she’d spent months in a small room with him. She knew more about him than he realized.

He had an ego. He wasn’t a blind follower; he fancied himself part of the vision. In his mind, he was more than Ward Balias’s instrument. He was his own weapon.

And she could use that.

With a little flick of her finger, the cylinder in her hand spouted a tongue of blue flame. “It might have been a good idea, capturing me . . . if you’d succeeded in killing me. What did Balias say when I escaped? Did he pat you on the head with a ‘better luck next time’?”

Another twitch at the corner of his eye.

She held up the flame between them, keeping her gaze on him. “I don’t think so. I don’t think Balias rewarded you for your failure. I think he demoted you. Refused to tell you any more of his secrets. Sent you chasing after a little girl in a wingjet instead of helping him with his next plan.”

Elom’s face turned to stone.

“And you couldn’t even do that one small thing.” Her voice whispered along the walls, inescapable. “You tortured me, you captured Aris, and yet here we are. Aris and I are free. Alive. And you are trapped in this cell, your own life stolen, your own lips the ones that will finally bring Balias down.”

Elom lunged.

The guards reached him just as the shackle on his ankle clanked, jerking him back. He struggled against their restraining hands, his face inches from Galena’s, only the small lick of blue fire separating them.

“Your man will never get close to Balias,” Elom growled, his eyes bulging. “Unless he can sneak his way into the ward’s palace. Balias hasn’t granted an audience with me in months.” Some of his anger relaxed, and he stopped fighting the guards. His lips curved mockingly. “All that hard work to replace me, and my failure will be yours as well.”

The palace. The real Balias was at the palace.

Galena didn’t react, just held herself together, every breath keeping her heart from beating out of her chest.

“Balias went to great trouble to break you out of here,” she said calmly. “Why is that, do you think, if you’re of so little importance to him now?”

Elom tapped a finger to his temple, as his arrogant mask slipped back into place. “I may not carry all of his secrets, but I carry enough.”

Galena stepped back and extinguished the flame. The guards released him. She glanced toward the blank silver wall at her right, knowing the interrogators were watching. Behind her, the door slid open. Just before she turned to leave, she gave Elom a little nod. “I appreciate your cooperation. This has been very . . . enlightening.”

She didn’t wait for his reaction or listen for the rattle of his chains as she left. When the door had closed behind the guards, she turned to them. “I need you to get Ward Nekos and Lieutenant Latza on comms. Right away.”

Finally, Elom had given her something they could use.

Chapter 12

Dysis was back at Spiro. The graceful, rounded buildings shimmered in the first golden rays of dawn. The morning was serene, except for a quiet, persistent beeping.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

It was incessant. Inescapable. And somehow, she knew exactly what it was.

A bomb.

She started to run. The air held her back, thick as mud. She screamed, but the sound was swallowed instantly. The beeping grew louder. She pushed against her invisible restraints, yelled silently into the empty day. She had to warn them, she had to stop—

An explosion rocked the compound, shooting fire and ash into the sky. Dysis collapsed onto the rough tarmac, heard the whine of approaching Safaran wingjets. Wept as they bombed the stationpoint again and again.

The scene tilted and reformed. Before her, where Spiro once stood, was a crater, burnt bodies filling it, spilling out. Dysis crawled forward, tears stinging her cheeks. She should have been able to help them. She should have—

Hands gripped her shoulders, yanking her out of the dream.

“Dysis, Dysis, hey.” The voice shook her awake, just as the hands did.

She opened her eyes to find Calix above her, his face drawn with concern.

It took her all of a second to push him away. “What the hell? Back off, man.”

Calix retreated, but only to the end of her bed. He sat down, his weight pulling the sheets tight against her calves. “I’m sorry. You were screaming.” He frowned and rubbed the back of his neck, looking unnerved.

“I’m fine. You can leave now.” She shifted, trying to get comfortable. Her side still ached.

Calix studied her. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

She shrugged and tried to hold his stare, hoping she radiated calm indifference. At least this nightmare hadn’t featured Daakon, his dead eyes staring into her soul, his rotted mouth asking why she’d let him die.

The last four weeks had been an agony, partially because she wanted to fight, but also because she’d had nothing to distract her from her thoughts. Her memories. The grief that threatened to pull her down to a darkness from which she’d never escape.

Calix looked like he wanted to say something. But he stood, suddenly, and offered her a polite smile. “I’ve got some good news for you. You’ve been authorized to move to a regular room. No more sick bay.”

Dysis’s eyes widened. She sat up too quickly, and winced.

“Hold on a second.” Calix automatically reached out to help her. “You’re not active yet, by any means.” He leaned in so she was forced to meet his eyes. “No combat, no activity beyond a brisk walk. And you need to come by for a checkup every day.”

“You really know how to deliver good news,” she grumbled. Just the thought of escape made this room feel smaller. The beep of the heart monitor haunted her dreams, and that stupid scrolling image display gave her a headache.

As for Calix . . .

She didn’t need him touching her, listening to her heart. Holding her wrists in his big, callused hands to take her pulse. She needed him to stay away from her. She yanked on the sheets, trying to free her legs. The sooner she could get out of here, the better.

“Ready to get going, I see,” Calix said. He helped pull back the sheet. It was odd—Dysis almost thought she heard regret in his voice.

“Aren’t you ready to be rid of me?” When Dysis’s bare toes touched the floor, she drew them back from the cold for an instant, before setting them more firmly on the ground. “Let’s not pretend either of us enjoyed this arrangement.”

He shrugged. “I preferred it to you being dead.”

“Me too,” she admitted, almost under her breath. “You were right. . . . I’m . . . I’m glad you didn’t let me die.”

Calix raised a brow, a little dimple forming in his cheek. “What was that?”

“You heard me.” She punched his shoulder as she stood up. “Don’t push it. Who knows how I’ll feel tomorrow.” She added, “And don’t expect me to be back every day. I’ve had my share of checkups, thanks.”

Instead of protesting as she expected, a sly smile crept over his face. “I’ll just have to hunt you down then.”

For a second, they stared at each other, and Dysis wanted to grin and say, “Happy hunting.”

But that would be stupid. She didn’t—

“Dysis?” Calix had a strange look on his face, almost too focused, his leaf-green eyes pinned to her lips. He wasn’t that much taller than she was, but his broad shoulders suddenly filled the room. They were standing too close, she realized, so close her arm inadvertently brushed his, setting off tiny sparks under her skin.

“I . . .” Dysis started.

Calix cleared his throat just as Dysis shrugged away from the bed, away from him.

“So, ah, I can just leave? Is that it?” Dysis fiddled with the edge of her sleep shirt.

Calix cleared his throat again, suddenly engrossed in some data scrolling across the monitor in the corner. “That’s it. Aris told me you’ll be rooming with her and Specialist Pallas. I can show you the way.”

“That’s okay. I’ll find it.” She didn’t need any more help from him. She needed space.

“You’ll probably want to go to the cafeteria and grab some breakfast, too. No meals delivered bedside anymore.” Calix glanced up and met her eyes for just a second. “You’re not an invalid, Dysis, even if you can’t train yet. Don’t forget that.”

“Um, okay,” she murmured. It felt so strange to stand in the doorway of that room, where she’d spent the last few weeks, knowing she was leaving it for good. She looked around, but there was nothing to take with her. She hadn’t let Aris bring any of her personal belongings, not even her digitablet. She hadn’t wanted it to feel permanent.

Yet now, an odd pang shot through her.

“Bye, Calix,” she said, as she turned and walked out. If he said anything else, she didn’t hear it.

It took Dysis a few wrong turns and a friendly mender’s assistant to find the sleeping quarters. Her new room was larger than the one she’d shared with Aris and Pallas in Spiro, with the bonus of a small window on the far wall. Three cots were positioned beneath it, two with rumpled sheets, the other pristine. That must be hers. The edge of her duffle peeked out from underneath.

Dysis sank to the edge of the bed. It was nice not having Calix hovering. But here, by herself, she had the same problem she’d had while trapped in that awful med-bed.

Too much goddamn time to think.

“Someone give me something to do. Please.” She bent, head in hands, and tried to scrub out the darkness of her memories. She’d rather be doing something—anything—than waiting around for the world to end.

“As you wish.”

Dysis threw her head up so fast her neck cracked.

A tall woman stood in the doorway, her snake tattoo staring impassively into the room.

“Dianthe?” Dysis stood up. She wasn’t quite as tall, but she had more muscle. Dianthe was so thin she looked as if you could snap her just by shaking her hand, but Dysis had heard the stories of her training sessions. The woman was unbreakable.

“I heard you were being released from the sick bay today,” Dianthe said. “I have a job for you. Come on.” She turned and disappeared without waiting for a response.

“Wait!” Dysis yelled. She needed her uniform—breakfast—

But Dianthe didn’t return to the doorway.

Dysis hurried after her, self-consciously smoothing her rumpled sleep pants. Dianthe gave her no quarter for her injury, taking long strides down the hall. It was easy to get turned around; the hallways were all the same blank white, with the same glaringly bright lights above. Small signs hung at each juncture with lists of locations—cafeteria, sick bay, dorms, exit—and arrows pointing the way.

“Where are we going?” Dysis asked, embarrassed at how breathless she was.

Dianthe didn’t answer. She wove through a group of soldiers returning from morning formation without giving them time to move out of her way.

Dysis looked for Aris or Pallas, someone she knew, but didn’t see anyone familiar. Aris’s “special unit” must still be out training. Dysis hated not knowing for sure. She should be out there, with her friends. It didn’t make any sense, she knew, but somehow she couldn’t help feeling that if she were with them, she could keep them safe.

At last Dianthe slowed in a hallway labeled security. She swiped a passcard across the panel next to a door, then tapped in a four-digit number. The door slid open to reveal a small room with a bank of monitors. All of them were black except for one. A single soldier wearing earbuds hunched over the lit workstation. Dianthe touched the man’s shoulder. He jumped, looked up at her, and removed a bud.

“He just received a coded comm from his Atalantan contact,” he said. “He’s leaving for the meeting place now.” The soldier shot a look at Dysis. He was a few years older than she was, with the pale, slightly squint-eyed look of a comms agent. “Who’s this?”

“Your replacement, Lieutenant.” Dianthe waved a hand between them. “Lieutenant Raven, Specialist Latza. You’re now on eight-hour shifts with the radio. Raven, you’ve got overnights, Latza you’re on days. I’ll take the evening shift. This radio must be manned at all times. You will not miss a shift, and you will tell no one what you’re listening to. As far as the rest of the point is concerned, you’re doing boring comms work, like the rest of our techies.” She turned to Dysis. “Raven is my man, unaffiliated with Spiro or Mekia. He is the only one, aside from me and Commander Nyx, who you should trust with your reports. Do you understand?”

Dysis was still trying to catch up, but that seemed clear enough. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Raven, go get some food and some sleep. See you tonight.”

Dismissed, Lieutenant Raven nodded at the women and slipped out of the room, yawning.

When they were alone, Dianthe tapped the screen, switching the sound from the earbuds to external speakers. The thud of footsteps and swish of traffic underscored a jumble of city noise.

She glanced back at Dysis. “This feed is coming directly from the voice modulator of a veiled Atalantan agent within Safara. It’ll pick up his own voice, as well as ambient sound. He’s putting himself at great personal risk to provide us with essential intel. As soon as you hear anything of importance, particularly regarding a new weapon, or the words ‘flaming scorpion,’ you are to contact me or Commander Nyx at once, using this.” She showed Dysis the separate tech to send out a building-wide message. “If we don’t reply, send a similar message to Lieutenant Raven. Do not leave the room. This feed must be monitored at all times.”

The obvious questions rose to Dysis’s lips. “But what about food? And, you know . . .”

Dianthe pointed to a small door in the back corner. “Washroom.” And then to a small foodsaver built into the other wall. “That’s restocked every two days by me or Lieutenant Raven. No one else is authorized access to this room. I don’t care if you know them, or if they say they’re here for an important purpose. No one is allowed access.”

Dysis nodded. “It’s a secret. Protect it with my life. Got it,” she said, as she eased into the chair. Sound waves scrolled across the monitor in a dizzying, hypnotic line. The tinkle of a bell sent up spikes, and then the city noise faded and the line calmed. She thought maybe the man had walked inside a building.

“I have two minutes,” a deep voice whispered.

“Any sign of the weapon?”

Dysis choked on a gasp. Her eyes flew to Dianthe’s face. “That second voice—that’s my brother’s. Is he your operative in Safara?”

Dianthe shot her a glare. “Shh.”

The first voice rumbled, “I’ve been traveling to the different locations of the Balias doubles, as Elom had done before his capture. So far I haven’t run into the true Balias, as far as I can tell, and no one has spoken about the flaming scorpion.”

Elom? What was going on?

“Anyone seem suspicious or ask too many questions?” Jax asked.

Dysis sucked in a slow, steadying breath. If Jax was asking the questions, he was probably the asset’s handler, not the asset himself.

“There appears to be ill will toward Elom, but no one has dared doubt me. His reputation is firmly entrenched.” A louder sound echoed through the room, as if the man had swallowed. “I was asked to exact punishment on a man accused of treason. It was . . . unpleasant. I need to find the real Balias and get this done with. Before, well, before more evil is asked of us all.”

In the short pause that followed, Dysis turned to Dianthe. “Tell me what the hell is going on.”

Dianthe allowed a small smile. “Your brother noticed Lieutenant Haan’s Safaran friend, Alistar, looked quite similar to Elom. Ward Nekos used Ward Balias’s rumored desire to liberate Elom as an opportunity.”

“So the real Elom didn’t actually escape?” Dysis asked, her jaw slack. Voice modulator. Dianthe had said the feed was coming from a voice modulator. Part of a diatous veil. Alistar was impersonating Elom, and it had been her brother’s idea.

Dianthe headed for the door. “Aris can explain the finer points of the plan. She and Major Vadim are aware of the deception. But don’t speak to them about this in anyone else’s presence. And do not report what you hear to them. It must go through me or Nyx first.”

“Was Aris the one who got me the job? Did she tell you to keep me busy?” Even without looking up, Dysis could feel Dianthe’s scowl.

“Raven and I were taking twelve-hour shifts when we began monitoring because there was no one else I could trust with this information. Aris suggested I add you to the rotation. It wasn’t to keep you busy. It was because she trusts you, more than anyone else on this stationpoint. And I trust her. So I’m choosing to trust you as well.” She stalked toward the door in a swish of flowing pants and tunic. “Do not betray that trust, Specialist. It won’t be you paying the price. It’ll be all of Atalanta.”

Blighting hell. No pressure. Still, any job was better than sitting alone in her room, waiting for Aris and Pallas to return from their supersecret missions.

Dysis had a lot of questions for Aris, and eight long hours until she could ask them. She settled into the chair, the ache in her back as familiar now as an old friend, and wondered what secrets she was about to hear.

Chapter 13

Tia Pallas stepped outside into the cool, windy night. The rest of the team milled around under the lights, their bodies throwing long, humped shadows across the landing pad. Tia noted low murmurs and frequent glances toward the glass doors.

“What’s going on?” she asked, as Otto joined her.

“Rumor is we’re going on our first real mission,” he said, eyes bright.

Her stomach clenched. “An actual mission? Is there intel on this weapon we’re supposed to be finding?”

Shrugging, he said, “I heard they got some chatter over Safaran comms, but Renz swears it was full-on spy stuff. No one actually knows what the mysterious intel is. It’s all speculation, really. Probably just going to be training as usual.” With that, he wandered away to gossip with Mann.

Tia swallowed down a burning lump at the back of her throat. This was what they’d been training for. This was what she’d endured those horrible security screenings for. She could handle it. She had to.

Aris and Major Vadim strode out of the building.

“Fall in!” Major Vadim yelled.

Tia took her place in the front row, fisting her hands to keep them from shaking.

Aris’s voice broke over them. “We have our first actionable intel,” she announced, her excitement clear. “Our techies picked up chatter about the movement of a large object from one Safaran warehouse to another, in a remote location fifty miles from the Atalantan border. We believe the object is the weapon we’ve been seeking. So when you’re up in the skies, remember that tonight, we could turn the tide of the war. Let’s go!”

All around her, the small group broke protocol to cheer. Tia tried to smile, and nodded as Lieutenant Riatta clapped a hand on her shoulder, but her pulse raced fast enough to make her dizzy.

It wasn’t long before the team was up in the air. Tia was okay until Aris gave the order to flip on the veiling tech. She still couldn’t get used to flying without the visible nose of her wingjet to ground her.

Keep it together. Keep it together.

“You need to talk to Major Vadim,” Baksen said, too low for the comms to pick up. “Or Nyx. Someone. You can’t keep on like this.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Tia said, trying to inject confidence into her voice. “I’m fine.”

He grabbed her hand off the controls and held it up. In the pink glow of the nav, they both could see her fingers shaking. She yanked her hand away.

A new anxiety filled her. He wasn’t going to back off. He thought he was doing what was best for her, but he wasn’t. He would ruin everything. If they decided she wasn’t fit to fly, if they took this away from her . . .

She’d have nothing.

“When this mission is over, I’ll talk to Lieutenant Haan,” she offered reluctantly. “Not Major Vadim. As a woman, there’s already a stigma. I don’t . . . I don’t want them to send me home.”

Baksen needed something from her, so she’d give him something. But maybe Aris could help.

If they survived this mission.

“Alright. But soon, okay?” Baksen cleared his throat. “I worry about you.”

Tia nodded. She kept her eyes on the red, wingjet-shaped dots on the nav, indicating the rest of the unit. They’d been training every night to fly in formation; it was a lot harder to keep the proper distance when all of the wingjets were invisible. Everyone erred on more safe space than less, thankfully.

Still, as they crossed into Safaran airspace, Tia’s heart galloped painfully in her chest. They stayed high in the sky, above the Safaran military traffic. The farther into Safara they flew, the worse her hands shook. She kept waiting for the enemy wingjets to change course and fire at them.

Slowly, an iron band tightened across her chest.

“Keep it together,” Baksen said, echoing her internal mantra. “You’ve got this, Pallas. We’re almost there.”

That was the problem. She didn’t want to get there. She didn’t want to fight anymore. She just wanted to go home. She wanted to see her family—her mother and father, her little brother—safe and happy. But she couldn’t stop, couldn’t leave this job unfinished. Too much was at stake.

Below, a large warehouse came into view.

“This is Recon One, we have visible confirmation of the target,” Aris’s voice rang over the comms.

Tia’s reply caught in her throat. One by one the other flyers reported in. At last, Baksen added, “Recon Two has visual.” He nudged her arm.

“I’m okay,” she croaked. She took a deep breath, pressing her expanding rib cage savagely against the invisible iron that restrained her. She was a soldier. She wouldn’t let her mind shut her down. She would do what needed to be done.

“Pallas and Mann, you stay in the air and cover us,” Major Vadim ordered. “Everyone else, I need you on the ground. Lieutenant Santos, land the transport nearest the door. If the weapon is inside, we’ll need to transfer it quickly.” His voice hummed with anticipation. It was clear Major Vadim hoped their first mission would be the only one they needed to find Safara’s most dangerous weapon.

Pallas didn’t know what was waiting there for them, but she was happy to stay in the sky.

On the nav, the red dot representing Aris’s lead recon dipped. One by one, the other two recons and Lieutenant Santos’s transport found landing spots surrounding the warehouse. The building was set well beyond the nearest city, with a field of open space that made it easy to land undetected.

Tia flew in large, slow circles above, careful to avoid Mann’s trajectory. When a flash of light lit the night below them, her heart hiccupped in her throat.

“They’re taking out the guards,” Baksen murmured.

Tia nodded, but she couldn’t speak. Any second, there’d be a full-on skirmish. A weapon this important wouldn’t be protected by a couple of guards. Surely there was an army inside.

Below them, the darkness was interrupted by a few security lights. No flashes of solagun fire, and above—here in the sky—there was no sign of reinforcements. Tia looked up at the swirling stars. What would it be like to fly up there, the cold and silence absolute?

A voice crackled over comms. “Lots of Military equipment here, but no bomb. Looks like it wasn’t the right shipment.” Major Vadim’s disappointment was evident. “Stand by to return to Mekia.”

A thread of relief unraveled the iron cage crushing her lungs. There would be no fight tonight. They were all going home.

Chapter 14

After dinner, Aris headed back to her room. She found Pallas sitting on the edge of her bed, head in hands.

“Everything okay?” Aris asked. With a sigh, she flopped onto her own cot and unzipped her jacket. She only had a few minutes before she was due to meet Milek in the Officer’s Lounge, but it felt good to get off her feet.

Pallas raised her chin, revealing pale cheeks streaked with the trails of tears.

“Tia?” Aris sat up and leaned closer. “What’s wrong?”

Pallas wiped at her face almost savagely. Dark moons marred the skin beneath her eyes. When had she gotten so thin? Aris suddenly took note of the bony angles of Pallas’s elbows, the narrowness of her shoulders.

“I . . . I want to tell you,” Pallas said haltingly. “But I don’t know what’s wrong. Not really.”

Aris studied the girl’s expression, searching for her own answers. “Sometimes it helps to talk. My grandmother used to call it ‘holding your worries to the light.’”

Pallas took a deep breath, and then the words poured out of her, fast and messy, clogged with unshed tears. “I can’t stop my hands from shaking every time I climb into a wingjet. I have these visions. . . . I’ll be sitting in the rec room or the cafeteria, minding my own business, when I look up and the dead are staring back at me. I can’t take a full breath. I . . . I can’t sleep, or hardly think. Every moment, I’m waiting for the sound of explosions or solagun fire, even when I’m alone in my room. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

Aris found her own heart racing as Pallas talked. It wasn’t that long ago that she’d been haunted by her own demons, her own shaking hands.

“I went through something similar after Ward Vadim’s rescue,” Aris said. “And it’s hard. I couldn’t fly for three months. In my case, it helped, I think, to have a break. I can arrange for you to take medical leave—”

“No.” Panic filled Pallas’s face, widening her eyes and tightening the skin around her mouth. “Please don’t send me away. I need to be here. I need to do my job. It’s the only thing keeping me from falling apart entirely.”

Her vehemence was surprising; Aris had expected a protest but not genuine fear. Still, Aris couldn’t discount the reaction. Her own break had been forced. Maybe she would have recovered faster if she’d been allowed to stay with her unit.

“Is there anything that makes you feel safe?” Aris asked, looking for other solutions.

Pallas rubbed a hand across her forehead as she stared at the floor. After a moment, she shook her head.

Aris put a hand on her shoulder. “Keep thinking about it. When you find the thing that brings you comfort, hold on to it in your mind. Lift it up. Let it be a ward against the fear and pain.”

Pallas met her gaze for a few seconds before looking away again. “Thank you, Aris. I mean Lieu—”

“Aris is fine in here, Pallas. I’m your friend. You can talk to me anytime.” She patted her shoulder again. “I have to go meet Major Vadim. Evening formation isn’t for a while yet. Why don’t you take a rest?”

As Aris headed down the hall, Pallas’s words followed her. The dead are staring back at me. She probably should talk to Commander Nyx. Pallas’s inner turmoil had been a concern with her psych eval, but she’d seemed to have a handle on it. If it was bad enough, though, it could compromise the safety of the rest of the team. On the other hand, Aris understood Pallas’s panic at the prospect of leaving. She’d come here to do a job, and the thought that she might have to give that up . . . for all Aris knew, it could make Pallas’s anxiety and depression worse. Pallas knew what they were up against, and if she were home, she’d be powerless to fight it.

If she wanted to try to work through this, Aris respected that. She’d keep a closer eye on her, try to help her along. If things got really bad, Aris would make the call then.

Mekia’s Officer’s Lounge was much larger than Spiro’s, with several sagging couches and low tables. A bank of digitablet ports clustered beneath a large monitor showed nothing but endless, depressing news vids with the sound off. Quiet music provided a counterpoint to the hum of conversation. Late afternoon sunshine arced through the windows, drawing golden lines along the floor.

Aris headed to the boxy, faded blue couch in the back, away from a group of officers shouting over a splots game, and sank down next to Milek.

“There you are,” he said, breaking into a smile. “I was about to do a little S and R to find you.”

Aris relaxed into the cushions. “Pallas wanted to talk. She’s been having some trouble recently, since the Spiro bombing, I think. Bad dreams, shaking hands . . .”

“Do you want me to talk to her?” Milek asked, concern lacing his words.

Aris bumped his knee with hers. “It’s okay. I know what she’s going through. I can help her.” I hope.

Milek slumped down, resting his head on the back of the couch. “Nice to have a minute to breathe, eh?”

Aris wished she could reach out and hold his hand. It’d been days since their last “briefing” in a storage closet at the quiet end of the stationpoint. Instead, she leaned her head back, too, though she feared that if she closed her eyes for even a minute, she’d fall asleep. The late-night training sessions and missions were taking their toll.

From the corner of the room came a shout; the splots game was getting rowdy. A few menders stretched out on various pieces of furniture, eyes drooping or full-on sleeping, oblivious to the noise.

“I think we need the night off,” Aris said as she stared at the tired menders, thinking of the circles under Pallas’s eyes. “The whole unit. Can we swing it?”

“There’s no new intel,” Milek replied. “And last night’s mission went smoothly, even without our desired outcome. I think a night off is a good idea.” He picked his head up from the back of the couch and looked into her eyes.

“I hear Dysis has moved back into your room,” he added. “Maybe tonight would be a good time to talk to Commander Helos about our, uh, living situation.”

The heat in his gaze sent an answering fire scorching through her. “That’s an intriguing thought.”

Pallas needed support, but Dysis would be there to keep an eye out. And what Aris needed, what made her feel safe, was falling asleep in Milek’s arms.

He stood, a new energy in his movements. “I’ll go inform Commander Nyx that we’re canceling training. We can announce it when the unit meets for evening formation. Then I’ll go find Commander Helos.”

Aris’s exhaustion dissipated as quickly as smoke. She stood, too. “I’ll go get my things together, see if I can hunt down Dysis and let her know. Her shift should be over soon.”

Milek nudged her shoulder, his expression oddly boyish. “This is good. It’s time, right?”

Just as Aris and Milek moved toward the door, a voice rang over the intercom. “Major Vadim and Lieutenant Haan to Commander Nyx’s office immediately.”

Aris could barely contain her groan. Milek slumped. “Figures,” he muttered.

So much for their plans.

***

“A Safaran wingjet was seen near Feln,” Commander Nyx said as soon as Milek and Aris entered her office, which looked remarkably like the one she’d had at Spiro, though the addition of a window gave it a less claustrophobic feel. “It’s probably nothing, but I want you to check it out.”

“The full unit?” Milek asked.

Commander Nyx shook her head. “No, but take an invisible recon. If it’s a spy, I’d like you to follow, see what he’s up to.”

“Yes, sir,” Aris said. Her brain was busy shifting gears from excitedly planning an evening alone with Milek—preferably in bed—to planning the mission. She couldn’t entirely squelch her disappointment. Hopefully Commander Nyx would assume her frown was one of concentration.

At least the rest of the team would get a break.

As soon as Nyx dismissed them, they headed down the hall toward the landing pad.

Outside their recon, Milek reached for her hand. In the windy dusk, their faces were gilded by the fading light. Aris gripped his fingers tightly, trying to tell herself that this small connection was enough. And it was. For now, at least.

“It won’t always be like this, you know,” Milek said, as if reading her thoughts.

Aris raised a brow. “You mean back-to-back missions and constant danger?” Truthfully, it was hard to imagine their lives any other way.

He smiled, his scar hitching. “Yeah. Someday we’ll fly off just to watch the sunset.”

“Or to Panthea to see a show.” Aris leaned up and kissed him, the feel of his lips against hers threatening to drive every thought from her mind. Reluctantly, she drew away. “Someday.”

It was a short flight to Feln, but full darkness had fallen by the time they arrived. Aris employed the veiling tech and did a sweep of the skies around the stationpoint, looking for the Safaran wingjet. Several miles away from Feln, there was still no sign of the enemy jet.

“Why did he leave the area so quickly?” Aris asked, after another sweep came up empty.

“We need to know exactly where the wingjet was spotted,” Milek said. “Perhaps it’ll give us a hint at what he was looking for. Let’s go talk to Feln’s commander.”

With a nod, Aris banked, sliding over the quiet forest as invisible as a ghost. A few miles from the stationpoint, she flipped off the invisibility. Though she’d come to enjoy the sensation of being so close to the sky, she was still relieved at the sight of the jet’s nose reappearing. She let out a little breath.

“Flying this thing is an act of faith.” Milek settled back into his chair. “We’re asked to believe in something that cannot be seen and trust that it’s still there, holding us up.”

Aris let out a little laugh. “You sound like a philosopher.”

He shrugged. “Or someone deeply uncomfortable with his faith,” he said, a rueful smile in his voice.

A few minutes later, they touched down on Feln’s wide landing pad. It had been months since Aris had been here. The mender stationpoint was smaller than Mekia, and farther from the heaviest fighting. They’d often transported the soldiers they’d rescued here.

As Aris landed, it felt strange not to see the bustle of menders and their assistants rushing the wingjet, inquiring after the wounded. Instead, only Commander Stone was waiting.

“Thank you for coming so quickly,” he said, when Aris and Milek jumped down onto the tarmac.

Milek saluted. “We didn’t see any enemy forces. We’ll need the exact coordinates of where the Safaran wingjet was seen, so we can take a closer look.”

Commander Stone nodded, his slick, black hair catching the glow of the nearest floodlight. “We’ve got the data for you. Right this way.”

As they turned toward the doors, a sound like a low crack of thunder filled the air. And, in a rush, the center of the building exploded in flames.

Chapter 15

The blast threw Aris to the ground next to Milek. And then screams rent the night.

“A bomb, just like at Spiro,” Milek shouted. “That means—”

They stared at each other, the same realization hitting them at once. Aris staggered to her feet and grabbed Commander Stone’s shoulder. “Evacuate your people right now. Get them out of here by ground, not in the air. As fast as you can.” Her gaze flew to the edges of the landing pad, which were lost in darkness. Beyond, at the center of the stationpoint, flames illuminated the night sky. “How many wingjets do you have?”

Stone shook his head, his eyes wide and staring. “Two med-jets and a transport, that’s all. We’re a mender stationpoint, we’re not equipped—”

“Get those jets in the air and prepared for combat,” Milek barked. He ran back to their wingjet, Aris following closely at his heels.

She flung herself into the cabin, hands flying over the nav panel to begin the start-up sequence. Beside her, Milek commed Commander Nyx. “A bomb inside Feln, like Spiro . . . attack imminent . . . backup . . .”

Aris didn’t pay attention to his report. She focused every ounce of energy on getting the wingjet in the sky, being up there to protect Feln. She pulled into a hover, just as a handful of soldiers ran onto the landing pad. She willed them to move faster.

The Safarans would be here any moment.

“Invisible or no?” she asked hurriedly.

“No,” Milek replied. “We’ll need to coordinate with the Feln flyers. Too much risk going invisible.”

Aris turned on the heat-seeking tech to help warn them of incoming Safaran fighters and shot toward the southwest, the direction from which enemy forces would likely arrive. No hot spots showed up yet. Milek scrambled to initiate comms with the other jets.

“Backup from Mekia is fifteen minutes away,” he said. “Commander Nyx is going to call up some wingjets from the nearest combat unit as well. But—”

“But they won’t arrive any sooner. So we need to hold the Safarans off. For fifteen minutes.” Aris tightened her hands around the controls.

“Feln Recon One coming in,” a voice said over comms, just as a flash of red lit the nav. It was the only warning Aris had—the darkness hid all visible signs of the black Safaran jets.

“There are seven, no, ten . . . I can’t count them all.” Aris flashed panicked eyes from the nav to the night sky.

Fifteen minutes. That’s all you need.

She dove and spun, flipping upside down beneath the incoming jets. Milek was ready, blasting a volley of fire before the enemy had time to change course. Two wingjets were hit. One fell out of the sky, its tail burning red. The other kept flying. The remaining wingjets sent out a round of fire but stayed in formation.

“They’re not coming after us,” Aris yelled. She flipped upright and twisted to follow them. “Why aren’t they engaging?”

“Recon One, at least twelve wingjets heading your way,” Milek reported. Then he tapped the button to mute his next words. “They’ve been ordered to bomb Feln. They won’t engage unless we make them.”

“Then let’s make them.” Aris zipped above the formation this time, and Milek shot another of the wingjets. It exploded on its way to the ground.

Three new blotches of heat appeared on the nav.

“Engage as many as you can,” Milek said to the flyers from Feln. “We need to draw them away from the stationpoint.”

“Will do, sir.”

Even Aris could hear the wobble in the man’s voice. These flyers were trained for transferring the most gravely injured patients to the larger mender clinics closer to Panthea, not for combat.

Aris dove toward the Safaran wingjets, trying to drive them out of alignment. Milek kept the guns firing. Eyes narrowed, Aris used her recon to pierce the night like an avenging angel. The Safarans would move.

And, sure enough, they did. Aris nearly hit one of the jets before it peeled away and out of the range of her guns. After that, it was chaos.

The Feln flyers joined the fight, their weaponry lighting the sky. Aris stayed above the fray as much as she could, warning the others before she dipped to draw more of the Safaran jets away. Just beyond the stationpoint, the enemy finally broke formation and returned fire.

Aris whooped as two jets followed her up toward the stars.

She dodged and spun and dove, drawing them with her into a deadly dance. The night air swished against the glass above her head, and all around them, guns flashed like fireferns.

“We’ve got two wingjets on our tail,” Milek reported to the others. “Keep drawing out the rest.”

Aris dipped, just in time to see a red-orange explosion fill the black.

“Damn.” Milek slammed the glass with the side of his fist. “That was one of ours.”

Aris’s stomach sank with sorrow. Two more Atalantans dead.

Their odds in this fight hadn’t been good, but now they were only three wingjets against at least seven, possibly even ten.

A flash skimmed along their flank. Aris spun and set Milek up for a shot. He took down one of the wingjets following them.

“Recon Two and Transport One, keep at them. Stay light and watch your backs.” Milek’s voice had the ringing calm of a commander, but the glow of the nav illuminated the tension in his hands.

“How long has it been?” she asked as two more Safaran wingjets chased them down. She wove through their fire like a darting fish, the panicked beeping of the nav guiding her, but she wouldn’t last much longer without support. There was an element of luck to avoidance; at some point she’d spin the wrong way, or they’d send more wingjets to overwhelm her.

“Five minutes,” Milek bit out, as he unleashed another volley.

Five minutes?

It had felt like fifty.

Just then, one of the red blips on the screen streaked out of range of the nav. Toward Feln.

“Did you see that?” Aris gasped. She dove again, twisted out of the line of an enemy missile. “One of the jets—it’s broken away. Heading for the stationpoint.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Milek’s helmet tilt into a nod. “Can you lose these guys?”

“Yes, sir.” Aris spiraled higher into the sky, saying a prayer for the Feln flyers. Once she disengaged, they’d be on their own, severely outnumbered and outmatched.

The dark embraced them, burning points of stars above and the raging, red-edged flashes of wingjet fire below.

“A little more distance, there you go . . .” Milek said.

Aris continued climbing, her body weighted back in the seat, hands damp on the controls. “What’s the plan?”

“On my mark . . .” Milek eyed the nav closely. The beeping of an incoming missile exploded around them. His hands flashed on the gunner controls.

“Go invisible! Now!” he shouted.

Aris flipped the switch. Just below them, the two missiles collided, making the wingjet shiver and shake. She eased out of her precipitous climb, leveling off and slowing.

None of the wingjets followed.

She laughed. “You made them think we’d been blown up.”

In the light of the nav, she could see his grin peeking around the edge of his helmet. “I knew we couldn’t go invisible with them watching. But a little well-timed explosion . . .”

Aris sped up, streaking toward Feln.

“If we shoot the wingjet, they’ll know we have advanced tech. There will be no other explanation.” Aris said, her voice low. At the edge of the nav, the Safaran wingjet came into view.

“Not if we destroy them,” Milek said, his voice tight.

Aris reached the wingjet seconds before it flew over Feln. Milek took the shot, and the enemy fell in a blazing sphere of light. It hit just beyond Feln’s landing pad, taking several trees down with it. Their black branches reached above the fire like skeletal hands.

Aris swept away, her stomach tight.

“So this is where the party is,” came Lieutenant Riatta’s cheerful voice over the comms.

Fifteen minutes.

Their reinforcements were here.

Chapter 16

Fifty floors up, Galena looked out onto Panthea in awe. The city was a galaxy, lights glittering like millions of stars in the inky night. She ignored the reflection of her scarred face in the glass; it threatened to ruin the view.

The room behind her was opulent: delicate marble archways, thick carpet the color of fresh basilis leaves, pristine white chairs and sofas clustered around gold-filigreed tables. It was a room for news conferences and cocktail parties for Panthea’s elite.

Tonight it hosted a war meeting.

“They’re targeting our noncombat facilities,” Pyralis was saying. “Why?”

Galena turned away from the window. “Is it that surprising that Ward Balias is trying to take out your support points?”

Across from Pyralis sat Commander Freni, whose weathered face was shadowed by grizzled stubble, and Commander Quin, who pushed his glasses up his narrow nose. Lieutenant Latza stood off to one side.

At least Milek and Aris had saved Feln, or most of it. Several people died in the initial blast, but the toll was much smaller than it would have been if the Safaran air raid had succeeded.

Galena bit back a sigh. As always, even with good news, there was a thread of bad running through it.

Gods, I’m tired of the bad.

She was scheduled to travel to Ruslana in the morning, to meet with her own advisors and commanders, and she was already dreading it. Everyone wanted solutions, and all she came to them with was problems.

“I think the bigger concern, Wards, is how.” Commander Freni’s face twisted into angry lines. “As with Spiro, a bomb blew within Feln’s walls. Before the attack began.”

“Was it a spy?” Pyralis rolled a stylus between his fingers, a nervous habit. “I thought we’d concluded the man died by his own bomb in the Spiro attack.”

Commander Quin cleared his throat. “Truthfully, we don’t know. We thought the leak was isolated to Spiro, but now—”

“Now we’re back to square one.” Galena moved away from the wall of glass, pausing behind a high-backed velvet chair a few steps away. Her frustration spilled out. “And we’re facing an enemy who has no respect for human life or the rules of war. Ward Balias has entrapped his own people, abused his dominion’s children. He’s abducted a foreign leader, used spies to weaken our defenses, and is developing a weapon that will destroy us all. And how have we responded?” She pounded her fist on the back of the chair. “With weakness! We need more. We need to use his methods against him.”

Pyralis twisted to stare at her. “What do you mean?”

Galena clutched the chair with white-knuckled hands. A wellspring of righteous fury bubbled from deep within her, overshadowing everything else. “I mean ending trade with Castalia until Ward Rosum agrees to send troops to our aid. I mean bombing Safara’s power grid. I mean assassinating Balias.” She stared at Atalanta’s commanders, both of whom were turned toward Pyralis, gauging his reaction. “Safara is winning because Balias is ruthless. That’s what we need to be.”

“The Peace Accords—” Pyralis began.

“I don’t care. We don’t have the luxury of honor anymore.” Galena’s jaw snapped shut. Maybe she’d been spending too much time in Elom’s cell after all. But she was tired of being on the defensive. Tired of constantly being one step behind. “We’ve already killed some of the Balias doubles. Let’s kill the real man. We know where he is now.”

Pyralis’s shock unsettled her, but she hardened herself to it. This was war. One they had to win.

“Where is Alistar?” Galena asked, turning her gaze from Pyralis to Lieutenant Latza. “Has he made any progress?”

Latza’s expression remained impassive. “He’s reached the palace and requested an audience with Ward Balias. The meeting is set for tomorrow.”

“Good,” Galena stated. “Have him do it.”

Pyralis stood up abruptly. “That’s not your call. You may be an ally, but this war is Atalanta’s.”

For a long minute they stared each other down, as much adversaries as they were ever allies.

With a dangerous edge to her voice, she began, “If we take him out—”

“We’ll ensure retaliation. Against Alistar and Atalanta.” Pyralis made his way to her, ignoring everyone else in the room. He stopped on the other side of the chair. “We need to find the bomb first. Killing Balias won’t stop the invasion while they still hold all the cards. You know this.”

Galena’s wave of frustration and anger began to wane. He was right. This wasn’t her dominion. She’d made it Ruslana’s fight, yes, but Pyralis would choose how far to go.

“What if Alistar can’t get the location of the weapon?” she asked, her voice softer. “What reason does Balias have to trust ‘Elom’ now, after his fall out of favor? If Alistar kills him, at least we’ll have struck a major blow. Their military will be in disarray. Perhaps the Safarans opposed to the war will rise up. Our ‘Elom’ could take over the leadership and broker peace.”

Pyralis shook his head, but he no longer stared at her as if she were a stranger. “It’s a pleasing thought. But it’s a risk we can’t take until we have the bomb.”

She opened her mouth to tell him what she thought of the risk of not acting, but he held up a hand. “We have to give our operative the chance to get the intel.” Pyralis stepped closer, never breaking eye contact, as if willing her to understand.

Galena leaned against the back of the chair, suddenly tired. She felt the threads of the war slipping away from them. No matter what they did, Balias always seemed to stay out ahead.

Lieutenant Latza cleared his throat.

“Yes, Lieutenant?” Pyralis didn’t turn around.

“Alistar isn’t going into his meeting with Ward Balias empty-handed.” The Lieutenant gave Galena an earnest look. “Alistar will share intel with Balias, enough to get back into his good graces. Ward Nekos authorized the plan.”

Galena flicked her gaze to Pyralis. “What intel?”

Pyralis headed back to the table. “He’s going to tell Balias we know about the bomb, that we questioned him about it.”

Her eyes widened. “Won’t that give Balias an even bigger advantage?”

Latza shook his head. “It’s sound intel that Balias can use other spies to back up. It’ll help Alistar gain his trust. And if Balias thinks the weapon is threatened, he’ll send more troops to defend it, or he’ll transfer it to a safer location. Between Alistar and our other channels, we’ll know when and where . . . and we’ll make our move.”

Looking around at the men gathered in the room, Galena tried to accept that this was all they could do. They’d put their trust in Alistar, in this plan. Perhaps more drastic measures wouldn’t be necessary.

Pyralis glanced at her over his shoulder before turning back to the commanders. “Thank you, gentlemen. That will be all.” Pyralis waited for them to close the door before he got up and returned to Galena’s side. “What was that?”

She turned away from him, to look once more at the glittering city. She was trying to save all this, just like he was. “I apologize,” she said. “I should have shared my concerns with you privately first.”

She wished Pyralis would take her back to his house, where they could sit on the balcony, blanketed by the night, and try to slough away the jagged shards of this day.

“I’ve never heard you speak like that,” Pyralis continued. “What you suggested . . .”

Galena abandoned the view for the man beside her. She stepped up to him, cupping his face in her hands. “What I suggested may become a necessity. Can’t you see that? We may have to be ruthless. Brutal. In the end, it could be the only thing that saves us.”

She waited for him to answer, willed him to understand. She would do anything to protect this dominion. Even if it meant becoming a monster.

Chapter 17

By the time Aris and Milek returned from Feln and the post-mission briefings concluded, it was nearly midnight. Aris crept into her bedroom as quietly as she could. Dysis and Pallas were already asleep, buried under blankets on their cots.

Instead of climbing into her own bed, she shuffled around the room gathering her nightclothes and a fresh uniform for tomorrow. Milek hadn’t gotten a chance to speak with Commander Helos about sharing a room, but they’d decided to sneak a night together anyway.

She closed her trunk slowly, but the snick of the latch sounded loud in the silent room. One of the figures shifted in the bed and sighed. Hurriedly, Aris rolled her clothes into a bundle and slipped into the washroom for her toothbrush and face towel.

“Aris?”

Startled, Aris turned, expecting to see Dysis in the doorway, but it was Pallas.

“Everything okay?” Aris whispered.

“We heard there was an attack on Feln.” The blue safety lights that ran along the floor of the washroom gave Pallas’s face an unhealthy glow. “Did you get there in time?”

“Almost.” She hated the fear reflected in Pallas’s eyes. “We stopped the attack, but a bomb blew within the stationpoint, just like at Spiro. A few people died.”

Pallas drew into herself, and the dim light picked up tears against her cheek. “This is never going to end, is it? We’ll keep fighting until they kill us all.”

Aris gave the girl’s arm a squeeze. “No. We’ll keep fighting until Balias is dead. Until we’re all free.” The faces of the Safaran villagers—Samira, Alistar, Kori—flashed through her mind. “All of us.”

“I’m not sure the nightmares will ever let me go,” Pallas said, sorrow lining every word. Before Aris could answer, Pallas turned back and sank into her bed.

As Aris walked down the hall, her footsteps echoed the jerky beat of her heart. How long would the memories haunt them? Would the faces of the dead fade eventually? Did she want them to? Aris wouldn’t ask for those she’d lost to disappear from her mind completely. But she didn’t want her life to be defined by the ghosts that walked with her either.

By the time she reached Milek’s door, she was brittle with unshed tears, in danger of shattering.

Milek was waiting for her with a smile when the door slid open.

He faltered at her expression, but she didn’t pause. In the space of a breath, her arms were locked around his neck and her lips pressed hungrily to his. There was no need to talk. Their bodies knew what to say.

She pushed against him, forcing him away from the door, telling him with her wandering hands that she wanted him. Needed him. He was her safety. She craved his warmth, his breath, his beating heart.

He answered her with the desperate pressure of his mouth, the restlessness of his own fingers over her back, her waist, the zipper of her jacket.

Aris ripped his jacket off and threw it on the floor, reveling in the feel of his skin, the rough slide of his midnight stubble, the scent and taste of him. His hands smoothed over her skin as his teeth nipped at her bottom lip, asking for more.

Aris nudged him toward the bed. He twisted, arms around her, and then she was falling backward into a pile of sheets, the cot’s springs squeaking as they took her weight. Milek followed, easing onto her. She wrapped her legs around him, her hands skimming his naked back. His mouth trailed lines of fire along her collarbone, her throat, her ear.

“I want you,” Milek whispered, his breath tickling her sensitive skin. “When we’re together, everything else disappears.”

As their bodies moved together in the dark, Aris let her doubts and demons sleep.

***

“Tell me something about your past,” Aris whispered later, when they both hovered at the edge of sleep. “Something that has nothing to do with the war.”

Milek adjusted her head more comfortably on his chest. He didn’t answer right away, so she listened to the slow, steady beat of his heart.

“Daakon and I knew each other as kids, did I ever tell you that?” His voice rumbled under her ear.

At Daakon’s name, Aris’s heart lurched. Milek didn’t have the luxury of letting the war go. It had taken his father, his best friend, and it had scarred his mother nearly beyond recognition.

“No. I didn’t realize,” Aris murmured.

He shifted so they lay facing each other. She was surprised to see him smiling. He touched the thin pink scar that ran from the corner of his eye to his mouth. “See this? Makes me look very menacing, right?”

She nodded, curious at his amusement. “Like a warrior.”

“It happened when I was twelve.” At Aris’s widened eyes, he laughed. “Everyone assumes it’s a battle scar, which it kind of is, but not this kind of battle.”

“What happened?” she asked.

“Daakon and I had the brilliant idea to use icicles for swords and practice fencing.”

Aris wrinkled her nose. “Icicles? How could an icicle leave a scar?”

“In early spring in Ruslana, everything starts to melt, and then we have these hard, deep freezes. . . . The icicles hanging from roofs can be as long as I am tall. Every year a few people die from falling ice.” Milek ran a gentle hand up and down her bare arm as he spoke.

Aris studied him, jaw slack, wondering if he was teasing her. In Lux, nothing ever froze. Once, when she was small, a few snowflakes fell and the whole village went outside to watch. Some of her parents’ friends still talked about it.

“So you used icicles—big, giant icicles—as swords. What happened? Daakon cut you?”

Milek grinned. “We were dumb and didn’t realize how sharp they were. Or how slick the snow under our feet was. I slipped and he grabbed at me to help, but he forgot to drop his ‘sword’ first. So, you know . . . slice.”

Aris shuddered. “That’s horrible. You’re lucky you didn’t lose your eye.” She ran a finger down the thin line and along his lips.

“My mother wanted to rush me to the clinic—there was blood everywhere, bright against all the white snow, but I told her not to worry.” Milek bumped his forehead gently against Aris’s, where her own scar began. “Back then, I thought girls liked scars.”

“Well, this one does.” She kissed him softly, aware of the sadness that lurked beneath his lighthearted tone. His hand slipped to her back, drawing her closer for a tight hug, before he rolled over and fell quickly, easily to sleep.

Aris curled up against his back and listened to his even breathing for a long time, wishing their scars didn’t run quite so deep.

Chapter 18

Dysis shoveled a spoonful of sticky porridge into her mouth, just as Otto belched loudly enough to be heard over the din of the cafeteria.

“Really? Could you be more disgusting?” she asked.

He grinned proudly and opened his mouth to reply. She rolled her eyes. “No, don’t say it. I know you can.”

Specialist Renz, one of the new recruits for Aris’s special team, snickered. He and Otto had become fast friends. As far as she could tell, they’d bonded over their mutual appreciation of food and poor attempts at humor. The guy was big and loud, with a talent for creating awkward moments.

“Are you sure, Latza?” Renz asked now, his eyes twinkling. “Perhaps a competition?”

“Deciding what?” she retorted. “Who can make the most horrible noises? No thank you.”

Next to her, Pallas kept her head down. She hadn’t eaten much. Baksen was just as serious. There was a strange tension between them; Dysis wondered if their relationship had moved beyond flyer and gunner. Or if one of them wanted it to.

On Dysis’s other side, Aris bolted down her breakfast. She wasn’t paying much attention to Otto and Renz’s shenanigans either. Her eyes were still sleepy, but there was an energy to her every movement. Dysis didn’t need help figuring out why; she’d seen Aris’s empty bed this morning.

“You sure look well rested, Lieutenant,” Dysis couldn’t resist pointing out.

Aris choked on her tea.

Specialist Mann, who happened to be walking by, pounded her helpfully on the back. Dysis smirked. But as she watched Mann continue to the cafeteria line, still limping slightly on his injured ankle, she was filled with a strange sense of something being off. Something about the way he walked . . .

“Dysis, you alright?” Aris asked. As she spoke, the rest of them turned their gaze on Dysis, their eyes filling with concern. Even Renz, whom she’d known for less than a week.

As calmly as she could, Dysis said, “Yeah. Just fine.”

But the moment had broken for her. Her porridge was an unappetizing mess, her comfort within this room, with these people, shattered. She was still the invalid, still the one they worried over.

She stood abruptly, ignoring the ache in her side. “My shift’s about to start. See you later.”

As she turned to leave, she saw regret flash across Aris’s face. She didn’t want to push Aris away. She didn’t mean to be so gruff and ungrateful. But there was nothing she hated more than pity.

At least she was out of the sick bay now and had some kind of job to go to.

At least—

She skidded to a halt. Another soldier bumped into her with an annoyed “Hey!” She ignored him. Calix stood in the doorway of the cafeteria, blocking her path.

“Hey, Dysis. You were just on your way to see me, right?”

Blighting hell.

“I have to get to work,” she said, balking.

“This won’t take long.” He took off down the hall, and she grudgingly followed. If she didn’t go, he’d find her later anyway.

“It’s been a week.” He turned back to glare reproachfully at her. There was something else in his eyes, something she couldn’t quite read. “I told you I needed to see you every day.”

“Sorry, I’ve been busy with my new job. They found a place for an invalid after all.” She stretched her gait, speeding up to draw alongside him. Following wasn’t her style.

Several white-clad menders passed them but no one in Military uniform. All of her comrades were still in the cafeteria or the rec room before morning formation.

Calix waited until they were alone again to speak. “I told you. You’re not an invalid.”

“Yeah, yeah.” She waved a hand. Why did he care so much, anyway?

Eventually, they reached the med wing. He gestured to an empty examination room. She climbed onto the cold metal table in the center, leaving her legs to dangle over the side.

When Calix closed the door, Dysis felt a little jump under her skin. He turned toward her but didn’t approach. The white tunic made his skin look darker, and his eyes more green. Her gaze flitted away to fix on the wall behind him. “Let’s get this over with.”

“How are you feeling?” he asked, but he didn’t move closer.

“Fine,” she snapped automatically. Gods, she was tired of that question.

“That’s not good enough,” he replied, his own voice going hard. “I need you to tell me the truth.”

She sighed. Drumming her hands on her thighs, she elaborated. “I do feel fine, for the most part. Still weaker than I’d like, and it hurts when I sit up and when I twist.”

He came closer. His fingertips found the sensitive spot on the inside of her wrist, and for a few seconds, they were linked by warm skin and the steady thrum of her heart. When he let go, her hand fell back to her knee.

“A sharp pain or a dull ache?” He gestured to her jacket, and reluctantly, she unzipped and removed it.

“Dull,” she said. She lifted the edge of her shirt.

He removed the bandage that covered half of her back, and then pressed gently against her skin, testing the sutures, she knew, and looking for any indication of infection.

“How does this feel?” he asked, as his fingers slid across her lower back.

Good. The thought shuddered through her like an earthquake, entirely unexpected. She forced her gaze to stay on the wall. This room didn’t have the scrolling vid strip. For once, she actually wished for it. She needed a distraction. “Nothing hurts. Not right now, anyway.”

“Were you avoiding me?” he asked, so quietly she almost didn’t hear him. “Is that why you didn’t come for your follow-ups?”

“No, I . . . I wouldn’t,” she stuttered, thrown off. “Why would I want to avoid you?”

He stepped back, so they were face-to-face. He waited until she looked at him. “The last time, I thought . . . never mind.”

He turned away and went to the monitor that sat on a desk in the corner. His fingers flew across its surface, presumably updating her chart. “The site of surgery is healing nicely. Come back next week for another check. I might be able to clear you for some light jogging, so find the time, okay?”

Dysis lowered her shirt and shrugged into her jacket, as she tried to work out what was going on. “Wait a second,” she said. She pushed off the table and followed him. “Why would I avoid you? And why would you care, Calix?”

He didn’t look at her. “Forget it. You’re all done. You can—”

“No. Tell me.” She pulled on his shoulder, forcing him to turn around, even as her brain shouted at her to get out of there. “What do you think happened last time?”

For a split second, he looked like a cornered animal, desperate to flee. And then he stepped toward her, invading her personal space, moving so close his tunic brushed her jacket and his breath fell softly against her face. “This. This happened.”

He stood there, so close, and his eyes locked onto her lips and her heart beat fast, fast, faster, and she waited for him to explain what this was, because she really wanted to blighting know. But he didn’t. He didn’t say anything else, or move, and she couldn’t breathe.

Oh, damn.

Dysis shattered the tension, her hands grabbing at his shoulders as her lips touched his.

Calix pulled back, and for a second Dysis thought she might cry. Of course he pulled away. They all did. There was always something wrong with her: wrong gender, wrong girl, wrong, wrong, wrong.

She opened her mouth to say something angry and cutting, something to hide her disappointment, but his hands slid up the sides of her neck to her cheeks, cupping her face. The words froze in her throat. He captured her gaze, his eyes serious, the pupils fully dilated.

And then slowly, he brought his lips to hers.

It wasn’t a kiss of desperation. It wasn’t the wild, reckless thing she started.

This was deliberate, his lips moving with purpose as he teased her tongue with his. He kissed her as if he meant to. The slow parting of lips, the pauses to be sure she was kissing him back . . . he was demanding that she be present. That she acknowledge what was happening.

This kiss couldn’t be thrown aside as a mistake or random impulse.

Something inside Dysis melted. She told herself she didn’t want this, even as her arms snaked around his shoulders, even as her body fluttered and filled with heat.

His fingers threaded through her hair and the gentleness of his movements ceded to a new urgency. He pressed into her and she stepped backward, once, twice, drawing him with her, until her back touched the wall. Their bodies started moving together, his breath ragged against her lips.

She kissed him harder, excited by the knowledge that he was losing control. But when her hands slipped under his tunic, he groaned and drew away.

For a long moment, they stared at each other, their panting breath the only sound. Calix’s cheeks were flushed, his full lips parted. She was close enough that she could pick out the gold in the green of his eyes.

Dysis tried to think of something to say, but nothing seemed to be working right in her brain.

“This will be complicated,” Calix said softly. He put his hands on her waist, another deliberate movement.

“Oh Gods. Aris.” Already, the happy haze was clearing to reveal stark, bitter clarity. Had she just betrayed her best friend? “You two—”

“Are allowed to make our own choices.” He ran a thumb along her cheek as if wiping away a tear, though her eyes were dry. “She made hers.”

Her skin shivered in response. “I’m not like her. You can’t control me, or treat me like a child. I—”

“I know.” His gaze dropped to her lips. “I know you better than you think.” Before she could interrupt, he continued. “Better than you’d like maybe, but I know you.”

He leaned in and touched his lips to hers, gently, the kiss as slow and sweet as a compliment.

“Am I a substitute?” The words were out before she could think them through.

He drew away a little, his eyes turning sad. “We’ve both lost people we loved. There’s nothing we can do about that.”

Daakon still haunted her, and it didn’t matter that they wouldn’t have had a future if he were still alive. Her feelings for him still clung to her, shadowing her every move.

He smiled. “But I want to try to find some happiness. Even if . . .”

“Even if the world is going to burn?” The words fell between them like rocks.

Calix leaned closer, so their foreheads touched. “It might.”

“If it does, this won’t matter. Nothing will.” Dysis had no defenses left, not in that moment. Every breath left her more exposed, more raw. He had seen her at her most vulnerable, unconscious and bleeding. But that was nothing to this, to letting him see into her soul.

“At least we’ll have someone to hold onto at the end. We won’t be alone.” His arms slid around her, and her eyes closed, and the happiness, and the sorrow, and the fear collided as their lips joined once more.

***

Dysis was late for her shift. She swiped her card and hurriedly punched in the four-digit code, tapping her boot as the door slid open. Her lips still burned with the memory of Calix’s kisses; her brain still screamed what the hell do you think you’re doing?

“Sorry, Raven. I—” The words froze in her throat as he waved a frantic hand to shush her.

An unfamiliar voice filled the room. “—large package. I need you to retrieve it tonight. Take a full team. It is imperative that the item is transferred safely.”

Only it wasn’t an unfamiliar voice. Dysis had heard it plenty of times on news vids.

Ward Balias.

Alistar had made it in.

Yesterday, she’d listened to Alistar spend four hours torturing a prisoner, followed by three minutes of dry heaving and whispered Gods forgive me’s in the washroom.

But now, maybe all that was finally worth it.

She dropped into the chair beside Raven, all her attention pinned to the monitor. Her pulse skipped, sending tingles to her fingertips. Under her breath, she asked, “Is he talking about what I think he’s talking about?”

Raven nodded, eyes wide. Two bright blotches of pink darkened his normally pale cheeks. He was practically quivering with excitement.

Dysis couldn’t blame him.

“Of course, sir,” Alistar said, his voice a low rumble. “The Atalantans know about the weapon. Perhaps an extra safeguard—”

“Not necessary,” Balias replied. “If the Atalantans try to intercept the shipment, I’ll know.”

Dysis listened, breath held, as he identified an underground bunker near Pakan as the target. As soon as Ward Balias left the room and Alistar was alone, Raven clicked on the Mekia-wide intercom. “Commander Nyx, Dianthe, code 4-2. I repeat, code 4-2.”

Dysis jumped up to pace the room. She couldn’t just sit there, not when they were this close. Raven didn’t say anything, and neither did she. They just waited, hearts racing, listening to Alistar breathe.

We found it. Oh Gods, we found it.

Chapter 19

The small comms room was full of people. Aris stood in one corner, watching Milek, Dianthe, Commander Nyx, Dysis, and Raven. They were all talking at once, milling about. Faintly, in the background, the woosh of Alistar’s breath kept time.

“You’ll need the full team—”

“We can’t be sure this is—”

“We need to leave now.”

Aris cut around the flurry of movement to Dysis’s side. “I can’t believe he really did it,” she said. “This is . . . oh holy. He did it. It’s mad, right?”

Dysis made a noncommittal noise.

They’d listened to the playback twice; Aris still heard Elom’s voice on a loop in her mind, confirming the location of the flaming scorpion.

“This is our chance.” Milek stood two feet from Commander Nyx. “We need to get in there now and retrieve the weapon before Alistar’s team arrives.”

“I have to wait for approval from Ward Nekos,” Nyx replied. She crossed her arms over her chest, looking as if she might physically restrain him if he tried to leave the room.

“What happens to Alistar? If we go in, I mean?” Aris interjected, uneasiness cutting through her triumph.

Commander Nyx turned a narrow gaze on her. “What do you mean?”

Aris resisted the urge to retreat under the woman’s scrutiny. “I mean, if we go in and liberate the ‘package,’ as it were, won’t Ward Balias know Elom is a spy? That he tipped us off? He’ll kill him—probably torture him first.”

Raven glanced at the monitor, as if waiting for Alistar to speak again. Dianthe stepped a fraction closer to Commander Nyx. The two of them, standing side by side, with their scars and tattoos, looked like harbingers of mayhem.

Milek cleared his throat. “I guess the question is: Can we afford to take Alistar’s safety into consideration?” He asked the question slowly, as if the words tasted bitter on his tongue.

Aris’s stomach clenched. “He’s putting himself at great personal risk to help us. There’s got to be a way we can act on the intel and protect him.”

Commander Nyx’s face hardened into a blank mask. “That’s for me to discuss with Ward Nekos. There will be no mission until we have authorization, and that’s final. This retrieval must be handled with the utmost care.”

Aris bit back a groan of frustration.

Dysis stepped forward. “Ward Balias said, ‘If the Atalantans try to intercept the shipment, I’ll know.’ What did he mean by that? How could he know?”

Aris glanced at Commander Nyx. Only a few senior officers knew about the spy and the bombs at Spiro and Feln. The attacks had been treated by the news vids as Safaran air raids. She raised a brow, silently making her request. Dysis was privy to so much secret intel already. . . . She deserved to know about the spy, too.

Commander Nyx nodded slightly.

Aris turned to Dysis. “We think Ward Balias has a spy within Atalantan ranks. A well-placed one. Maybe at Spiro or Feln . . . maybe multiple spies. The attacks on both stationpoints began with internal bombs. Ones that could only have been planted by someone inside those points.”

Dysis’s mouth dropped open. “I thought the intel leak was from our comms or something.”

Aris sighed. “That was the general consensus until the Spiro bombing.”

Something changed in Dysis’s face. She grabbed Aris’s arm, her fingers digging in hard enough to leave a mark. “Mann is in your special unit.”

Aris cocked her head, confused by the change of subject. “Yes, of course. He’s one of our best flyers.”

Commander Nyx stepped closer. “What of it?”

Dysis waved a hand, her gaze turning inward. “Something’s been bothering me. . . . I couldn’t think of what, but now . . . ” Her focus shifted back to Aris. “You said the unit passed extra security measures, right? Even Specialist Mann?”

“Yes. Why?” Specialist Mann had never been a concern. He’d been injured, a sprained ankle that he still favored when he walked. No way could he have set the bomb and gotten away in time.

The color drained from Dysis’s face. “I saw him that day . . . the day Spiro burned. I was trapped in the cafeteria, looking for a way out, and he came sprinting into the room. No limp. Nothing. We busted through a wall together. I’ve been trying to figure out what felt off about that memory, but it’s just occurred to me . . . he was injured before the attack. He shouldn’t have been able to sprint anywhere. And . . . you know, we all thought he was embarrassed, spraining it dancing with his wife, but he played up the story, didn’t he? He made sure everyone knew he was hurt.”

“You mean, you think he could have faked the injury to avoid the mission and detonate the bomb?” Aris shot a look at Commander Nyx, her breath caught in her throat. The thick-necked flyer had been one of the first to become her friend, back when she was Aristos. He had a wife and a family. Why would he—how could he possibly be the spy?

Commander Nyx sprang toward the door. “Major Vadim, bring Specialist Mann to my office. Now. Escort him yourself. Don’t let him out of your sight.”

***

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Mann said, looking from Nyx to Milek to Aris, his panic and confusion evident. Or convincing, anyway. He sat in a chair in Nyx’s office, his hands gripping the armrests tightly.

“Did you plant a bomb at Spiro?” Commander Nyx asked bluntly.

“No!” Mann shouted. He looked genuinely horrified. But they’d already found another witness—Nyal—who said he’d seen Specialist Mann running, apparently uninjured, during the aftermath of the attack.

“Are you a spy for Safara?” Commander Nyx asked. This was the third time she’d run through her questions. So far, his answers had remained constant.

Mann shook his head. “Look, I don’t know why you think I’m a spy, but I didn’t do anything. I want Atalanta to win this war as much as anyone else. I’m loyal to my dominion, dammit!”

Aris had never seen the man look so small. He huddled into himself, his big head drooping, shoulders slumping. A seed of doubt unfurled. Could there be another explanation?

With a huff of impatience, Commander Nyx gestured to one of the soldiers lining the walls. They were there for protection, in case Specialist Mann tried to escape. “Take him to the containment area. Strip him of belts, shoelaces, anything he can use as a weapon or to injure himself. I’ll be down to speak with him more later.”

Specialist Mann protested, even as the soldiers pulled him up from the chair and escorted him into the hallway. Nyx rubbed a hand hard along her temple. “He did pass our security checks.”

“It’d be worth talking to the mender who examined him after the attack,” Milek suggested. “He couldn’t have faked a sprain during an exam. If the mender doesn’t have a record of his ankle injury, that would validate our suspicions about it.”

Commander Nyx nodded. “You two do that. I need to reach out to Ward Nekos. Alistar’s intel is too important to get sidetracked. When you’re finished with the mender, report back here.”

As they hurried down the hallway, Aris’s stomach churned.

Milek was silent beside her, lost in his own thoughts.

“Do you think Mann is the spy?” she asked quietly.

Milek shot her a glance. “I was holding onto the hope that the spy had blown himself up. Now, I don’t know. If it is him, it’s a mercy we discovered it now. He won’t be able to tell Balias about our plans to retrieve the flaming scorpion.”

But how much had he already told them? Did Ward Balias know about the invisible wingjets? Aris felt as if she might be sick. “Balias will know Alistar sold him out.”

“I keep thinking about the timing,” Milek said. He slowed, and Aris paced with him, watching his face. “Alistar is embedded in Safara to reveal the location of the flaming scorpion. If it’s in this bunker as we suspect, and we recover it, then there’s no reason for him to continue spying, right?”

An unexpected flutter of hope filled her. “Right. So if we could get a message to him as soon as we have the weapon—”

“He should have time to get away before Balias knows the warehouse has been compromised.” Milek’s sky-blue eyes lit.

“But how will they contact him?” Aris asked. Her mind turned over the problem, examining all angles. “The diatous veil only transmits from, not to.”

“A simple, encoded comm,” Milek suggested. He stopped walking entirely and leaned against the wall. She adopted the same position beside him, their arms touching. “Or a rendezvous with another spy.”

“Or . . . wait.” Aris tapped an excited rhythm against the wall with her fingertips. “Remember when Dianthe played back the conversation? Ward Balias told Alistar to take a fleet of wingjets to retrieve the weapon. He gave the time, the date.”

Milek paced a couple of steps away and back. “Okay, so we know where Alistar’s going to be and when. Oh.” He looked up at her, realization dawning. “You’re saying we intercept Alistar as well. One team to retrieve the weapon, and one team to go get Alistar.”

Aris pushed away from the wall. “Exactly. We send an invisible wingjet to pace Alistar’s convoy, and radio them when the weapon’s been recovered. Then they can overwhelm Alistar’s companions and lead his wingjet to safety over the border.”

“That could definitely work.” Milek grinned. He took her hand as his face fell into more serious lines. “But remember, it’s a suggestion. We have no authority over the strategy Ward Nekos and Commander Nyx choose. They may decide to do it another way.”

“Well, then. We need to tell them our way, so they can make the right choice.” Aris started down the hall, back toward Nyx’s office. “You talk to Mann’s mender. I’ll talk to Commander Nyx.”

She twisted to blow him a kiss; he answered it with a jaunty salute. Aris practically bounced down the hall. They’d get the weapon and they’d save Alistar. It was time things went their way.

Chapter 20

That night, dusk fell in a great orange curtain, rimmed in electric pink clouds. Aris chose to believe the dazzling show was a good omen.

Milek was still in his meeting with Mann’s menders, but he’d be arriving any minute. Hopefully with answers. Either way, Mann wouldn’t be flying tonight. And without him, they needed one of the recon flyers to pilot the second transport jet.

“We’ll be reorganizing a bit tonight,” she announced. “Specialist Mann will not be joining us on this mission.” Her team didn’t ask questions, but she could see their confusion. “Lieutenant Riatta, how are you with the larger jet?”

Theo’s slight body tensed, poised for action. “I can handle it, sir.”

Aris nodded. “Specialist Nesta will join you as your retriever. Specialist Yannis, you ride with them as well. We might need extra hands on the ground.” She focused on Santos. “Lieutenant, I need you to speak with Major Vadim when he gets here. Your mission will be slightly different.”

Ward Nekos and Commander Nyx had gone for Aris’s plan, thank the Gods. Tonight, if all went well, they’d recover the flaming scorpion and remove Alistar from danger. Nekos had even gotten his techies to do some magic, creating a fall guy out of one of the scientists they suspected was part of the flaming scorpion project, with a fake intel trail leading straight from him to one of Atalanta’s intelligence officers. The more arrows pointing away from Alistar the better.

Lieutenant Santos’s jet, with Specialists Renz and Otto, would intercept Alistar and draw him away from his escort once Aris and the rest of the team retrieved the weapon. But they’d built yet another fail-safe for Alistar; if the mission went south and they couldn’t retrieve the weapon, Santos’s orders were to engage Alistar’s team and make it look like Elom was being attacked, preserving his cover.

In some ways, Aris wished they had a larger fleet going in—an army maybe—but she reminded herself that the Safarans weren’t expecting this. For once, they had the upper hand.

Milek ran out onto the tarmac just as Aris ordered her team to their wingjets. She shot him a questioning glance.

“I’ll tell you once we’re in the air,” he said, slowing as he approached her. “Our mission window is closing.”

Aris nodded. “Explain Lieutenant Santos’s parameters to him. I’ll get the rest of the team sorted.”

He headed toward the transport jets. As Aris made her way to their recon, a strange sound caught her attention and she changed course. In the deeper shadows of the hangar, away from the brilliant dregs of light still lining the sky, Aris found Pallas drooped over her knees, gasping for breath.

Another heave rocked her body, and the sour smell of vomit hit Aris’s nose.

“Pallas, are you okay?” she asked, squelching her impatience. They didn’t have time for more complications, but she also needed her flyers healthy.

Pallas lifted her head with a sudden ferocity. Voice hoarse, she said, “Fine, Lieutenant. Just . . . bad food at dinner.”

Something told Aris this had nothing to do with bad food. Her impatience melted into concern. “This is about the anxiety, isn’t it?”

Pallas hesitated, then nodded.

“What’d you do tonight, after dinner? Before you were called for this mission.” Aris kept her voice casual but warm, thinking of the conversations she’d had with Milek in the early days. He’d stayed so calm, disconnected but not disinterested. He’d made her feel like she was still a soldier even as she wept.

“I . . . I read a comm from my family,” Pallas said.

“That’s good,” Aris said encouragingly. “It’s important to keep those connections alive. Speaking with your family, reminding yourself of the life waiting for you when the war is over, will help you fight the negative thoughts and fear.” Even though Aris ultimately had chosen to leave her home again, the months she spent there, gradually building her courage in the air, had helped her put the panic to rest.

“What if I fear for them?” Pallas whispered.

Once, Dianthe had told Aris exactly what she needed to hear. So she said the words again now. “Tia, you are strong enough. Strong enough for this fight, and strong enough for your family. You are not alone. You are part of this team, and we will be with you at every step.” She tried to keep her voice steady. “I couldn’t fly for months after my first brush with Elom, and the only thing that worked for me was putting one foot in front of the other each day and making an effort, however small. That and the fact that Major Vadim told me I was valuable, necessary, and that his team would wait for me. As long as it took.”

Pallas took a deep, shuddering breath. “We don’t have long this time.”

“We don’t,” Aris agreed. “But we do need you. You are valuable and necessary. What you do today will ensure your family’s safety more than anything else. This retrieval could mark the beginning of the end of this war.”

At her words, Pallas’s head came up. The woman took a couple more breaths, wiped her face, and moved slowly into the fading light. “You’re right,” she said with a new resolve. “This is the best thing I can do for them.”

After that, things moved quickly. The team was up in the air within minutes.

Aris waited until they were well on their way before muting her comms. “So? What did the mender say?”

Milek exhaled. “He said that in his professional opinion, Specialist Mann’s ankle was indeed sprained. Adrenaline may have allowed Mann to run on it normally for a short time. But . . .”

Aris didn’t want Mann to be the spy, though there was a certain comfort in the possibility that the leak was contained. “But?”

Milek shifted in the small confines of the recon. “But this mender only saw him after the attack. And the mender who originally examined him, back in Spiro, well . . . he’s dead. We can’t confirm the original diagnosis. It’s possible . . . ”

“What? That he pretended to have a sprained ankle, and then actually sprained it? That seems unlikely.” She stared out at the darkening sky, trying to calm her agitation.

“I know,” Milek replied. “It’s mad. But Commander Nyx isn’t convinced that the mender’s explanation exonerates Mann. She wants to question him some more.”

“What a mess.” Aris slumped in her seat.

Milek put a hand over hers on the wingjet controls. “Don’t think about it now. Let’s focus on the mission. This is our big break.”

Aris smiled, imagining the relief they’d feel when the flaming scorpion was in their possession.

It took them just over an hour to reach Safara. Lieutenant Santos paced them until they crossed the border, and then he peeled off, heading toward Safara’s capital. Dianthe had found a way to patch Alistar’s secure comm feed to the wingjet; Santos would be able to track Alistar’s progress and intercept him once the weapon was secure.

Considering her tangled thoughts, Aris was surprised at how calm her hands were on the controls, especially as they crossed into the airspace where she’d been shot down.

“Just a little dance, right?” Milek said, a grin warming his voice.

An answering smile curved her lips. “That’s right.”

The warehouse came into view a short time later. Like the other building they’d raided, this one was lit by several bright floodlights and guarded by a contingent of Safaran soldiers.

Although it would make their jobs more difficult, Aris was comforted by the abundance of guards. That meant there was something worth guarding inside.

“We’ll do a single pass with fire,” Milek announced to the team. “Target the soldiers and wingjets stationed away from the building. We don’t want anyone blowing the warehouse by mistake, you hear me?”

“Yes sir”s chorused over the comms.

Everything came down to this moment. Aris wondered how Pallas was holding up. She was glad Baksen was there with her.

They swung around and approached the warehouse from the north. Aris studied the three blips on the nav to confirm her team was in correct position. Riatta didn’t seem to be having trouble allowing for the larger size of the transport. Over comms, she heard the quickened breathing of her soldiers. They were more than ready.

“Now.” Milek’s voice rang across the comms.

Aris shot forward. Milek’s hands flashed on the gunner controls. Beneath them, red streaks lit the landing pad. By the time the rest of the team had passed over, three Safaran wingjets were in flames. The entrance to the warehouse swarmed with the surviving soldiers. It was obvious they were in a panic, trying to figure out where the threat was coming from. Milek ordered another pass, and the scurrying men disappeared under a cloud of smoke.

“Think that did it?” Aris asked, as they regrouped to the north again.

“There will be survivors. But we’ve evened the field. Let’s get down there.” Milek opened comms to the rest of the team. “Land on this side of the warehouse. They’re focused on the entrance. Let’s see what’s left defending the back.”

Landing was difficult with the veiling tech engaged, but Aris’s flyers had been practicing for weeks and all three wingjets touched down with minimal issues. Before they exited, they watched for guards, but the bombing kept everyone busy. No one was worried about the back door.

Still, Aris’s heart pounded as she disembarked, her solagun at the ready. Shouts and the bitter scent of burning fuel filled the air. She reminded the team to count their steps to the door, so they’d easily find the invisible wingjets again. The back of the building was dark, but the glow from the wreckage lit their way. Lieutenant Riatta and Specialist Tekla flanked Aris and Milek, Specialists Yannis and Nesta right behind. Pallas and Baksen brought up the rear.

Night clung under the eaves. A white panel stood out on the wall next to the rusted door: a handprint-activated lock. Without pausing, Milek shot it with his solagun. The laser cut through the pad, and the door clanked open.

Aris let out the breath she’d been holding. Milek shot her a glance, and then carefully made his way inside. She stepped over the threshold next, her team close at her back.

Haphazard strips of dim, flickering lighting revealed a vast space. Tall wire shelves lined the long room, with a wide, empty avenue running between. Aris’s eyes flew to the shelves, searching.

Every single one was empty.

It’s okay. The weapon is supposed to be underground.

“We need to find access to the bunker,” Aris said.

But Milek didn’t answer. He was staring ahead.

Aris followed his gaze, and her breath froze.

A solid wall of soldiers, thirty strong at least, emerged from the darkness at the far end of the warehouse, advancing slowly. It was like they’d been waiting, expecting Aris and her team to come through that door.

She didn’t hesitate. “Run!”

Her team scattered toward the tall racks. Aris sprinted to the left, aiming for the deeper shadows. Gunfire erupted, echoing loudly enough to rattle the empty shelving. She ducked but kept moving. Milek swerved in front of her. To her right, Specialist Tekla went down.

“Stop it! Don’t hurt them!” a female voice shouted. “Balias wants them alive!”

Horror broke through Aris in a bone-shaking wave. The voice had come from behind her. She twisted. Time slowed. In the middle of the warehouse, Pallas stood, unmoving, as Safaran soldiers streamed around her. Betrayal and disblief burned deep in Aris’s gut. Pallas met her gaze, eyes wide, just as a heavy body slammed Aris to the ground.

Another voice echoed over the din. “The ward only wants Haan and Vadim alive. Kill the rest.”

Then everything else was lost in the bitter hiss of solagun fire and a woman’s hopeless scream.

Chapter 21

Tia screamed as Aris hit the ground. She stepped toward her, but that’s when she saw Baksen. He was frozen in the act of turning back for her—he must have noticed she wasn’t following. Solagun fire hit him as he stood there, staring at her, the realization of what she’d done filling his eyes.

He crumpled slowly.

No, Gods no. Not Baksen.

She collapsed, her knees cracking against the hard, carbonate floor. All around her, men in black uniforms were running, shooting, but all she saw was Baksen, lying in a pool of his own blood. Frantic, she scrambled to his side and pressed her hands against his throat, but they were useless against the rush of red.

She whispered that she was sorry, over and over. She wished she could tell him that she hadn’t wanted this. Any of it. That her family was being held hostage—that she was just trying to save them—but there wasn’t time. And it didn’t matter—it was no excuse. She deserved him thinking she was a monster.

His gaze, bitter and glassy, never left her face. Even after his blood stopped pulsing over her fingers and his breath ceased, still he stared.

Tia bent over him, harsh sobs racking her body. Her nightmares had come to find her. They’d snatched her into their dark maw, driven her to a place from which she’d never, ever return.

She’d thought planting the firebombs at the stationpoints they took their S and R victims to would be the worst she’d do. She’d prayed they’d never be detonated, that somehow the Safarans would be defeated before they got a chance to use them. Then Spiro blew.

Tia hadn’t thought she had a soul left to lose after that. But her contacts kept demanding more. The comms from her family showed blank faces tight with terror, reading words they were forced to say. Coded messages asking for specific intel, telling her to betray her own team, threatening torture and death if she didn’t provide answers.

And she’d done it all. Even as it ate at her, even as the ghosts of the dead walked with her. She kept hoping the messages would stop, and then her heart would seize and she’d pray for one more, just to see her parents’ faces again. Her little brother, whose pale hair hung lank and dirty across his forehead. She couldn’t let them torture her fifteen-year-old brother. Milo was so brave; when he’d found out she’d joined the military in secret, he’d asked her question after question, his eyes lit like candles. He wanted to be like her, and he was planning to volunteer for Military during his Selection ceremony when he turned eighteen.

She’d spent two weeks at home while she waited for approval to volunteer again—this time as a woman. In those two weeks, her choice had felt like the smartest thing she’d ever done. Even her parents were proud.

And then a group of Safaran soldiers had snuck into her house in the middle of the night and kidnapped her family. They’d held her down and made her watch as they restrained her mother so tightly her wrists bled.

Even then, at the end of her world, Tia hadn’t realized how bad it would get.

She’d fought the nightmares back, and did as they demanded. She’d reported on Aris’s solo missions to find Elom. Planted the bombs. Shared info about troop movements and the invisible wingjets. She’d convinced herself that there’d be an end. That she’d save Milo, her mother, and her papa, who was in frail health.

She had to save them.

But this was too much. It had gone too far.

A body thudded to the ground next to her. Lieutenant Riatta. By the time Tia looked up from Theo’s blank eyes, Milek and Aris were being dragged away, and Yannis and Nesta were dead. Two Safaran soldiers stood over her, their guns drawn. She bowed her head.

Tears poured down her cheeks. She cried for her family, for her team, for everything she’d done and how it hadn’t been enough. Too much and yet not enough. She couldn’t free her family, she saw that now. And she didn’t deserve to free herself.

When the pain came, she welcomed it as her due.

It wasn’t until later, when she opened her eyes to see Lieutenant Santos and Otto standing over her, that she realized her wounds weren’t fatal.

Which meant the Safarans wanted more from her.

She, who had nothing left to give.

Chapter 22

Aris wished they’d knock her out. She didn’t want to see the huge welt swelling along Milek’s cheek after a hulking, steel-eyed soldier knocked him to the ground.

She didn’t want to feel the blood seeping from her wrists or wince at each new bruise as her body rattled around in the Safaran wingjet. The soldiers had restrained her legs and arms but done nothing to keep her or Milek secured as the jet rocked and dove. She read the flyer’s intent in every sudden swerve and dip, every unnecessary change of speed. These soldiers weren’t allowed to kill their cargo, but they would punish them all the same.

Most of all, she wished she was unconscious so she wouldn’t have to see Pallas’s face in her mind.

As the jet dipped once again, Aris hung for a split second in the air before slamming into the hard metal ribbing. She grunted from the impact, her whole body aching. Somehow, Milek used the momentary free fall to wedge himself closer to her, so their faces were almost touching. They’d already tried loosening each other’s restraints, but two quick kicks from their guards had disabused them of that plan.

“I still can’t believe it was Pallas. I trusted her.” Icy disbelief still coursed through her.

“It doesn’t matter,” Milek whispered. “It’s done. We need to focus on getting out of this.”

“Getting out of this?” Aris choked on the words. Ward Balias probably just wanted the pleasure of killing them himself.

“Yes. This isn’t over for us, Aris.” He pressed his forehead harder against hers, straining against his bonds as if he could yank free of them and throw his arms around her. “They took us alive for a reason.”

Aris lifted her chin and cricked her neck until their lips met. She wasn’t willing to give up yet, but she couldn’t help the tears that slid out of her eyes. Milek kissed her back, and she could feel the fear behind his determination. Her tears fell faster.

Pain exploded in her side. She cried out and tried to shift away from the heavy boot that kicked her, again and again.

“None of that now,” the Safaran soldier drawled. His small, piggin eyes appraised her. “This isn’t that kind of establishment.”

Aris glared at him, promising herself that if she ever had the opportunity, she’d kill him. Milek wriggled against her back. And then, suddenly, he staggered to his feet. While their two guards were focused on Aris, he’d worked his hands down his back, around his legs. His restrained hands now in front instead of trapped behind him, he launched himself at the soldier who’d kicked her, wrapping the thin metal shackles around his throat. The man struggled, his eyes bugging. Milek ignored all efforts to disengage him; his face glowed with hatred so intense, Aris almost expected the soldier to die from its venom alone.

The other guard shouted. Aris rolled toward him, banging into his ankles just as he stood up to help his partner, sending him into a heap on top of her.

He elbowed her in the stomach, knocking the breath from her lungs. Above them, the choking sounds sputtered to silence.

“Bitch,” he spat, and then he slammed her head against the floor of the wingjet, and the oblivion she’d wished for swept her away.

***

“Aris,” a voice whispered at the edge of the darkness. “Wake up, Aris. Please wake up.”

She didn’t want to wake up. There was a cruel reality teasing her consciousness, and she wasn’t ready to face it. But every bruise under her skin flamed to life, and the pain wouldn’t let her sleep. With a groan, she opened her eyes.

Metal bars formed a wall in front of her face. Her body screamed as she eased herself up, the floor cold against her palms. She was in a long, narrow hallway lined with cells.

No, not cells.

Cages.

“Aris.”

She turned and found Milek in the cage next to hers. His swollen, bleeding hands gripped the bars so tightly she wondered if he’d been trying to pry them apart.

She scooted toward him, ignoring the knives of pain stabbing her legs, and reached through the bars, cradling his face. His scar had disappeared beneath a crusted layer of blood from a gash in his forehead. One of his eyes was swollen shut, and his lip still oozed fresh blood. Dark blue bruises shadowed his chin and temple. “Gods, Milek,” she breathed. “What did they do to you?”

He leaned his forehead against the bars but didn’t break eye contact. “I killed the soldier who kicked you. The other one wasn’t too happy about it.”

Shadows hid behind his clear, blue eyes. He’d made his play for their freedom. He’d killed. And it hadn’t done them a damn bit of good.

She smoothed gentle fingers through his hair. “We won’t stop fighting.”

“I can’t fight steel bars.” His hand reached up and clasped hers, holding it against the less-bruised cheek. “I love you, Aris.”

“Don’t say it like that,” she said, swallowing back tears. “Like you’re afraid you won’t get another chance.” She was grateful that he was here with her, that she wasn’t alone, even though she should have wished he were anywhere else. Somewhere safe.

Suddenly, a new thought filled her mind, a thread of hope.

“Do you think they’ll send Elom to torture us?” she asked, her voice as fearful as she could make it, in case someone was listening.

His eyes widened slightly. He nodded slowly to show he understood.

If they could get near Alistar, they could send a message back to Mekia. She wasn’t sure if Pallas was alive or dead, but either way, Commander Nyx needed to know who the spy was.

Aris hoped she was still alive. She wanted Pallas to pay for her betrayal in a million different, painful ways.

A metallic scrape filled the air as a door opened. The prisoners in the cages around them startled into wakefulness. Some moaned. Other screamed.

Heavy footsteps.

Aris’s heart pounded. She wasn’t surprised when the four soldiers ignored the other prisoners, heading straight for her and Milek.

She searched for Elom’s bald head, but he wasn’t among them.

“This one,” the lead soldier said, gesturing to Milek’s cell. He stood back to give his men room to unlock the cage.

Aris tightened her grip on Milek’s hands and pressed her forehead to his, stifling a whimper. “No . . . no . . .”

“I’ll be okay. It’s gonna be okay,” Milek murmured, and the words were a tiny comfort, even though neither of them believed anything was going to be okay.

Two of the soldiers hauled on his arms. He kept his grip on the bars for a few seconds, but it was no use. The third soldier cuffed him in the head and he slumped, his arms going slack.

Aris reached desperately for him through the bars as they dragged him across the floor, as if somehow, if she just tried hard enough, she could slip through the narrow space and follow. She could save him.

“Don’t you hurt him!” Her ragged scream joined those of the other prisoners.

At the sound of her voice, Milek fought his captors more fiercely, growling like a wild thing, his face dripping blood. “Aris,” he yelled, and her name was a cry, a prayer, a promise. It was everything and nothing, a flaming arrow in the dark.

Chapter 23

Galena burst onto the balcony without waiting for Kellan to announce her. “Tell me you have something.”

Pyralis was standing with his hands on the railing, staring out into the trees. The first gray hint of dawn lightened the sky. When she spoke, he turned around. His face was pale with exhaustion, and his stricken expression offered her no comfort.

She’d been in Sibetza when the news came through. The flight back to Atalanta had been the longest of her life.

“It’s been four hours, Pyralis,” she said. “My son was abducted four hours ago. Tell me you have news by now.” Her voice vibrated with fury.

They’d had so many close calls: Milek’s mission into Safara to rescue her, then Aris; the bombing of Spiro. And every time, somehow, her son had made it out. But not this time.

And that was blighting unacceptable.

“Nothing conclusive yet. I’m sorry.” When she opened her mouth, he held up his hands. “I’m trying, Galena, but there’s a lot of confusion. This is what we know: Shortly after the raid on the warehouse began, Alistar was ordered to return to the palace without ever retrieving the weapon. It’s unclear why. Lieutenant Santos made the judgment to not engage, instead flying to the warehouse to assess damage and retrieve survivors. A good call, I think. Ward Balias did not confide in Alistar about the trap, if that’s what it indeed was. We don’t know yet if his cover has been blown. We do know that our fake intel breach was found. The scientist we framed has been detained for questioning. It will take them a while to unravel that thread.”

“And what is Alistar doing now? Does he know where Milek is?” Galena wove around the chairs to the railing. A small candle flickered on the table next to an untouched mug of tea. She should go to Mekia. She needed access to Alistar’s feed, so the moment something useful came through—

“He doesn’t appear to be aware they were taken.” Pyralis put a hand on her back and rubbed small circles into the tense muscles. “But I’m sure—”

“Access other sources of intel. We need to find them.” His touch was comforting, but she couldn’t stand still, her whole body strung tight as a spring. She stalked up and down the balcony. By degrees, the dawn lightened the space between them.

“Your impatience will not help Milek. We can’t be reckless about this.” Pyralis moved to stand in front of her, forcing her to stop pacing.

“Balias has him. This is because of me. He’ll use Milek’s safety as a bargaining tool.” She fought the burn of tears. “Gods help me, Pyralis, I’ll do whatever he asks to save my son.” She wanted to add that they should have killed Balias when they had the chance, but held her tongue.

Pyralis grabbed her hands. “No. We’ll find another way. We have a man on the inside and a capable Military. We’ll rescue Milek, I promise. We will find him.”

“Tell me what I can do,” she said, fighting the urge to yank her hands free. She knew he was trying to hold her steady, but she wanted to be a hurricane. She needed to wreak havoc. “Give me something.”

Pyralis, to his credit, was ready with an answer.

“Contact Ward Rosum. Go to Castalia if you have to. Explain to her exactly why she’s going to divert soldiers and resources to us, as well as the hows and whens. I don’t care what you have to say, or how many times you have to say it. Make her hear us this time. Remind her of the child soldiers, the countless rules of war Balias has broken.” He cupped Galena’s face in his hands and gave her a quick, hard kiss. “Can you do that?”

“Absolutely.” Her brain clung to this new challenge like a drowning man clinging to a lifeboat. Her terror for Milek didn’t lessen, but the distraction helped her breathe.

Pyralis headed inside toward his office. “I’ll instruct Jax to set up another meet with Alistar. We need to get access to Milek and Aris somehow, and Alistar’s our best chance at that. I’ll inform you as soon as I have news.” He called for Kellan then glanced back at Galena. “Two soldiers survived the attack. One is in a coma, the other’s in surgery. When—if—they regain consciousness, Commander Nyx will question them. Maybe they have some idea of where the soldiers took Milek and Aris.”

Kellan hurried into Pyralis’s office and positioned himself in the corner, awaiting instructions.

“I need to make arrangements to travel to Castalia,” Galena said. Already, a plan was forming in her mind. The other dominions had avoided this conflict for long enough. This time, she would make them see the cost of war with their own eyes.

She’d bring the pain and hopelessness to them. She’d make it impossible for them to say no.

Chapter 24

When Dysis got to the cafeteria, Otto was sitting at their table, alone, surrounded by empty chairs wrapped in black ribbons. Dysis paused, not sure breakfast was a good idea after all.

But she couldn’t leave him there by himself.

“We were too late,” Otto muttered over his porridge, his jovial demeanor buried beneath layers of guilt and grief. “We heard the ruckus over the comms. If we’d just gotten there a little sooner . . .”

Dysis put her spoon down, bowl untouched. “There was nothing you could do,” she said gruffly. “At least Lieutenant Santos made it at all. Pallas and Tekla would be dead if it weren’t for you.”

Otto didn’t look up. “Tekla’s as good as.”

Seren Tekla was in a coma from which she would likely never wake. Pallas’s hand required surgery, and there was a chance she’d never fly again. And she was the lucky one. Just the thought sent fury scorching through Dysis.

“Have you heard how Pallas’s surgery went?” Dysis asked. “I was going to go see her.”

Otto looked up, but it was obvious he hadn’t really heard her. He glanced to the left and the right, at all the empty chairs surrounding him. “I’ve lost almost every soldier I’ve flown with,” he said dully. “All of my comrades. It won’t be long before it’s my turn.”

Dysis’s breath caught painfully in her lungs. This wasn’t Otto. This . . . defeat.

She reached across the table and punched him in the arm, hard enough that he rocked back in his seat and winced. “Ow. What the blighting—”

“You’re a pot-bellied lug, Otto,” she said. “And I’m a grumpy invalid. The Gods don’t want us.”

A little spark filtered back into his eyes as he looked at her. “Grumpy, huh? I could think of another name for it.”

She grinned as they bantered to beat away the dark. When their meal was done, Dysis squeezed his shoulder before heading down the hall toward the sick bay. She stopped abuptly when she reached the small waiting area outside of Pallas’s door. Calix was slumped into one of two chairs pushed against the wall, his mender tunic rumpled and his eyes bleary.

“What are you doing here?” she blurted. She wasn’t sure if the porridge was disagreeing with her or if a flock of fanax had suddenly taken up residence in her belly.

Calix stood up, hands clenched at his sides. “I wanted to talk to you. They’re saying Aris was taken . . .”

“They’ll find her soon,” she said, hoping her words were true.

In two long steps, he reached her, his hands grasping hers. There was a gulf between them: what Aris had meant to him, and what she continued to mean to Dysis.

Calix opened his mouth to speak.

Dysis tore her hands from his. “I need to see Pallas. That’s why I’m here.”

For a second, Calix paused. Then he pointed to a door. “She’s in there. They were able to save her hand, but she’s had severe nerve damage. It’s unlikely that she’ll regain feeling in her last three fingers.”

Dysis nodded. That was bad, but it could have been a lot worse. She knocked softly on the door before entering.

Pallas was stretched out on the med-bed, her injured arm resting on her hip. Thick white bandages ran the length of her forearm and engulfed her hand. When she saw Dysis, she struggled to sit up.

Dysis held up her hands. “Please don’t try to move. That looks uncomfortable enough to begin with.”

Pallas released a ragged sigh as she slumped back against the bed. “Dysis, forgive me. I didn’t think I’d have visitors yet.”

Dysis sat on the edge of the bed, careful not to jostle her friend. “I had to make sure you were okay.”

“I’m fine.” Pallas wouldn’t meet her eyes. “They even said I’ll be back in the air in a day or so, if you can believe it.” She almost sounded unhappy about that. Dysis would have been jumping for joy if she were allowed back into combat so soon. As it was, she still had at least three weeks before she could return to a normal schedule. Probably even longer for full combat training.

“It’s not your fault, you know,” she said, noticing the guilt tightening the corners of Pallas’s mouth. “There’s nothing you or anyone—”

“It’s my fault Baksen is dead,” Pallas practically snarled, her voice thick with self-loathing, “As surely as if I’d pulled the trigger. I . . . I’m the responsible party. If I hadn’t . . . if I’d only just—”

Dysis squeezed Pallas’s knee through the sheet. “You are not responsible for this, Pallas. Don’t even say that. You’re lucky you survived.”

A few tears trickled down Pallas’s cheeks. “And Lieutenant Haan and Major Vadim . . . I can’t believe they’re . . . they’re gone.”

Before her sniffles could become full-blown sobs, Dysis leaned closer. “They’re gone for now. Just for now. Not forever. We’ll get them back.” She said the words as much to convince herself as to convince Pallas.

Pallas raised her uninjured hand to wipe the dampness on her cheeks. “I don’t know, Dysis. I don’t think we can come back from this one.”

Dysis had never heard her sound so hopeless. First Otto, now Pallas . . .

This time, no flippant response came to mind. But all the same, she couldn’t let the dejection stand. “The whole thing is a blighting disaster, I’ll give you that. But there’s hope, you hear me? We’ve got ways to find them. We will find them.” She patted Pallas’s arm awkwardly.

They had one way. Alistar.

***

Dysis slammed her hand on the table.

Nothing.

Alistar hadn’t spoken in hours. No one had visited him, and he’d issued no orders. If it weren’t for his steady breathing, she would have thought he was dead. What the blighting hell was going on?

At last, when she was near mad with frustration, a loud knock echoed across the feed.

“Come in,” barked Alistar.

There came the hiss of a door and the thud of footsteps.

Alistar gasped. “Lieutenant—what are you doing here? And where did you get the Safaran uniform? I was expecting the man who’s supposed to drive me to the palace. Ward Balias has requested a meeting with me.”

“I need you to listen to me. I have about three minutes before the guards at the gate realize why my face looked so familiar.” Dysis immediately recognized the voice.

Jax.

Her heart thumped in her throat. Alistar was in a Safaran stationpoint outside of Zayo, Safara’s capital. The place was crawling with Safaran troops. Any one of them would relish killing her brother. How did he even get as far as Alistar’s office?Was he veiled?

“Did you get the bomb?” Alistar asked, his voice ticking up at the end, full of hope.

Dysis slumped back in her chair. He doesn’t know.

“Has Balias shown any indication he can’t trust you?” Jax asked, without answering the question.

Alistar replied, “You’ve heard everything said in my presence. I know as much as you do. Why?”

There was a short silence. It seemed so strange that Alistar knew nothing of what happened the night before. He’d been diverted off course and Balias didn’t even tell him why? That wasn’t a good sign.

At last, Jax said, “We think the warehouse may have been a setup. They knew we were coming. There was no weapon there, or not one that we saw, just soldiers lying in wait for our troops. Lieutenant Haan and Major Vadim were captured, and nearly the rest of the team was killed.”

Alistar’s sudden intake of breath spiked on the monitor. Dysis gripped the edge of the desk with white-knuckled hands. “I don’t understand. How could that happen?” he asked.

“Run me through your orders again,” Jax said. “When were you told to abort?”

“Ward Balias himself commed me and said there’d been a threat and we’d transfer the weapon later. I had hoped the threat was you successfully retrieving the flaming scorpion.” A hint of reproach crept into Alistar’s voice.

“They knew we were coming. But Ward Balias didn’t want you there. Why?” Dysis could clearly picture Jax’s furrowed brow. He’d bite his lip, as he always did when he was working through a particularly thorny problem. She wanted to tell him to hurry up already. Each second that ticked by was one more when he could get caught.

Clothing rustled, as if Alistar had shifted or shrugged. “I’ve no idea. Tell me what you need me to do.”

Footsteps echoed across the feed. One of them was pacing. “If the Ward is on to you, it’s no longer safe for you to be here. Your next move would be to come with me back to Atalanta.”

“Not an option,” Alistar snapped.

“If you’re compromised, you’ll be killed. You—”

“I don’t care.” The words, in Elom’s voice, came out with a force even Dysis found intimidating. “Playing this part has cost me too much. I’ve tortured dissenters with the very same beliefs I hold. I’ve been asked to kill . . .” The word was cut off by the sound of a ragged breath. “I cannot leave until I see this through. Not unless you have indisputable, incontrovertible evidence that Balias knows.”

Dysis stared at the blank wall before her, straining to hear Jax’s reply. Her respect for Alistar grew; he’d been offered an easy out, and he wasn’t even remotely interested in taking it.

“Your other option is to storm into Balias’s office and yell at him,” Jax said, at last, with a sigh.

Dysis’s mouth dropped open. That was Jax’s solution?

“Excuse me?” Alistar sounded equally shocked.

Jax elaborated. “If the real Elom had been forced to change course and there’d been a mission he wasn’t privy to, if he’d felt distrust from Balias, he would confront him.”

“Okay . . .” Alistar began.

The footsteps stopped. Dysis could imagine Jax rubbing his jaw, his mental gears turning. “You weren’t aware of why the mission was changed. Elom wouldn’t stand for that. He’d demand to know. You have to get Balias to tell you he’s got Aris and Milek. And when he does . . .”

A spark ignited in Alistar’s deep voice. “I demand to see the girl who put me behind bars. I make him let me take my revenge.”

“He tells you where to go,” Jax confirmed. “And we get Aris and Milek’s location.”

Would it work? The plan had merit, but it was dangerous. “Risky, risky,” she mumbled under her breath.

Alistar said, “If he suspects I’m a spy . . .”

The word hung in the air for a moment. Then Jax sighed. “Then he’ll probably kill you. Or lock you up and torture you for information.”

A rhythmic tapping sound filled the room, and Dysis pictured Alistar drumming his fingers on the table. “What do I do if he won’t let me see them? He could order me onto some other project.”

“You said he’s asked to see you. Maybe that’s good news. Maybe he’s already planning to send you to interrogate them,” Jax said.

A sudden knock drowned out the sound of Alistar’s knuckles against the table. “Elom, sir?” came a faint voice through the feed.

Dysis stood up. Oh Gods. What if Jax was caught? There’d be nothing she could do.

She was useless.

“That’ll be the terran for the palace,” Alistar said. “I’ll do what I can to get you the location. What about the bomb?”

Jax’s voice deepened. “According to initial time projections, we should have at least a month. Our window is closing, but we have some time. Find Aris and Milek first. Then we’ll deal with the bomb.”

“Get out of there, get out of there,” Dysis chanted.

Jax’s footsteps crossed the room. “Kick me out of your office. I’ve just delivered intel you’re very angry about.”

Dysis heard the hiss of a door opening, and then Alistar’s chilling growl. “Out of here. If I see your face again, I’ll send you back to your commander in pieces!”

Dysis listened to her brother’s departing footsteps in agony, waiting for shouts or solagun fire. Her chest pulsed with a tangle of conflicting emotions: fury at her brother, or at whoever had sent him, for the danger he was putting himself in. Concern for Alistar, who might be walking to his death. And hope that their stupid plan would work and they’d find Aris.

As she listened to the swish of Alistar’s terran moving through the city, his deep voice silent for the moment, she leaned back in her chair and tried to work the knots of tension from her neck.

She couldn’t stop thinking about Jax, deep within Safaran territory. How long would it take him to get back over the border? What if he was caught? She’d already lived through months of not knowing whether he was alive or dead. She wasn’t sure she’d survive another round of that.

The sound of a door opening caught her attention. Alistar had arrived at the palace. Still, he said nothing. She listened to his footsteps, quick and deliberate, and prayed that he could pull this off.

Ward Balias’s voice slithered across the feed. “Ah, Elom. Thank you for coming.”

Dysis shivered as she waited for Alistar’s response. Jax had told him to yell.

But when Alistar spoke, it was little more than a hiss. “You pulled me off my mission. Why? If there was a threat, I would have neutralized it. You know that.”

Dysis held her breath.

“I deemed this a threat I didn’t want you to handle.” Balias remained mild. He might as well have been sitting on a silk divan drinking tea. For all she knew, he was.

“And why is that?” Alistar growled, his voice holding a warning.

There was a faint rustle of fabric, as if Balias was shifting position. “This is a threat I’ve trusted you with once already. You disappointed me.” A hint of steel sliced through the man’s calm.

The sound of Alistar swallowing filled Dysis’s small room.

“You have that flyer. Aris Haan.” Alistar played the beat perfectly. Disbelief paired with hunger. Even knowing it was an act, Dysis fought the urge to scream at him to leave her friend alone.

“You lost your chance with her,” Balias said. “I won’t be disappointed again.”

There was another swish of fabric, and the faint sound of a footstep—Alistar moving closer to Balias. “I don’t care. Just tell me that the bitch is going to burn.”

Chills raced down Dysis’s spine. For a split second, she wondered if they’d put their faith in the wrong person. If, somehow, Alistar did want to hurt Aris. If he wanted to destroy them all.

But then Balias spoke. “Take a team to Qassar prison. I’m having the package transferred there. I need you to run operations as we prepare for the detonation.” He paused. “You’ll find the bitch there, too.”

Dysis’s jaw dropped. She immediately commed Commander Nyx’s office, her heart pulsing wildly in her throat. The Commander needed to hear this.

Right now.

Chapter 25

After they took Milek, Aris paced. Every bruise flared painfully at the movement, but she couldn’t stand still. The cage was small and empty except for a sleeping mat barely softer than the floor, and a tiny alcove with a toilet only partially hidden from the rest of the room.

“He’s been gone too long,” a gravelly voice said. “That means they killed him.”

In the cell to her left, an old man sat in the corner, leaning against the bars. His white hair clung in matted clumps to his skull, and the eyes that stared at her were rheumy and framed by a detailed latticework of wrinkles.

“What do you mean?” she could barely bring herself to ask.

With an effort, the old man shrugged a shoulder. The cream-colored tunic and pants he wore enveloped him. They’d either belonged to a larger man originally, or he’d withered during his time in prison. “If you don’t come back in an hour, you don’t come back at all.”

Aris shook her head. Her hands twisted themselves into knots at her waist. “I don’t believe you. You’re trying to get into my head.”

The man rolled his eyes and shifted his body until he was facing the narrow walkway running down the center of the room. He didn’t look at her or try to engage her in conversation again.

Somehow, that made his words even more terrifying.

Milek isn’t dead. Aris wanted to scream, like that would make it true.

Hours passed. She had no concept of whether it was day or night. The light here never changed. At one point, a soldier slid trays into each of the cells containing a shallow dish of brown slop and a hard chunk of bread.

“Where is Milek?” Aris asked.

The man ignored her.

Aris pushed the tray away, not trusting the food. She resumed pacing. She couldn’t just wait for them to come and kill her, too. She had to do something. Even if all she could do was die, she had to at least die fighting. But what could she fight with? She had nothing but her uniform. Her solagun and utility knife had been confiscated. Her sythin, the thin cylinder that could knock a grown man unconscious, had been taken, too. Her belt. Her boots. Everything but her jacket, her socks, her pants, and shirt. Her underthings. She had nothing but—

Aris took a deep breath, suddenly aware of the band encircling her chest.

She scrambled into the toilet alcove. Hurriedly, she pulled her arms through her sleeves, so they were naked against her stomach. With shaking fingers, she detached her bandeau. She shoved her arms back through her sleeves and inspected the piece of clothing in the sickly glow of the lights. The fabric was elastic, not good for much, but two sturdy underwires were sown in. Using her teeth, she ripped the seams and removed the wires. Each curved in a half-moon with pointed ends. They were flexible, which wouldn’t help, but with enough force . . .

She ripped the bandeau again and wrapped an end of each wire in a scrap of fabric before concealing the makeshift weapons in her clenched hands.

The door scraped open again, and another soldier walked in. There was no sign of Milek.

Her heart shivered into ice. He’s okay, he’s okay, he’s okay.

But she knew he wasn’t. He couldn’t be, or they would have brought him back, just as her neighbor had said.

The guard stopped in front of her cell. He was young, handsome even, with smooth brown skin and long-lashed eyes. He looked at her in an openly appraising way. Her hands tightened on the wires hidden in her fists.

“Where’s Milek?” she asked.

He didn’t answer, instead grabbing her arm and wrenching her out of the cell.

“Where’s Milek?” she asked again.

The soldier responded by cuffing her across the cheek. Her head snapped back and she sagged, her feet losing traction. The coppery flavor of blood filled her mouth, and she swallowed back a gag.

He hauled her up and yanked her forward, not waiting for her to steady herself. They left the room and entered a dim hallway. Aris fought her panic and tried to ignore the pain in her jaw and bruised legs. Instead, she focused on the dirty, water-stained walls, the number of doors, anything that might help her.

The hallway was darker than those of the prison where Ward Vadim had been kept, and the air smelled different: less antiseptic. More like wet earth, burning metal, spoiled food. It was a dirty, diseased smell. Above her, a line of exposed piping ran next to rods of old-fashioned lighting. She wondered if they were underground.

Her captor paused before a door a hundred feet from the end of the corridor, his grip on her arm loosening slightly as his other hand searched for something—maybe a key. Four doors ahead, she saw a lift.

This was it. She wouldn’t get another chance. She flung her arm down and brought her other arm up with as much force as she could, stabbing the end of the underwire into the side of the man’s throat. The wire was flimsy, but it was strong enough to pierce the skin.

He reeled back, his arms going slack for an instant. Before he could reach for her, she thrust the other wire in deep. He sputtered and coughed. She didn’t wait to see if it would kill him.

Letting go, she shoved him hard. His head snapped back against the wall. He fell, and she ran.

She tried the doors on the way to the lift, but they were all locked, some by passcard panels, some with old-fashioned doorknobs. Halfway down the other wall, a door led to a stairwell, but it was locked, too. She tried to elbow out the small window of glass, but it didn’t so much as crack.

Damn. She should have taken the guard’s passcard.

Arm aching, she turned around. He was still on the ground where she’d attacked him, but he wasn’t dead. At least not yet. His breath stuttered and stopped, stuttered and stopped. Aris crept back down the hall, then dropped to her knees beside him and reached for his pockets.

Passcard, passcard.

His breathing hitched. Without thinking, Aris glanced at his face. The soldier’s eyes bulged. Blood coated his chin, and a strange gurgling came from his throat when he tried to speak. One of the wires still stuck out of his skin. Just as her hand closed over the hard rectangle of his passcard, his hand clamped down on her arm. She bit back a scream and yanked herself away. With a grunt, his eyes rolled back in his skull.

Aris scrambled to her feet, passcard in hand, and ran for the lift.

It hissed as she reached it, already moving downward. Down to her floor.

Someone was coming.

Panic exploded in her chest. She sprinted for the stairwell.

It had no passcard panel, just an ancient, half-rusted lock. Of course. She whirled, looking for another way out, a place to hide. Anything. The locked doors stared back, an illusion of freedom. Did she dare open one of them with the card? What if they were cells? There’d be no escape.

The flickering lights drew her attention upward. Almost entirely hidden by the rusted, dripping pipes that ran along the ceiling, she caught a glimpse of an iron air vent.

The lift was slowing. She was almost out of time.

A few yards ahead, the piping dipped a little to accommodate a ceiling joist. She ran for the spot. The ceiling was low, the pipe not far out of reach. She jumped, bruised muscles screaming, and caught the pipe in her hands. She got her legs up and hauled herself into the tiny space between pipe and ceiling.

She shimmied toward the vent. As soon as she could reach it, she threaded her fingers through the slats and yanked. With a clang, the grate hinged open against the pipe. The opening was maybe a foot and a half.

The lift beeped.

Aris’s heart ricocheted. Sucking in her stomach, she wormed herself into the ductwork, hands pressed to her mouth to muffle her panting breath.

Shouts and thudding footsteps echoed below.

“Over there! Look, it’s Solim,” someone called.

“Where’s the girl?” another man asked, his voice viciously calm.

From the syncopated footsteps, it sounded like they were fanning out. Doors beeped and slid open. Aris held her breath. If she moved even a centimeter, the metal around her might clank or bulge, giving away her position.

All she could do was close her eyes and pray they didn’t find her.

Chapter 26

Dysis slumped in her chair as Commander Nyx played back Alistar’s conversation with Ward Balias yet again, this time for Ward Nekos over secure comms. She’d heard it so many times over the past few hours that the words blurred together, meaningless. She desperately wanted to sleep, but there was no way she was leaving now, with so much in the balance.

Nyx sat at the desk with all of the sound equipment, while Dianthe paced the room, trailing her fingers along the wall. The monitor on the second workstation was lit with Ward Neko’s weary face.

“Why would Ward Balias move the weapon to Qassar?” Dianthe asked.

“The prison is a good distance south of Kayo,” Nyx mused. “Probably one of the most secure compounds in the entire dominion. From a strategic standpoint, it’s not particularly surprising.”

“But it is surprising that he would move the weapon to the same location as two high-profile Atalantan officers,” Dianthe replied.

That was what made it so strange. Ward Balias had told Alistar that Aris and Major Vadim were in Safara’s largest and most impenetrable prison . . . and that he was having the flaming scorpion transported to the same location. It didn’t make a bit of sense to Dysis. Balias should want to divide his assets, not put them all in one place for Atalantan forces to attack.

Dianthe paused at the commander’s shoulder and leaned close to the screen. “He either feels very secure in his belief that we don’t know where Vadim and Haan are . . .”

“Or it’s another trap,” Nyx finished. She glanced up at the taller woman as a silent understanding seemed to pass between them.

Dysis found it fascinating to watch the two women work. They’d been like this for the past few hours, playing ideas off each other, their words skidding together and apart, like a dance. She couldn’t help but wonder at their history.

On the monitor at the second workstation, Ward Nekos cleared his throat. “Could he be lying to Alistar?” he asked. “Feeding false intel?” The dark circles under his eyes looked like black holes on the vid screen.

Commander Nyx sighed. “He could be, but we have to hope he’s not. That would mean Ward Balias knows Alistar’s not the man he appears to be. We’ve had no indication that’s the case.”

Dianthe shot her a look. “But we don’t know. We’d be acting on faith.”

“Regardless, we need to make all attempts to confiscate that weapon,” Ward Nekos added, frowning. “That must be our priority. Even if it’s a risk.”

The whole thing seemed suspicious to Dysis. As much as she wanted to rush in and save Aris, guns blazing, common sense told her something more was going on here.

A loud knock cut through the brief silence. Dysis straightened quickly, as Dianthe punched in the appropriate code to open the door.

As soon as Dysis saw the tall, olive-skinned man enter, she leapt from her chair.

“Jax!” She threw her arms around her brother, relief bubbling through her. “You made it out of Safara.”

“In my usual cutting it close style.” Jax grinned ruefully and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “Good to see you, sis.” Then he focused his attention on Commander Nyx. “What did Alistar get? Did the gamble work?”

Nyx played back the conversation one more time, then turned on the live feed. Alistar was silent, in a wingjet on his way to the prison.

“Tell me, Commander, what do you need to get this done?” Ward Nekos asked.

Nyx drummed her hands on the table. “If the weapon is indeed being transported to the same location as Haan and Vadim, we’ll need a large team, split into two groups. One to retrieve the weapon, one to rescue Haan and Vadim. We don’t have that kind of manpower here at Mekia.”

“I’ll transfer two flying units from the nearest combat stationpoint,” Nekos said. “What else?”

“It’s not just about force, sir,” Jax interjected. “We need a way to throw them off-balance to give us time to search the building. Prisons have many gates, many safeguards.”

“What do you suggest?” the ward asked.

Pride filled Dysis. The Ward of Atalanta wanted to know her brother’s opinion.

Jax didn’t say anything for a moment, but Dysis knew the instant inspiration struck. His eyes widened a hair, and he bit his lip. It was the exact expression he’d gotten when he came up with the plan to build a fort with ziplines behind their house when he was twelve. He didn’t speak immediately, and she knew he was teasing the threads of his idea, pulling and testing, until he was sure it was worthy.

Then he looked around the room, his eyes lit with excitement. “I know exactly what we need.”

Chapter 27

As Galena watched the countryside roll beneath the wingjet, it occurred to her that she’d seen very little of Atalanta aside from Panthea’s needle-thin skycrapers and city streets. Out here, blankets of green were interspersed with white-roofed villages and heavily shadowed valleys. In the distance, the Fex River glistened.

The vista was beautiful, but it was hard to fully enjoy it. Along the western horizon, smoke muddied the blue sky, and the flight routes were nearly empty. There’d been cases of enemy flyers zipping outside of the war zone to attack nonmilitary wingjets, and few wanted to risk that kind of danger.

Soon, straight, dusky green lines of olive groves and a sliver of blue ocean came into view, above which the seemingly precarious buildings of Lux clung to the cliffs.

Galena’s flyer brought them down lightly on the wide public landing pad at the edge of the village. The long luxury jet illicited a few stares. Galena herself thought the wingjet was too much, but Pyralis had insisted that it was safer and would make the trip to Castalia faster. The comfortably upholstered seats and wide windows were admittedly nice features, especially after traveling in Military wingjets for the better part of a year.

As Galena disembarked, a woman in a brilliant red-and-gold dress strode toward her. Her brown skin gleamed in the bright sun like polished cypress, and thick brown hair framed her face.

“Welcome, Ward Vadim. I’m Phae Larkin,” she said with a polite smile. “I work for Lux’s council as the liaison with the Safaran refugees. I’ll take you to the Haan house. That’s where Samira is staying. Our head councilman will be over shortly to welcome you himself.”

“Thank you,” Galena said, nodding. The gusty cliff winds teased strands of hair from her bun and whipped them around her face. Phae seemed wholly unbothered by Galena’s scars; perhaps, with all the statements the ward had been giving lately, people were becoming desensitized.

Galena spied a sprawl of blindingly white buildings in the distance and elevated walkways, which were mostly empty. It was so quiet here, so peaceful after the rush of Panthea. She kept her eyes firmly on Phae’s back as she followed her down one of the elevated pathways. She’d never had a particular problem with heights, but the semitransparent nature of the pathway was disconcerting. Thankfully, it wasn’t long before Phae stepped off the walkway and through an arch to a small stone courtyard.

In the center of the courtyard, two young children bounced a small ball to each other on the mosaic tiles. A woman stood off to the side, watching them. Black hair hung down her back in a cascade of tiny braids. She kept her arms crossed, her back steel-beam straight.

Samira.

Galena mentally reviewed her plan. From all accounts, this would be a difficult sell.

Phae paused just inside the archway. “Here we are, Ward Vadim. I’ll let you know when our councilman arrives.”

Galena smiled her thanks. “I appreciate your help. Thank you.”

Samira turned her gaze to the women, a frown the only greeting she offered. In a shaded corner nearby, a baby girl sat on a blanket gnawing on a felt toy.

Galena took a few moments to regard Samira before she spoke. There was an alertness to her—in the way her chestnut eyes constantly scanned the children gathered before her, her body poised to come to their aid—that Galena appreciated.

“I have a proposition for you,” Galena said at last, not bothering with introductions or small talk.

Samira flicked a couple of her braids over her shoulder and raised a brow.

“I would like you and some of the children here to accompany me to Castalia to speak with Ward Rosum. Our efforts require more Military support, and the other dominions still aren’t involving themselves. If Ward Rosum is forced to confront the atrocities Ward Balias has wrought upon Safara, I believe she’ll finally make the right choice.”

“You mean you want to exploit these children for Atalanta’s gain,” Samira snapped.

Galena held her gaze. It was the response she’d expected, and she had her answer ready. “No. Not exploit. Because this isn’t just about Atalanta. It’s about Safara, too. Your people. Your children. If Ward Rosum doesn’t provide aid, we could lose this war. What do you think that will mean for the Safaran citizens who oppose Ward Balias’s rule? Or the ones too poor or broken to dissent? Will Balias pick them back up and use his new resources to save them, as he’s claimed to do so many times?”

Samira stared at her for a long time. Galena didn’t back down, didn’t blink. She needed this. The whole world needed this.

“I’ll go.” The voice came from the doorway into the house.

Samira glared into the shadows. “Kori, don’t—”

A skinny boy leaning heavily on a crutch hobbled into the sunlight. “I’ll tell that ward whatever she wants to know. I’ll tell her about the weapons training, when they had us use the bodies of dead Atalantan soldiers for target practice. I’ll tell her about the whippings, and the night I was taken from my family. When I begged my mom to hush because she was screaming so loud, I was afraid they’d kill her.”

For a moment, Galena couldn’t speak. The child before her was maybe thirteen, gaunt from the effects of prolonged hunger and scarred by Gods knew what. His shaggy brown hair and simple clothes were clean, but he still held wariness like a shield.

“Where’s your mother now?” Galena asked softly.

His expression hardened. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t have to do this, Kori. No one has to go,” Samira said. She turned her back on Galena, blocking the boy from view.

“You won’t let me fight,” he replied, loudly enough that Galena could hear every word. “But I won’t let you stop me from doing this.”

With a sigh, Samira muttered, “Fine.” She turned back to Galena. “We’ll go. But we aren’t game pieces to be played. You understand that?”

Galena nodded solemnly. “I do.”

Samira nudged Kori’s shoulder. “Go tell the others. See if anyone else is willing.”

The boy passed Galena and hobbled onto the walkway. The villagers of Lux had taken the Safaran refugees into their homes; the younger children stayed here at Aris’s parents’ house with Samira; the older children and the other adults were divided among other willing families.

“We need to leave soon,” Galena added. “I’d like to get there before dark.”

Samira shot her a look. “Kori will have to hunt down the other children. Some of them are in the groves helping their hosts.”

Galena squelched her impatience. She was lucky Samira had agreed to come at all. Thanks to Kori. Even now, the small glimpse into the boy’s life chilled her.

Just then, Phae cleared her throat. “Ward Vadim, the counselor has arrived. He’d like to give you a tour of Lux.”

Galena nodded to the rosy-cheeked man standing beside Phae, her politician’s smile appearing automatically. “I would be delighted.” She glanced back at Samira. “I won’t be long.”

The woman picked up the little girl, her eyes filled with resigned determination. “When you get back, we’ll be ready.”

Chapter 28

Aris heaved into wakefulness on a wave of adrenaline. Musty darkness enveloped her. She couldn’t remember where she was, only aware of the tight box that pinned her in on all sides. She struggled to escape before her brain caught up. When it did, she froze, but her frantic movements had set the metal clanging, sending out dangerous echoes.

The air vent. The Safaran guards.

She was flat on her stomach in the prison’s ductwork. She’d hidden here and waited for what felt like hours while the soldiers searched for her, terrified of making the smallest sound. Somehow, she must have fallen asleep.

Milek.

Memories tried to surface. Milek being dragged away, a fellow prisoner’s ominous prediction. Milek was not dead. He was too valuable to Ward Balias as a negotiating chip. He had to be alive. She couldn’t let herself believe otherwise.

And she had to find him.

For a long time, she waited to see if her movements had given her away. Silence pressed in on her from all sides, coating the darkness with an extra layer of claustrophobia. Faintly, far in the distance, a hiss indicated air was flowing through the system. Not much of the cool draft made it this far down, and her crusted, blood-stained uniform was damp with sweat. Her stomach clawed at itself with hunger and fear.

But no one shouted or grabbed at her. For another minute, she laid as still as stone, trying to decide her next move. If she went back out of the vent, she’d be in a hallway with rows of locked doors, and there was no way to tell what would be behind them. Going forward through the ductwork was risky, too, but it was her only shot.

As quietly as she could, she dragged herself forward with her elbows.

Minutes passed. Her body slid and caught, slid and caught. She reached a place where the air felt cooler and moved more freely around her head. She reached one hand up into the darkness, and her fingers kept going. Another duct, leading straight up. Aris carefully gathered her legs under her and stood up.

There were no handholds. Just smooth metal encasing her. She braced her arms and back against the walls and slowly brought her feet up, beginning to climb.

The maze swallowed her. Minutes turned into hours as she methodically burrowed her way through the airways of the building. Heading upward when she could, resting often, slinking along on her stomach. She passed over other vents. Most led to rooms full of prisoners or, once, a mess hall teeming with guards, but there was never any sign of Milek or a clear escape route.

She was starting to wonder if it would be better to drop into a cell and try her passcard on the door, when suddenly, the metal beneath her tore open with an ear-splitting shriek. Aris grappled for something to hold on to, but the slick ductwork gave her up as easily as a secret. She spilled down from the ceiling in a cloud of dust and debris, landing hard on her side, hands up to protect her head.

The clatter continued for a few seconds. Aris kept her face covered, knees to her chest, and tried to breathe. Her pulse raced fast enough to make her dizzy. She expected someone to yell or drag her up by her hair at any moment. But no one came.

Eventually, she drew her hands from her face and opened her eyes.

Directly in front of her, an overturned chair partially blocked her view of a boxy chrome desk. Sheets of paper, thinner and less durable than the silco Atalanta used, had blown across the chipped tile floor. Aris scrambled to her feet.

Her bed of crumpled ductwork lay between her and another group of chairs. There was no one else in the room.

And it wasn’t a cell.

Aris pumped her fist in the air in silent triumph. That meant she still had a chance; her fall hadn’t sealed her fate. Still, it wouldn’t take long for someone to come investigate.

She ran to the door. First, she held her ear against it, listening for footsteps, but the steel was so thick she wasn’t sure she could trust the silence. So she bent down to peek out the tiny gap beneath the door, just as a shadow shifted beyond. She shrank back into the room, searching hurriedly for another escape route.

She was too late.

The door slid open to reveal three Safaran soldiers, glowering. The one in the center, clearly the leader, stepped over the threshold. His eyes, the muddy green of a polluted lake, burned with hatred.

“We’ve been looking for you,” he said.

Aris backed away, knocking into the desk, a desperate scream locked in her throat. The soldier grabbed her shoulder with one hand, and punched her in the stomach with the other. She doubled over, gasping. There was no air left with which to scream.

He bent close and hissed, “Come on, doll. You’ve got a date.”

***

They took her back down into the bowels of the building, to the same door from which she’d made her play for freedom. All of that work, those hours in darkness, had been for nothing. This time she had no weapon, no way to stop them from heaving her into the room. The new space yawned before her, more open yet much darker than the hallway. A few lights hung from the low ceiling, swinging gently in the breeze from the open door. The floor was gouged and stained. Aris swallowed hard and tried not to think too much about what the stains might be.

In the center of the room, under the lights, Milek was tied between two columns, his arms spread wide. His shirt had been removed, and his bare chest ran with blood. His head drooped forward. She couldn’t tell if he was still alive.

Aris lunged toward him, her throat spilling an inarticulate sound that was half scream, half moan. Somehow she managed to rip herself free from the soldiers and run the few steps to Milek’s side. Her bound hands reached for his face, smoothed across his swollen skin.

“Milek,” she whispered before the biggest of the soldiers yanked her away, wrenching her shoulder painfully.

But it was enough. With a groan, Milek shifted and slowly raised his head.

“Milek,” Aris said again, her voice thick.

His mouth moved, as if he were trying to reply, but no sound came out.

The soldiers restraining her forced her to her knees. She struggled, but they easily overpowered her. The leader removed a knife from a sheath at his waist. Fear washed over Aris in a dizzying wave. She’d been so worried about Milek, so afraid for him that she’d forgotten to fear for herself. But the narrow-nosed soldier brandished the weapon near her face and helped her remember.

She tried to keep her expression blank. But when Milek saw the knife, he threw himself against his bonds and screamed, “Don’t you bastards hurt her!” and his hoarse, hopeless voice broke her.

“Major Vadim has not answered our questions,” the soldier with the knife said. “When you escaped, we were especially persuasive, but it was still no use. So, now that you’ve come back to us, we’ll ask you.”

The two soldiers holding her in place tightened their grip on her shoulders. Aris bit back a whimper.

“We know you have invisible wingjets.”

Aris grimaced. Another secret Pallas had shared.

“How do they work? Tell me about the tech.” The man passed his knife from hand to hand. With a single question, Aris could tell he wasn’t nearly the interrogator Elom was. His face held a hint of revulsion, and his movements had the mechanical precision of someone doing his job. For Elom, torture had been a passion.

Instead of answering, Aris took a deep breath and braced herself for more pain. Her body was already so battered, what was one more wound?

The soldier whipped the knife through the air in a sudden, vicious arc, but he spun away from her. A thin line of blood erupted along Milek’s stomach.

Aris couldn’t hold back her sob. Milek hunched, grunting. Tied the way he was, his battered body had no defense.

“Answer my question,” the soldier said, glancing back at her.

“Don’t you dare touch him again,” she growled, wishing she was the one with the knife and he the one with the bonds.

The snake cut Milek again.

“Don’t say anything,” Milek told Aris, but even the words sagged, his breath coming in short gasps. Aris wanted to beg his forgiveness. She shouldn’t have tried to escape; she would have been here, with him, hours ago.

Tears streaming down her face, Aris whispered, “It’s some kind of tech the Ruslanans cooked up. That’s all I know, I swear. I don’t know how it works, or how to make it, or anything.”

The soldier brandished his knife. “How many invisible wingjets does Atalanta have?”

There’d be bruises on her shoulders where the others restrained her, but still she fought against their hold, forcing them to grip tighter. “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know. Don’t hurt him, I’d tell you if I knew.”

The soldier cut Milek anyway, deep enough to make him scream.

Aris slammed her palms onto the hard floor, slick with Milek’s blood, and bowed her head. She sobbed. She begged. “If you’ve got to torture someone, torture me. Please.”

They were going to die. Long before a rescue mission, long before Alistar could find them, if he was even alive himself.

Every atom of Aris’s body wanted to reach for Milek, wanted to hold him in her arms, wanted to cry into his neck and feel his soft lips on her shoulder. All of her wanted to touch him, to be with him, for their end.

And her torturer knew it. He cut Milek again.

Chapter 29

In Pyralis’s large luxury wingjet, the flight to Castalia only took five hours. Even so, for Galena, the time dragged. Before they’d left, Pyralis had updated her on the search for Milek and Aris—he believed their location had been pinpointed, and Alistar was en route—but her son remained, for now, in the hands of those who would do him harm.

He was still in danger.

Only Samira and Kori stayed awake. The five older children traveling with them had fallen asleep after availing themselves of the giant lemon and feta pastries Galena had offered. Samira’s daughter, Hazel, slept in her lap, while her son, Jaff, lay curled up in the cushioned chair beside her. He looked nothing like Milek had as a child, but still Galena watched his small, peaceful face with memories of long ago floating through her mind.

Kori stared out the window into the clouds. He didn’t ask her more about where they were going or what was expected of him. He seemed content in the knowledge that his story would be helpful. Somehow.

Galena hoped.

“What happened to your husband?” she asked Samira, her gaze drawn again to Jaff. Even as the words left her mouth, Galena could guess.

“He was killed in battle,” Samira said shortly, clearly unwilling to say more.

“I’m so sorry. I know it means little enough to you, but I truly am.” Galena sipped her mug of tea. “My husband was a victim of the war as well,” she added softly. “The world believes he had a heart attack, but he was murdered to further Ward Balias’s schemes.”

She carried a lot of guilt when it came to Josef. For how she’d resented him. For marrying him in the first place, when she knew she couldn’t give him her whole heart. But if she hadn’t, Milek wouldn’t be here. And that would have been a much greater tragedy.

Samira didn’t respond, but some of the tightness around her mouth eased.

The vast ocean gave way to the verdant green of Castalia long before their flyer eased them slowly out of the sky toward the capital city, Liliani. Galena straightened her pale yellow dress, smoothing out the wrinkles. Samira’s children woke as the wingjet bounced onto the landing pad.

Kori and the five other former child soldiers were the first to disembark. Galena studied them closely as a uniformed driver shuttled them into a large terran, watching for signs of anxiety or fear. All six boys kept their gazes pinned to the glass as they rode toward the capitol. Where Panthea climbed to the sky with tall skyscrapers in chrome and glass, Liliani sprawled, immense, in browns and reds, all sturdy wood and brick. There were few tall buildings; the dominion suffered from frequent earthquakes so the structures were built to cling to the ground, to withstand.

Galena had only been to Castalia once before, and she found herself peering out the window, as fascinated as her Safaran companions. Only Samira had no time for sightseeing. She was busy with Jaff and Hazel, who were weary of travel and inclined to fuss.

Liliani’s Capitol made up for its lack of height by taking up four city blocks, its creamy stone facade punctuated by wide, golden columns. The terran pulled smoothly to a stop in front of its tall iron gates, and the driver gave his credentials to the guard. After a quick search, they proceeded through the gate and up a curved drive.

Sera Rossum, the Ward of Castalia, waited for them at the far end of an ornate receiving hall. Galena kept her head high as she walked along the echoey marble floor, her footsteps creating a syncopated rhythm with those of Samira and the boys. The room was designed to impress, intimidate even, but she refused to be cowed. Kori led the way, everyone else walking slowly to accommodate his limp.

“Ward Vadim, you’ve come a long way,” Sera said when they reached her. She stood on a small dais, dressed in mint green, her thick gray hair strung through with ropes of gold. Fine wrinkles like spiderwebs fanned out from the corners of her eyes and around her pursed lips. She didn’t look particularly happy to see them.

Galena inclined her head. “I have, Ward Rossum, and for good cause.”

In the pause that followed, Hazel babbled and screeched. Samira hushed her, drawing her close to her shoulder and whispering in her ear.

Sera’s gaze lingered on the mother and her small child. Galena caught the tiny flash of tenderness before the woman looked away. Sera had older children of her own, but, like Galena, she would remember those days. The sweet pillowy cheeks and pudgy arms wrapped so tightly around her neck. The sweet innocence.

Galena was counting on it.

“My companions come to you as refugees from Safara,” she said, gesturing to Kori, who leaned heavily on this crutch, and Gideon, who was missing his left hand. The four others didn’t carry their war days so obviously, but the wariness in their eyes hinted at the horrors they’d endured. “These boys all share a similar story. They were stolen from their families, thrust into Safara’s Military, abused, and forced to fight. They’ve come all this way to tell you of their experiences, in the hope that you’ll help us put an end to this war.”

Sera cocked her head. She held onto her polite smile, but something shifted in her eyes as she observed the boys. Before she could respond, Kori stepped forward, away from the rest of the group.

“I haven’t seen my mother in eight months,” he said, his chin up. “But every night, in my dreams, I hear her screams when they beat her the night the soldiers dragged me away. I don’t know if she’s even alive.” He rubbed a hand along the scars that crisscrossed his arms. “I told them I wouldn’t fight, so they tortured me until I would. I’ll live with the things I’ve done forever.” He paused, his eyes never leaving Sera’s face. “Someday, your people are going to find out what Ward Balias did to us, and they’re going to wonder why you sat back and did nothing. Why are you doing nothing?”

Even though the words weren’t directed to her, Galena felt them like a punch to the gut. Sera took a tiny step backward.

Gideon went next. He held up his left arm. “I was a foot soldier. They gave me a gun but didn’t bother to teach me how to use it. I was just a body to fill the ranks. I am thirteen years old.”

One by one, the rest of the boys spoke.

“They beat my father because he refused to fight. He died, so they took me instead.”

“My village had no water, no food. Ward Balias’s soldiers came and promised grain and clean water if every boy and man from ten to sixty would join the military. So we all did. Even my little brother. He didn’t make it.”

Galena and Samira stood to the side as the boys pummeled Sera with their pain. Galena fought against the burn of tears. Samira stared straight ahead, face stony, watching Sera’s reaction. Even the soldiers against the wall started to shift and glance at each other from the corners of their eyes. What would the Castalian people do if they knew what was really going on in Safara? Would they still prefer to remain uninvolved?

When the boys finished their stories, Sera nodded gravely. “Thank you for sharing this information with me,” she said, with an almost imperceptible tremor in her voice. “I’m sure it was difficult to speak of such things, and it was a long journey besides. Please accept my offer of hospitality while I . . . consider . . . this new information.” She cut her eyes to Galena and said more sharply, “Ward Vadim, perhaps you and I could speak privately, while your companions eat?”

“Of course, Ward Rossum.” Sera’s face gave away nothing, but Galena couldn’t suppress a sudden, fierce flare of hope.

Chapter 30

Tia watched the vid comm of her family and tried not to cry. The rec room was busy, and she couldn’t afford to have anyone notice her distress. All around her, soldiers argued over the latest news vid or grumbled during their splots games. Nyal and Otto played a few tables over. They weren’t loud like the rest, but they were also more likely to pay attention if she broke. The last thing she needed was someone asking her what was wrong.

Still, it was difficult to keep her emotions in check. Her father had a ragged, gasping cough, and his skin was so pale that she could see the blue of his veins stretching across his thin arms. Her brother had grown gaunt, and he no longer looked like he had any fight in him. Her mother kept her head bowed. Their misery reached through the comm to tear at her with razored claws.

The coded message was clear. Her handler wanted more intel. Always more intel.

A soldier a few seats away cleared his throat. Tia looked up and noticed Commander Nyx stomping toward her. She quickly closed the comm.

“Specialist Pallas, in my office.” Nyx left without waiting for a reply.

Tia stood up on shaky legs. Oh Gods. They know.

Nausea roiled in her stomach, and the room suddenly felt much too small. She rushed into the hallway, afraid she might be sick. Nyx was already rounding the corner at the end of the corridor.

Wait. No escort. No soldiers to make sure she didn’t run.

Her heart rate slowed a fraction. Even so, Tia turned down alternate hallways twice, determined to escape.

But each time, she reconsidered. Because fleeing wouldn’t help her family. She didn’t know where to run to; if she knew where they were, she would have attempted a rescue already.

Somehow her feet delivered her to Nyx’s office.

She held her breath as the door slid open, expecting to see soldiers waiting for her with restraints. But it was just Commander Nyx, sitting at her desk, eyes intent on her monitor. Sunlight filtered through the small bank of windows.

When Tia cleared her throat, frozen in the doorway, Nyx looked up. “No need to linger. Come in,” she said.

Tia shuffled inside, every instinct warning her to run the other way. “You . . . ah . . . you wanted to see me?”

“How are you doing?” Commander Nyx watched her with shrewd eyes.

Tia clamped her jaw so her mouth wouldn’t fall open. That wasn’t the question she expected. “I’m . . . I’m okay, I guess,” she stuttered.

“Did you get cleared by med?” Nyx nodded toward Tia’s wrist, still wrapped in thick white bandages.

“They said I can fly but no combat training for a couple of months,” Tia said.

“Your psych eval showed you’ve been struggling with anxiety. I can imagine this most recent mission didn’t help your state of mind.” Nyx had never once spoken to Tia about her mental state. Nor had she ever looked at her with such sympathy. For an instant, Tia wondered if she was having some kind of nervous break. Her shame threatened to choke her. “I should be here offering you a respite, I know that,” Nyx continued. “But I have another mission. With our . . . losses, you’re one of only two flyers with experience on the invisible wingjets, and there’s no time to train anyone else. Are you up for it?”

With a sick feeling in her stomach, Tia nodded. She wanted to scream, No. Don’t tell me anything more. Don’t make this harder! But of course she couldn’t. She could only live with her demons and pray that somehow, somehow it would all be worth it, and she’d save her family.

She had to save them. If she didn’t, she wasn’t a daughter risking everything to rescue her family.

She was just a monster.

***

When Tia walked into the stuffy workout room, she was surprised to see Dysis standing next to a man who had to be her brother. He looked almost exactly as Dysis had when she’d been disguised as a man. Dysis laughed at something he said, then filed into formation with the rest of the soldiers entering the room.

Tia took a spot in the front. She automatically glanced around for Baksen, and then nearly doubled over at the sudden knife of memory. Baksen is dead.

Because of you.

Tia looked around, but the soldiers were strangers to her with the exception of Lieutenant Santos, Otto, and Nyal. As soon as everyone quieted, Lieutenant Latza addressed the room. “As most of you know, Lieutenant Haan and Major Vadim were recently abducted by Safaran operatives. We’ve discovered their location at a prison near the coast. You’ve all been selected and cleared to play a covert and integral role in the mission to retrieve them.”

Tia’s breath froze. They’d found Aris and Major Vadim? Inwardly, she rejoiced, even as her subconscious whispered, This just means you’ll have to betray them again.

Lieutenant Latza nodded to Dianthe, who stood beside him. “For the next forty-eight hours, you will be under Dianthe’s command. She’ll fashion you all with diatous veils. We’ll be using you to infiltrate the prison, throw off Safaran defenses, and create an opportunity for the larger force to take control. It will be a joint mission involving Atalantan, Ruslanan, and Castalian troops.”

Castalia is sending troops? Tia couldn’t believe it.

“Who are we going to be veiled as?” Dysis asked, from the back row. She’d never been one for incomplete instructions.

“You’ll look like Lieutenant Aris Haan,” Jax said.

Tia’s heart thudded painfully in her chest. Murmurs filled the room; Lieutenant Latza held up a hand until everyone quieted.

“We have an opportunity here. Complain all you want about disguising yourselves as women, but this is the single biggest advantage we have. Lieutenant Haan is imprisoned. What will those guarding her do when they see her walking free? The benefits of the inevitable confusion and misdirection cannot be overstated.”

Tia tasted bile at the back of her throat. Her contacts would want to know about this.

Oh holy, what am I going to do?

“What about Major Vadim?” asked one soldier, his voice loud and grating. “Why can’t we disguise ourselves to look like him?”

Lieutenant Latza crossed his arms. “Ideally, we’d have some troops disguised as both Haan and Major Vadim, but the Major has never been fashioned for a veil. Without his data points, Dianthe can’t create his likeness.”

Then, when there were no more questions, he released them from formation. Dianthe began taking measurements, and Latza walked through the room, explaining to each of them their individual roles in the rescue.

“Well, this is certainly a reversal,” Dysis said from over Tia’s shoulder.

Tia jerked. She hadn’t seen the girl approach. All she could do was nod; her mouth was too dry to speak.

Dysis’s brother came over and took her arm, leading her a few feet away. Still Tia overheard him say, “Dianthe will be busy here, so I need you to man Alistar’s feed in her stead. Come get your veil fitted during Raven’s shift.”

Tia immediately washed the words from her mind. She had no idea what he was talking about, and she wanted it to stay that way. The less she knew, the less she had to tell the Safarans.

“You realize I haven’t been cleared for active duty,” Dysis said, raising a single dark brow.

Her brother gave her a quick, searching look. “No, I didn’t know. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Just, you know, major surgery. Everyone being extracautious. All that business.” Tia caught a glimpse of Dysis’s face and the two spots of pink that highlighted her cheeks.

Lieutenant Latza studied her. “Stay on the feed, then. That’s important, too. I won’t endanger your health.”

“No. I’m with you on this.” Dysis gripped his arm. “I won’t let you leave me behind.” Just then, her gaze wandered. She caught Tia’s eye before Tia had time to turn away.

Tia flushed. “Sorry . . . sorry, I . . .” I was spying on you, and now I don’t know how to play off this moment.

But Dysis just bumped her arm. She glanced at the group of male soldiers milling in the center of the room. “So this is your clever plan, Jax, turning a bunch of men into Aris. No one will believe these oafs are women.”

Tia couldn’t help adding, “Pretending to be someone you’re not is a lot harder than it looks.”

Dysis snorted. “So true, Pallas. They’ve got no idea what they’re in for.”

“They won’t have to convince anyone for longer than it takes them to run down a hallway,” Lieutenant Latza said, regarding the men. “We’re not asking them to live in Aris’s skin forever.”

“They wouldn’t survive,” Dysis said abruptly.

He shot them both a conspiratorial glance. “Tell me you aren’t looking forward to watching them muddle through, just a little.”

Tia couldn’t help the grin that touched her lips. Still, her heart beat a sickening rhythm against her rib cage. This was exactly the kind of intel her contact wanted. If she didn’t share it, and they found out on their own, they’d kill her family.

But she didn’t want to give them—no. She wouldn’t. She couldn’t put Aris in danger again. She’d give them something else. Anything else. Castalia’s troops. That would work.

Just then, a dark shadow crossed Dysis’s face. The girl took a step closer to her brother and said under her breath, “Jax, this only works if they haven’t killed her yet.”

The words were a punch to Tia’s gut. They could create the illusion of the woman, but it was an entirely different matter to give form to her ghost.

Chapter 31

They chained Aris up between two columns, like they’d done with Milek. They tortured them both, using knives and fists, asking their questions of whoever was forced to watch. After a while, Aris and Milek both lost the breath to scream.

At some point, the soldiers left. Aris wasn’t sure what she’d said, what advantage she’d given Balias. But every wound that crisscrossed Milek’s body, each cut and bruise on her own, she relived, over and over, in excruciating detail.

They hadn’t needed Elom. They’d used Aris and Milek’s love for each other to break them both.

“Aris,” Milek whispered through cracked, blood-crusted lips. “Are you still there?” Both of his eyes were swollen shut, and his cheeks were bruised purple. He couldn’t see her, so every few minutes, his hoarse voice crossed the distance between them.

“I’m here, Milek,” she said, tears cutting new paths down her dirty cheeks. “I won’t leave you, I promise. I’m sorry. I’m so—”

He hushed her, the sound grinding into a cough. Fresh blood speckled his lips. She prayed it was from a cut in his mouth, not from some deep internal injury. Her own lungs hurt every time she took a breath; at least two of her ribs were broken.

Milek’s head sagged against his shoulder. Aris sobbed. He’d passed out again. She called his name, over and over, her voice a ragged whisper. She’d seen soldiers die without a single mark on them. And Milek was beaten and bleeding from head to toe. What if this was the time he didn’t wake up?

Each time her own head dipped, she fought it. She couldn’t fall asleep. She refused to leave him alone.

A while later, the door to their prison slid open. Aris couldn’t keep a whimper from escaping. Voices clamored outside the door.

“Stay here.”

“But sir—”

“I said stay.”

“Yes, sir.”

The grating, nasal tone belonged to the lead interrogator, his voice one that would narrate her nightmares. But the other voice conjured up older fears, more deeply ingrained terror.

And yet, when Elom entered the blood-slicked room in all his bald, murderous glory, Aris nearly laughed.

As soon as the door slid closed and they were alone, she relaxed against her bonds. “Alistar. You’re here.”

“Holy, what have they done to you?” He ran to her side and started working on her restraints. “We don’t have much time. Ward Balias is on his way here.”

“Here?” she asked, eyes widening.

“He has plans for you, Aris. I don’t know what exactly, but they can’t be good. We have to get you two out of here.” Alistar’s frantic look didn’t sit well on Elom’s face; the brows were too bunched up, and his worried eyes didn’t quite match the illusion.

“You can’t free us, Alistar. Your cover will be blown. The flaming—”

“They’re bringing it here.”

The news shocked Aris into silence. Why would they do that? This was the one place Balias must know would be under attack, if Atalanta discovered that Aris and Milek were being held here.

Milek stirred. “Alistar, we need you to remain . . . in . . .” He coughed that horrible, bloody cough again. “In Balias’s confidence. You can’t risk saving us now.”

“Like hell,” Alistar said, ignoring them both. He released Aris’s right arm and got to work on the other. Pain rocked her as blood flowed back to her hand. “We’ll hide you. If we’re lucky, we can make it look like you overpowered me.”

“While tied up, blind, and standing in our own blood?” Milek mumbled.

Aris’s other arm came free, and Alistar helped her rest against one of the columns, then made his way to Milek. Aris wanted to get up and help, but her fingers were numb and she wasn’t sure her legs would hold her.

She didn’t waste time arguing with Alistar. Instead, she shared her own unwelcome news. “The spy is Pallas,” she said, for the benefit of the person listening at the other end of the feed. “She turned us over to the Safarans. They knew we were coming because she told them.” She let all of her hate spill out as she repeated, “Pallas is the spy,” as clearly as she could. She didn’t want there to be any doubt.

Milek groaned as his arms flopped to his sides. Alistar grabbed him around the chest before his legs buckled. As it was, by the strain along Alistar’s neck, Aris could tell Milek was mostly dead weight.

Aris crawled across the dirty floor, not willing to put her trust in her own legs just yet.

“What do we do now?” she murmured. “Is there a plan?”

Alistar grunted, still weighed down by Milek’s limp body. How would they escape, when Milek couldn’t even stand?

“I did some research on my way here,” he said. “There’s an old lift shaft that runs through the building. We need to get you into the vents and find that shaft. It’ll take us out of the prison undetected.” He cocked his head toward the shadowy back corner of the room. “See? There’s the access panel.”

Aris stifled a groan. Not the vents again.

Alistar continued. “As for a larger rescue effort, I don’t know what’s happening. No one has—”

His voice was swallowed by a sudden, loud screech.

The door.

There was no time to get to the vent. There was no time to move at all.

Ward Balias strode into the chamber, his eyes sliding over Alistar holding up Milek, to Aris crumpled on the ground, unrestrained, a few feet away.

“Well, this is an interesting development,” he said, his brown eyes glowing in his tanned face.

For a moment, Aris ignored him. She continued her painful crawl until she reached Milek. Alistar set him on the ground carefully next to her, and she ran her hands over his few unmarked patches of skin—the curve of his shoulder, the side of his neck—and reassured herself that he was still alive. Still here with her.

“It’s going to be okay, it’s going to be okay,” she whispered, over and over, as she smoothed a hand over his hair.

“Well now, I’m not sure about that,” Ward Balias interjected.

Balias was strong and trim, with sandy-blond hair, weathered skin that crinkled at the corners of his eyes, and a deceptively delicate mouth. Aris still remembered how, in every news vid he’d released, his expression had reminded her of a gleeful monster, ready to swallow her whole.

Up close, the impression didn’t fade.

But there was something in his eyes . . . he was thrown off. He hadn’t expected to see his most trusted operative freeing his hostages.

“Ward Balias,” Alistar-as-Elom said, inclining his head in a respectful bow. “I was under the impression you wanted to speak to the prisoners in their cells.”

“And you what?” Balias gestured to Aris and Milek, still entwined. “Thought you’d give them a moment to themselves first?”

Alistar shrugged nonchalantly, perfectly capturing Elom’s muscular grace. “Forgive me. I was looking forward to tearing the bitch away from him and listening to her scream.”

Aris’s grip on Milek tightened reflexively, as a slow shiver wound down her spine. That’s Alistar. You know that’s Alistar. He’s trying to save you.

Ward Balias’s clenched jaw relaxed. “You wanted to listen to her scream.”

Alistar straightened and stepped away from Aris, nodding. Something caught her eye. Oh Gods . . .

The hem of his pants had hitched up when he knelt. She lunged toward him, trying to make it before Balias saw, trying desperately to hide the clear, smooth material exposed beneath the black fabric . . .

Maybe if she hadn’t moved, Balias wouldn’t have noticed. Maybe they still could have salvaged the moment.

But Balias saw.

Alistar’s new-tech prosthetic leg, the one thing Elom would never have.

“Interesting, indeed,” Ward Balias mused, something slithery and nasty snaking behind his eyes.

It took Alistar a split second to realize he’d been exposed. A second in which Balias whipped an old-fashioned gun from the holster at his waist and shot him through the throat.

“No!” Aris screamed. She reached for Alistar, but it was too late. The man tumbled to the ground with a sickening thud, the diatous veil and its transmitter shattered. In an instant, Elom disappeared. It was Alistar’s kinder, less hard-worn face that Aris wept over as he died.

Oh, Alistar. Samira was going to be devastated.

Balias didn’t move. He waited until the gush of blood slowed, until the life left Alistar’s eyes.

Aris couldn’t draw a breath. Her heart beat so hard, it threatened to explode from her chest. The smeared puddle of blood on the floor grew until she and Milek were soaked in it, the coppery smell of death everywhere.

If she lived long enough to leave this room, the stench would surely follow her, dragging along like her own shadow, impossible to escape. She would never truly be clean. Alistar had risked everything to save them, and they were still caught. Worse, with him dead and his veil broken, no one in Atalanta could hear what happened next. Now, she and Milek were truly, terrifyingly alone.

Balias holstered his gun. “A spy impersonating Elom. Clever, that.” He sounded so unconcerned that for a moment Aris wondered if greed wasn’t his driving force, but madness.

Balias grabbed the back of her jacket and heaved her to her feet. Aris whimpered as pain shot through her broken ribs. Milek fell to his side with a groan. Agonizingly slowly, he pulled himself back up.

“I have a task for you, Aris Haan,” Balias said. “Take a good look at your Promised here. You see his current state . . . not very good, is it?”

Aris licked her lips and swallowed.

Balias focused the full intensity of his gaze on her. “You’re widely regarded as the best flyer in Atalanta. And you’re their hero, aren’t you? So it’s fitting I’ve chosen you as their destroyer.” He let her go and squatted down next to Milek, his eyes never leaving her face. “You’ll drop the flaming scorpion on Panthea, or I’ll kill Milek in the slowest, most agonizing way possible and make you watch.”

He didn’t wait for her response. As her throat closed and her despair broke open, black and immense, he strode quickly to the door and pounded on it. The lead soldier opened it.

“Vik, move these two back to their cells. Give them water to clean themselves up but no towels or anything that could be used as rope. I need them alive. For now, anyway.”

“You won’t do it,” Milek said, his voice scratching up at her like ragged claws. “You can’t.”

“Milek.” His name left her lips as a hopeless sigh. She dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms around his battered body, burying her face in his neck as if, somehow, she could hold them both together.

Against her skin, he said, “I’ll find a way to kill myself so you don’t have to choose.” His cough shook them both. With a pained groan, he added, “Hell, I think I’m already dying.”

Her arms tightened around him, still gentle but desperate, too. “No. You’re not.” Her mind roiled with a thousand agonies and impossible plans. “You can’t die.”

“And you can’t do this,” he said, his voice strained. “You know that. Not for me. Not for anyone. We’ll think of something. We have months before the weapon is ready—”

Behind Aris, Vik laughed. “Months?” He yanked her away from Milek and toward the door, wrenching her arms. “Try hours. She will have the privilege of destroying Atalanta tonight.”

Chapter 32

The roar of the bullet ricocheted through the room, echoing off the walls. Afterward, the silence was absolute. Dysis stared, wild-eyed, at the flat, straight line on the screen. Ward Balias had killed Alistar. He’d killed the feed.

Maybe he’d killed Aris and Milek, too.

Dysis gulped down her panic, the scene playing through her head on repeat.

Pallas is the spy.

The realization slammed into her with crushing force. It wasn’t possible. Not Pallas. She’d checked out. She’d been with them since the beginning. She was a friend. Pallas, Pallas couldn’t—

Pallas knew about the plan to rescue Aris. She could be setting them up.

Dysis slammed her hand on the intercom panel. “Dianthe, Commander Nyx, you’re needed immediately in Sector Four. Right away.”

She heaved to her feet so fast her chair fell to the ground. The thud and clatter filled the room. She paced to the door and back to the monitor, staring at the flat line as if somehow she could resurrect it by will alone. She drummed her hands against her thighs. Counting seconds. Counting heartbeats.

At last, the door slid open to reveal Commander Nyx.

Dysis didn’t give her time to ask what had happened. “Specialist Pallas is the spy. Alistar . . . well, Ward Balias figured out he wasn’t Elom. He figured out we were listening. He cut the feed.” She gulped back the horror. Commander Nyx’s thunderous look made it clear Dysis didn’t have to explain how the feed was cut. “What do we do? If Pallas tells her contacts about the Aris doubles, or they warn her she’s made . . .”

Nyx’s flinty gaze didn’t waver. “Go get her. Be discreet. Don’t give her reason to guess you know. But get her.”

Dysis slipped out of the room and took off at a sprint down the hall. She’d only just been given authorization for a slow jog once a day, but she didn’t hold back. It was just before lunch; maybe Pallas was getting food. Dysis ran for the cafeteria. She skidded to a stop in the doorway. Otto was sitting at their usual table, but he was alone.

“Have you seen Pallas?” she asked, panting.

Otto shook his head, his mouth full. He raised a brow in question.

She waved a hand. No time to explain.

Pallas wasn’t in the rec room either.

Dysis ran for their shared room, embarrassed at the growing weakness in her legs. As she approached, she put one hand on her solagun and used her other hand to swipe her passcard. The door slid open. She held her breath.

The room was empty.

Dysis slumped for a second. Then she hurried inside. A quick rifle through Pallas’s things produced nothing suspicious or obviously designed to send out unapproved comms. For a second, Dysis stood in the middle of the room, at a loss.

Had Pallas already been tipped off that her cover was blown? Because if she was still on point, where was she? There were no formations this morning, no missions to fly. The only other place Pallas could possibly be . . .

Dysis ran back into the hall, toward the room where Dianthe had set up her diatous veil equipment. Every second ticked to the stomp of her boots, the beats of her heart. Every second could be one less that Aris lived.

As she rounded the final corner, a short, blond figure emerged from Dianthe’s makeshift lab. Dysis slowed down, tried to look casual. Nyx had told her to be discreet.

“Hey, Pallas!” she called. She tried to smile, but she wasn’t sure she quite managed it. She’d never been good at hiding her anger, and right now, she was blighting livid.

Pallas turned, one hand slipping a small rectangle into her uniform pocket, an answering smile beginning to form on her small, angular face. “Hey—” she faltered when she saw Dysis’s expression.

Damn.

In desperation, Dysis opened her mouth to offer some banal greeting, but realization was already spreading across Pallas’s face. She knew.

Dysis’s hand drifted to her solagun. “Come on, Pallas,” she said casually, striving to keep the moment from disintegrating further. “Let’s have a little chat. I need to ask you about something.”

Sadness filled the girl’s sky-blue eyes; she turned and ran.

“Damn. Damn. Damn.” Dysis had been sprinting around all morning on legs that were creaky and out of shape. Her back ached. Pallas had none of those issues to slow her down.

If Pallas made it to an invisible wingjet, they would lose her.

As Dysis passed the cafeteria, someone yelled out to her, but she kept going, lungs burning.

When she burst through the main doors to the landing pad, Pallas was already two hundred yards ahead, close to the wingjets.

“Stop!” Dysis yelled. She lurched to a halt and raised her solagun. She could make the shot. Pallas glanced over her shoulder but kept running. Dysis fired a warning shot just over her head. This time, Pallas froze.

Slowly, she turned, raising her hands.

Dysis stalked forward, trying to control her breathing. Her back was on fire. “Don’t move,” she ordered. Pallas was too close to the nearest recon for her liking.

“Please let me go,” Pallas begged.

They were the last words Dysis expected. She almost laughed. “Let you go? Let you go? Why in the hell would I let you go?”

Pallas’s face crumbled. “They have my family. They tortured them. They told me—” Her voice broke.

Shock radiated down Dysis’s spine. How did no one know this? How could the Safarans possibly have taken Pallas’s family? It had to be a lie. She hardened her face. “Walk slowly toward me. Keep your hands up.”

Tears skated down Pallas’s cheeks. The bright sun bleached her pale skin and caught against her huge blue eyes, full of desperation and sorrow. “I can’t do that, Dysis. I can’t let my family die.”

With that, she spun and scrabbled onto the wing of the nearest wingjet.

Dysis lined up her shot, her hands steady.

Her finger twitched once, and then—

“Dysis! What are you doing?” The shout broke her concentration. Her shot went wide. Pallas ducked, but she made it into the cabin. The glass slid closed before Dysis could get off another shot.

She spun to see Calix running across the tarmac. “I saw you run past. You’re not supposed to be running, Dysis. What is going on?”

Dysis let out a scream of frustration and sprinted toward the row of wingjets. Pallas was speeding through her warm-up sequence; they had maybe thirty seconds before she took off.

Calix yanked her to a stop. “You’re going to hurt yourself. Tell me what’s going on. I can help.”

“I don’t have time! I have to stop her.” She pulled against his grip, but he held firm. “Let me go, Calix. She’s a spy!”

“We’ll inform Commander Nyx.” Calix let go of her arm, his face reddening. With anger or frustration, she couldn’t tell. “They’ll shoot her down, then.”

A hum filled the air. The wingjet rose, and with a flicker, disappeared.

It was too late.

Dysis sagged. “No, they won’t.”

Calix blinked twice, staring into the empty sky. “What just happened? I don’t . . . that isn’t . . .”

Her legs unsteady, she leaned hard against him. Misery threatened to choke her. “Commander Nyx told me to stop her. And I . . .” her voice faded.

And I let her get away.

Chapter 33

Tia’s hands shook on the wingjet controls, and black spots danced before her eyes.

They knew. Dysis knew.

Shame roiled in her stomach. The wingjet wobbled. She needed to concentrate. Her family . . .

Gods, her family.

Pallas waited until she was a few miles from Mekia, certain no one was following, before she opened the secret emergency frequency her Safaran handlers gave her to use in the event she was exposed. She’d already double-checked that the tracking tech wasn’t turned on; she couldn’t risk any Atalantans following her.

“Operation Serpent has been compromised. I repeat, Operation Serpent has been compromised.” She tried to keep her voice steady, but even to her ears she sounded like a scared little girl.

Silence met her, and then a burst of static. “Message received. Proceed to the following coordinates . . .”

Pallas entered the location in the nav panel. “Is that where my family is?” she asked, the words spilling out.

No answer.

Of course they wouldn’t tell her.

But she was bringing them an invisible wingjet. They’d been asking her about the technology for weeks. Maybe her means of escape could be her salvation, too. Surely an invisible wingjet would be enough to buy her family’s freedom? Her freedom?

By the Gods, hadn’t she done enough?

***

Hours later, when the blue glitter of the ocean rose along the horizon and a large, flat-roofed compound came into view, the nav beeped and Tia descended. The structure was built into the steep cliff over the ocean, its landing pad perched precariously above the water.

Dozens of black Safaran wingjets lined the tarmac. She’d hoped they were sending her somewhere smaller, the kind of place they might have been keeping her family, but this was a fortress prepared for war.

As she landed, her heart beat wildly. Whatever she might have done, she was still Atalantan. She hid her fear behind blank eyes. It was the same look she’d paired with her diatous veil back when everything rested on her ability to pass as a man. By now, she was good at hiding who she really was.

She climbed out onto the tarmac, her plastered wrist stiff against her side. Two soldiers met her. The first was older, tall, with light-brown skin and heavy black brows that sat low over his slightly bulging eyes. She recognized him immediately; he was the one who’d barked orders the night her family was taken. The other man was younger but just as hard edged, his mouth pursed into a narrow line.

She immediately wished she could shoot them both.

“You said you were compromised, Specialist,” the older man said. Tiksan, that was his name. “What happened?”

“I don’t know. They just knew.” She stood with the wingjet at her back, as if somehow that made her safer. Stronger. “But I’ve brought you something. An invisible wingjet. For this, you’ll release my family and leave us the hell alone.” She said the words as forcefully as she could.

The younger soldier’s eyes widened.

Tiksan cocked his head to the side, considering her. “An invisible wingjet. You actually brought us one.”

“Oh, this is wonderful,” a voice interjected. Tia turned and bit back a gasp. It was Ward Balias. The man strode across the landing pad, his slim-fitting black tunic and pants accentuating his muscular form. His eyes shone with excitement. “Thank you . . . Specialist Pallas, isn’t it?” He rubbed a hand along the wingjet’s side. “This will do nicely for the mission tonight.”

She raised her chin, clenching her hands together to keep them from shaking. “I want to see my family.”

He smiled, all white teeth and predatory satisfaction. “Of course, Specialist. You’ve certainly done your part. Major Tiksan will take you to them in a moment.”

“They’re here?” The world rocked under her feet. After everything, it almost felt too easy. She realized then that she’d never truly believed she’d see them again.

Balias ignored her question, turning instead to Tiksan. “Get someone in there, disable any emergency safeguards,” he said, gesturing to the wingjet. “We don’t want our little bird to try to escape her destiny.”

“Yes, sir.” Tiksan nodded.

“But don’t disable the invisibility, of course, and get the weapon installed immediately. The in-air escort will no longer be necessary. I want Haan in the air by midnight.”

Aris?

Balias nodded toward Tia. Major Tiksan took the hint, turning to his subordinate. “Please escort Specialist Pallas to her family.”

The soldier nodded. Tia followed him into the building, with one last look toward Balias. What were they planning? And what did Aris have to do with it?

Her concern didn’t last for long, swallowed by a wave of anticipation. She was about to see her family. She’d done it.

The soldier said nothing as he led her through long hallway after hallway. They took a large lift four floors down and walked along another hall, this one cool and moist, with an unpleasant aroma. The farther they walked, the more frantic Tia became. Was her father alright? This air wouldn’t be good for his cough. And her brother . . . did he never see sunlight? Down here, underground, the only illumination came from buzzing lights that snaked in lines along the ceiling. Her mother would do her best to take care of Milo and Tia’s father, but who knew how long her rigid determination would last in a place like this.

In their comms, they were never allowed to say their own words, give Tia their own messages. It was all codes and frightened eyes. Tia had no idea how her family really was.

You’re here. You’re saving them.

She couldn’t break apart now, not when she was so close.

At last, the soldier stopped in front of a door. Before he let her through, he confiscated her solagun. The door slid open so, so slowly. Tia burst in as soon as she could slip through the widening crack.

The room was the same she’d seen in the comms, small with a low sofa, a single table, and two chrome chairs. On the table sat three glasses of water. And on the couch . . .

Tia ran to her father and collapsed at his knee. He looked so old, so frail. He ran a trembling hand over her hair. Next to him sat Milo, with her mother on the other side. She’d done it. She’d done it. Tia bent over her father’s knee and wept.

“There, there.” Her mother patted her head awkwardly. “It’s alright, doll. We’re all together now.”

Tia’s breath froze, confusion cutting through her relief. Her mother had never called her “doll” a single day of her life. Eyes still damp, Tia raised her head. She stared into Milo’s eyes. The boy was crying, but his expression was wrong. He didn’t look happy to see her, or even angry. He looked scared.

She glanced over her shoulder at the soldier who’d brought her to this room. He had his back to her, staring out into the hall. She returned her gaze to her family.

“What is going on?” she asked, so only they could hear.

Her mother’s bottom lip trembled, but she didn’t answer.

Then Tia saw it.

The small, heart-shaped birthmark on the woman’s neck, half-hidden by her lank hair.

Tia’s mother didn’t have a birthmark.

Tia swallowed against the bile rising in her throat. No. A deep, physical ache began in her gut and traveled slowly to her chest, constricting her lungs.

“Where’s my family?” she whispered.

The old man’s rheumy eyes weren’t even the right color, now that she looked more closely.

The woman’s tears slipped down her face without a sound.

“I was the one who brought them food,” she said, softly enough that the guard wouldn’t hear. “The old man got sick. The air’s poor down in the cells, and his lungs couldn’t handle it. One morning I came with the food trays and he was on the floor, the other two weeping over him.”

Tia’s breath shrank to panicked gasps. Her father . . . her father had died.

“My mother and brother?” The words ground against her throat like broken glass.

The woman shrugged, her face so familiar and yet so painfully wrong. “I don’t know. Your brother tried to escape twice after your father died. After the second time, they took me and did some tests, and then they put a disk on my neck and threw me in a cell. The boy was there, and the old man. They looked just like they had, only . . . only . . .”

Tia stared at the boy, hoping against hope . . .

But the eyes looking back held no recognition. Only terror.

“When . . . when was this?” she asked, her voice breaking.

The woman bowed her head. “Months ago, shortly after they arrived. I’m . . . I’m so sorry, doll.”

A great heaving darkness pressed in on all sides. Tia tried to breathe, but the old air wouldn’t leave her lungs to make way for the new.

All this time, everything she’d done . . .

And they’d been dead all along.

Tia slumped forward, her heart cracking open, jagged and raw. Tears burned her cheeks. Her grief scorched everything else until she became a wasteland, an empty desert of broken dreams.

She sobbed into the knee of the stranger who looked like her father and prayed that when she opened her eyes, somehow it would be him. That this would all be a nightmare from which she could wake.

But nothing changed. The people were imposters, her family dead.

The Safarans had lied. They’d killed her family, and they’d kept using her. So why reunite her then? Why bring her here, where surely she’d soon figure out the ruse?

The truth settled into the grief, as inexorable as a boulder sinking to the bottom of the sea.

They were going to kill her. Probably the poor people who’d been forced to masquerade as her family, too. If not now, then later tonight or maybe tomorrow. But soon.

A new emotion flowed in to mingle with the despair threatening to choke her.

Fury.

Her good hand tightened into a fist against her chest, catching against the hard corner of something in her jacket pocket. She sat back on her heels, her fingers locked around the small, rectangular disk within. Slowly, the threads of a plan knit themselves into her mind, strung with hate and tightened by the shame that had haunted her for months.

She glanced again at the soldier in the doorway. He should have closed the door. He should have stood guard outside. But it was easy to dismiss the skinny girl who wanted nothing more than a reunion with her family. It was easy to discount her as weak. Stupid.

Pathetic.

Without a word to the people on the couch, who still wore the faces of her dead, Tia slipped the utility knife from the sheath at her calf. Back at Spiro, no one had wanted to fight her in hand-to-hand when they’d realized she was a woman.

But they forgot—everyone forgot—she’d spent nearly a year as a male soldier. Nearly a year learning how to fight.

How to kill.

And no one had ever really appreciated how good she was at her job.

Chapter 34

As Dysis trudged toward the secret monitoring station, she couldn’t get her mind to focus on anything beyond the horrifying knowledge that Pallas was a spy, that she was going to expose their plans for saving Aris and Major Vadim, and that they’d lost their one link on the inside. Alistar had been shot, right as she listened.

“I’m sorry,” Calix murmured as he trotted beside her. “I shouldn’t have gotten in your way. I didn’t realize . . . I thought I was helping.”

Dysis wanted to be angry with him, but he couldn’t have known any of it. And her anger had a more deserving target. This was her fault. She’d let Pallas get away.

She didn’t slow down. “It’s done. Now we have to fix it.”

Dysis and Calix reached the monitoring station just as Dianthe arrived.

“What’s happened?” Dianthe asked. “I came as quickly as I could.” She took in Dysis’s expression and shooed Calix away, before pulling Dysis into the room.

Inside, Commander Nyx was pacing, and the last few minutes of the feed were playing over the speakers. She paused when she saw Dysis. “Did you get her?”

Dysis shook her head and slammed her palm against her thigh. Her stomach burned. “She . . . somehow she could tell that I knew. She ran. I tried to apprehend her, but she made it into an invisible wingjet. I’m so sorry.”

A vein bulged along Nyx’s temple, and her eyes turned sharp as razor blades. Before she could reply, the final gunshot echoed in the room, and the feed went dead once more.

Dianthe stood by the monitor, her own expression filled with venom. “So, we’re completely blind.”

The room vibrated with silence. Dysis looked at the monitor, but there were no sound waves. Just a solid, straight black line cutting the blue in half.

Commander Nyx stared at the screen as well, her expression unreadable.

Dysis fought the tears burning at the back of her eyes. She couldn’t lose it. Not in front of these women.

Finally, Nyx straightened. “Move up the timeline. The mission begins now.”

“Not all of the diatous veils are complete,” Dianthe said.

“I don’t care,” Nyx replied. “We have enough.” She turned her gaze to Dysis. “Go find your brother and get him up to speed. I need to inform Ward Nekos of the change in plans. Remember, Latza: Every second that passes, our window closes.”

“Yes, sir,” Dysis said, and she went to find Jax. There was no point in apologizing again. Pallas was gone. All she could do now was make sure they got Aris back.

***

Calix watched Dysis pull on her body armor, his expression a mixture of concern and sadness. They were in her bedroom, alone for the first time since their kiss. “It wouldn’t make a difference if I told you not to go, would it.”

“You already know the answer to that,” Dysis replied. “That’s why you didn’t ask.”

She was due on the landing pad in five minutes. As soon as all the troops were assembled, a small squadron of invisible wingjets would leave. Their job was reconnaissance first, then, once the rest of the force was on its way, they’d land and begin the rescue attempt, veiled as Aris for misdirection. If all went well, S and R would be on the ground just after midnight, and the rest of the troops, including Castalian reinforcements, would arrive before dawn. If they were lucky. With the schedule moved up so much, no one knew if the Castalia reinformcements would arrive in time.

Dianthe didn’t get a chance to finish Dysis’s diatous veil, so she’d be skipping the disguise. But when Jax had suggested she not be part of the initial rescue team at all, she’d laughed in his face. Calix had held his tongue . . . until now.

“You might have reinjured yourself today with all that running.” He stepped closer to her and slipped his fingers along her lower back, under the armor. “You should let me examine you.”

She stared into his eyes, letting herself really look at him. She could appreciate the beauty of his full lips, the vibrant green of his eyes, his strong jaw.

“What are you thinking?” He drew her closer, until her armor pressed against his chest. Still, she didn’t touch him.

“I’m thinking about the end of the world,” she said softly. Her gaze dropped to his lips and clung there. “And how we’re supposed to share that moment. You said we’d be there for each other at the end.”

He leaned his forehead against hers. “That was our worst-case scenario, you know.”

She closed her eyes. “That’s what makes it the most likely.”

“Then you’d better get yourself back here. Don’t leave me hanging, okay?” Before she could answer, he tipped up her face and pressed his lips to hers.

Her arms wrapped around him, pulling tighter and tighter. And for just a second, she embraced all of the fear she tried so hard to deny.

Chapter 35

Aris spent her last hours with Milek holding his hands through the bars of her cage. He’d worked one eye open, and he stared at her as if memorizing every tiny detail of her face.

“Don’t do it, Aris,” he said again, for the hundredth time. “I’m not worth it. They’re going to kill me anyway.”

She wanted to tell him that she knew that. That she had no intention of dropping the bomb over Panthea. That she was going to sacrifice him—and herself—to destroy the weapon instead. But there’d be no chance for that kind of honesty tonight. Soldiers stood at attention outside their cages, well within earshot.

“I love you,” she said, sticking to the truth she could share.

He squeezed her hands tighter. “Please, Aris.”

She wished he could see what she meant to do just by looking at her. Leaning her forehead against the cold bars, she closed her eyes and listened to the dance of their ragged breath.

“Tell me what you wish for our future.” She wanted their last moments together to be as precious as they could make them.

Milek sighed. After some thought, he said, “I wish for a small house in one of Atalanta’s crazy raised villages,” he began, a rasp in his voice. “A couple of wingjets and a pretty place to fly, so you’ll be happy, the sky there for you whenever you need it. I wish for a child, maybe two. A placement as a town protector, where I help old women home from the park or find someone’s lost pet. A life that is quiet and serene.”

Aris forced back tears and smiled at his lies. He didn’t want that kind of life, not really. It would be boring for him, small. But that’s what he thought she wanted, and he wanted to give her peace.

She swallowed around the lump in her throat. “I wish for—”

With a clank, her door slid open. Vik stomped in with two guards. “It’s time,” he snarled.

Aris tightened her grip on Milek’s hands and tried not to let her grief show. He could barely move, and she wasn’t sure he could recover from his injuries, even if it were possible to get him to a mender.

“I love you, Milek,” she said, her heart straining against her chest. She could barely hold back the sob. “I’ll be back soon.” She tried to make it sound like she meant it, but he could see through her lies, too. He knew, as she did, that there would be no coming back. Not for either of them.

“I love you, Aris. I always will,” he said, his voice breaking.

Then he let her go.

***

Aris didn’t let Vik touch her as they passed through the endless dank hallway toward the lift. She walked with her head held high. This was her final act for her dominion—she would meet her fate with pride. Still, she threw in a whimper now and then. She didn’t want them to suspect she had a different plan in mind.

The lift sped upward, crowded with Aris, Vik, and her two guards. She could smell their sweat, the faint scent of the fried fish they’d had for dinner. She’d been offered nothing to eat since the morning. Instead of making her hungry, the thought of food sent nausea roiling through her. Finally, the chrome box slowed and bounced on its cables. With a shiver and a clank, the door slid open.

There was a flash of green. Before Aris’s brain could catch up to her eyes, one of the soldiers slumped to the ground, his throat pouring blood. Vik grunted as he tried to yank his gun from its holster. The green-uniformed figure whirled and the second guard fell, coughing and gasping as he bled to death, throat slit just like the first.

Green uniform . . . an Atalantan soldier.

Before hope could buoy Aris, she got a good look at the soldier’s face: pale skin, haunted blue-gray eyes, high cheekbones. With another graceful whirl, Pallas disarmed Vik and turned the gun to his head before anyone could say a word.

“What are they making you do, Aris?” Pallas asked. Two spots of pink spread across her cheeks. Her eyes glittered, almost feverish. When Vik shifted, she swung her elbow in a crushing arc at his face. He grunted, hands up to stanch the blood that flowed from his nose.

Aris stood there, mouth opening and closing like a dying fish.

“Tell me. Quickly.” Pallas stared at her, and Aris couldn’t find any hint of her former friend in the girl’s too-bright eyes.

“They . . . they’re making me fly the flaming scorpion over Panthea. It’ll kill everyone,” Aris admitted.

Pallas slid Vik’s gun into her waistband and jerked him out of the lift, her knife pricking his throat. “Find Major Vadim if you can and get the hell out of here. I’ll worry about the bomb.”

No. Pallas couldn’t get away. Aris grabbed at her arm, but the girl was already moving, one hand holding the knife at Vik’s throat, the other rooting in her pocket. In desperation, Aris said, “I wasn’t going to do it. I had a plan.” Aris made her voice as strong as possible. “I can’t let you drop that bomb.”

Pallas stuck something on the back of her neck, and when she turned back, her face was Aris’s, though her complexion was still too pale. “I’m not going to drop it on Panthea.”

Confusion froze Aris in place for a heartbeat too long. “Then what are you going to do?”

Before she could answer, Vik made his move, ducking and trying to sweep Pallas’s legs. She twisted away and buried her knife behind his ear. He sank to the ground, eyes wide, blood pouring from his mouth.

Aris watched, horror etched into every line of her face. The first time Pallas had ever held a solagun, she could barely lift it, her hands were shaking so badly. Was that all an act? Had she been this stone-cold Safaran operative all along?

Pallas stepped over Vik without looking down. “They killed my whole family,” she said, her voice flat. “And they made me into a monster. They did this.” Her eyes focused on Aris for a single, terrifying second. “No. Ward Balias did this. And he is going to pay.”

Then she was through the door and running across the tarmac toward the wingjets, and Aris was left gasping, with three dead men at her feet.

Chapter 36

The flaming scorpion was already secure within the invisible wingjet. Tia had watched from a hidden spot at the edge of the landing pad as they replaced one of the jet’s missiles with the weapon. No one seemed to be looking for her, or concerned about the soldier who was supposed to be watching her.

Tia’s plan had been to use one of Aris’s guards to get her across the tarmac to the wingjet. But she was grateful the last man had made his move before they were in sight of other soldiers. As it was, she sprinted from the cover of the building to her recon just before the alarm was raised; her borrowed face and the darkness were confusing enough that the first men to notice her didn’t react in time.

She flew through the warm-up sequence, noting that the wingjet’s comms had been tampered with. No messages back to Atalanta, even if she’d wanted to send one. She glanced out onto the landing pad as she lifted off, unnerved to see the soldiers standing still, watching her go. Why weren’t they shooting at her? Or running for their own jets to try to overtake her?

It didn’t matter. Nothing did, except getting high enough to drop the payload. Ward Balias was still here at the prison, still alive in his broken kingdom. And Pallas was going to fix that.

Suddenly, the controls in her sweaty palms jerked. The nav lit with a curving red line. And a voice filled the cabin. “Well done, Aris. You’ve had a last little rebellion, and now you’re ready for your destiny.” Ward Balias’s voice made Pallas want to scream. She couldn’t communicate back to him, not with outgoing comms down, but she couldn’t turn off his slippery, smug voice either. Just like she could no longer direct the wingjet. “You’ll notice the wingjet is not in your control. It’s in mine. Your course has been set, and the bomb’s been armed, in case you were planning to play the hero. Panthea will fall whether you wish it or not. And right now, your scared eyes are plastered across all five dominions on every news vid, so we can watch as you destroy your own people.”

Tia jerked on the controls, hard, but the trajectory didn’t shift. The wingjet turned in a long, graceful arc over the ocean and headed back toward Atalanta. With a shimmer, the cloaking tech engaged. She flipped the toggle, but nothing happened. Everything had been rewired to render her useless.

With the wingjet invisible, Atalantan forces wouldn’t be able to track her or shoot her down. She’d given Balias the last piece of tech he needed to make his plan foolproof.

Now everyone in Panthea was going to die. By her hand.

No. No.

Sweat beaded along her forehead and the back of her neck. She’d only commandeered the wingjet to destroy Balias.

“This can’t be happening,” she muttered, frantically tapping the nav panel, her injured hand aching. Part of her plaster had ripped off at some point. She hadn’t even noticed. “I never wanted this.”

They’d figure out eventually that she wasn’t Aris. They’d figure out who she really was: Tia Pallas, a Safaran spy. She’d be vilified. Her family’s deaths would go unnoticed, just like their disappearances had, and no one would ever know the truth. That she wasn’t willing. That she loved her dominion and wanted to fight for it. That the things she did to save her family ate at her, as insidious and agonizing as a cancer.

They’d only see the monster.

You can still fight. The soft, clear voice in her head almost sounded like her mother.

Tia stilled. She had a knife and a solagun. Balias hadn’t expected her to be armed, to have tools.

She released herself from the harness and contorted her body sideways, until she was wedged under the nav panel in the footwell.

Ward Balias’s voice slithered into the cabin, a shade less smug. “What, do you think you can split the machine with your bare hands?”

Tia unsheathed her knife and held it up for an instant before using it to pry off the panel housing the controls. A nest of wires fell free.

“What are you doing?” Balias’s voice vibrated with fury. “You realize you’re putting Major Vadim’s life at risk every moment you defy me.”

With shaking hands, Pallas explored the tangle, holding it up to the glow of the nav, looking for recent splices.

There.

“You touch those wires, Milek dies.” The ice in Balias’s voice crackled through the cabin.

Tia ignored the words and the shiver they sent down her spine. He was getting nervous. That meant she was on the right track. She picked out a cluster of three wires with silver shining through gaps in the darker outer casing. Holding her breath, she wrenched her knife through the wires. A shower of sparks filled the footwell. The wingjet jerked and fell, and her head slammed into the underside of the dashboard with a thud. Mini fireferns exploded in front of her eyes.

Fighting back a wave of nausea, Tia dragged herself into the seat with white-knuckled hands. Then she tapped the pedals and pulled up on the controls, and oh Gods . . . the wingjet steadied. No more free fall.

She pressed forward experimentally, and the jet changed course.

She’d done it.

A sliver of a smile twisted her lips as she sent the wingjet into a wide arc. Back toward the prison.

Ward Balias was silent. She didn’t know if she’d cut the comms wire, or if he had nothing to say now that he’d lost control of the wingjet.

She didn’t care.

On the nav, the red line of her trajectory disappeared. The veiling tech faltered, and the wingjet’s nose shimmered back into visibility in the darkness before her. But there was one thing she couldn’t reverse.

The bomb was still armed. Which meant she had to get back to Ward Balias. The flaming scorpion was his prize. His right.

She sped back to the prison, every sense focused on her mission of vengeance. No doubt Balias would send a team of flyers to intercept her; she’d have only seconds to drop the bomb.

But as she approached, niggling doubts began to pop like bubbles in her mind. Killing Balias meant killing Aris and Milek, too. And the family that had been coerced into pretending to be hers. All the other prisoners Balias had locked up.

Everyone at the prison would die.

Tia shook her head, trying to dislodge her sudden hesitation. She didn’t want to kill anyone, but she hadn’t wanted to be a spy for the enemy either. Ward Balias had taken everything from her. If killing him meant others had to die, too, that was a price she was willing to pay.

Are you willing? Truly?

She didn’t know if the internal voice was her own or her mother’s, but it dug down deep, shoving aside bone and muscle and organ until it reached her beating heart.

Tia closed her eyes, just for a second, and saw her mother’s soft, pale skin, her blond hair, her blue eyes that were just the same shade as Tia’s. She felt her mother’s arms around her, holding so tightly, all her determination and pride there in her embrace. If her mother was here with her now, what would she say?

Are you truly willing to kill your friends? To kill innocents, men and women with families just like yours?

The realization broke over Tia, as steady and irrefutable as the tide.

Balias had made her a monster. But she didn’t have to die one.

The lights of the prison rose from the darkness, just as a fleet of wingjets lifted into the air. They made a beeline for her but didn’t engage. Not yet. She dipped and spun, evading them for the few precious seconds she needed.

Moonlight illuminated her path, glittering against the black hole of the ocean. She didn’t know if her revised plan would work, but she had to try. By degrees, she gave up her hatred of Ward Balias. She gave up her need for blood.

With the first easy breath she’d taken in months, Tia sent herself up to the stars, up to her mother, her father, and to her brother, even as the wingjet dove, deep deep deep into the silent water.

And when the bomb blew, all she saw was light.

Chapter 37

Within the Panthea Capitol building, Galena watched Aris’s panicked face in horror, while the chaos of scrambling advisors and techies whirled around her.

On the streets, people were trying to evacuate, but there wasn’t time to be organized about it. Civilians violated the no-fly rules in droves. Terrans were abandoned in the middle of the road. The city’s protectors struggled to keep things under control. Pyralis’s advisors kept urging the wards to leave, but they insisted on staying at their posts. There wasn’t time, really, to get them far enough away.

Commanders Freni and Quin were beside themselves, and the techies they’d brought in to help oversee the rescue mission were wide-eyed with fear.

“Can we shoot Lieutenant Haan down?”

“Where’s the signal coming from?”

“Is there a way to disarm the bomb remotely?”

Galena herself stood frozen before the monitor, watching Aris scramble. And then something happened. Aris got her hands on some wires. The grainy glow of the nav against her face changed. Her expression changed.

A voice cut through the frantic crowd. “She just popped up on radar. She’s changing course. She’s turning around.”

Come on, Aris. Come on, dear.

“How close is our recon team?” she asked in the sudden silence. Every single person in the room was standing, staring at the unauthorized vid.

One of the techies dropped into his chair, his hands flying across his monitor. “Just about to land at the prison,” he reported, his gaze flicking back to the main screen.

“Tell them what’s happening. She might need an escort . . .” Galena’s voice trailed off. She never took her gaze from Aris’s face. The vid was blurry, interrupted by blasts of static, but she recognized the look in the soldier’s eyes.

All around Galena, people began shouting orders and sending comms to Jax and his team, but when the vid flashed white, everyone froze.

A minute later, just as Commander Freni turned and opened his mouth to speak, the office rocked. Galena dropped to her knees, and someone grabbed her hand. A monitor fell off the wall with a crash. All the lights went out, and someone screamed in the darkness.

Galena didn’t need to see to know who held her hand. She and Pyralis said nothing, just rode out the aftershocks with their fingers tightly joined.

Chapter 38

The strategic team landed their invisible wingjets at various points around the prison. Dysis’s jet, with Lieutenant Santos as flyer and Otto as retriever, was one of three to land on the actual landing pad, which extended out over the ocean.

Moments after they touched down, a comm blasted through the small cabin.

“Lieutenant Haan has gained control of the wingjet carrying the flaming scorpion. Flyers en route, look for her and assess whether she needs an escort. The weapon is—”

Santos was already powering back up when a giant undulating light unfurled from the ocean at a frightening speed, like it was ripping the sky in half.

Seconds later, the power went out. Everything. The nav screen blinked off, the spotlights that framed the landing pad disappeared into darkness. A great, rolling earthquake followed, as if some terrible monster rumbled under the ground, crumbling the earth in its wake. Dysis held on to the straps crisscrossing her chest and closed her eyes, the glow of the flaming scorpion turning her lids pink.

She thought of Calix and how they were supposed to be together when the bomb was dropped.

And she waited to die.

Eventually the earth stilled. The lights blinked back on. And Dysis kept breathing.

“We’re not dead,” she muttered. Was there some kind of delay with the bomb’s effects? Or were they truly safe?

“You noticed that, too? I thought it was just me,” Otto quipped, but his voice shook a little.

Santos didn’t say anything. He slipped a diatous veil off the back of his neck, briefly transforming into a stranger—a female stranger—before replacing it with another, and becoming Aris.

Aris.

They were here to rescue her, but if she’d been the one flying the jet with the weapon . . .

“Aris . . . she dropped the bomb in the ocean. She survived, right?” The question was swallowed by the silence of the wingjet.

“Sure, sure,” Otto said, a frantic edge to his voice. “Probably.”

“If she didn’t, what about our disguises? The misdirection?” They’d still need to rescue Major Vadim. Dysis couldn’t be thinking about . . . worrying that Aris was . . .

Lieutenant Santos said in Aris’s voice, “We follow the command. If Haan is dead, let the soldiers chase ghosts.” He opened the glass dome. “Time to go.”

At the other edge of the tarmac, another prong of the strategic assault engaged with the enemy, lighting the night with solagun fire. Dysis and her team were able to slip into the building that hulked at the edge of the pad with limited engagement.

She hoped Jax was okay. He was in one of the wingjets that landed at the rear side of the prison. He’d be sneaking in on a subfloor and working his way up. He was in charge of retrieving the weapon. But now . . .

She wondered if he’d still call for the full contingent, now that their parameters had changed. There would be no flaming scorpion to retrieve. Just Major Vadim.

And Aris, the more hopeful part of her brain added.

Still, defenses were high. The sounds of battle echoed around them as they ran down the hallway. The earthquake had been strong, but the prison was apparently built to withstand such threats, because Dysis saw no signs of structural damage.

When the intel had come through about the prison, Jax had obtained schematics from one of his Safaran contacts; according to the blueprints, most of the cells were underground, on the bottom level of the compound.

The bulk of the disguised soldiers would split up and move along the upper floors, drawing as many guards as they could. While they provided a distraction, Dysis and her team were supposed to find their way to the cells and retrieve Major Vadim. Of her crew, only Santos was disguised.

“Lift!” Santos-as-Aris shouted, pointing to a chrome door at the end of the hall.

Just then, several Safaran troops rounded a corner and stopped dead, shocked, in front of Dysis and her team. Dysis and Santos raised their weapons and plowed them down. Dysis grabbed their passcards and key rings and kept moving.

They reached the lift just as someone shouted behind them. Otto took out one of the newcomers before the doors closed, and then they were plunging down into the bowels of the building. There was an ominous groan, and Dysis thought again of how the earth had rolled beneath them.

With a jarring bounce, the lift stopped. Dysis, Santos, and Otto readied their solaguns as the door slid open.

Water flowed in around their feet. “That’s not a good sign,” Dysis muttered as she splashed into the hallway.

The corridor was lined with steel doors. One by one, they used the passcards and keys to open the doors, but the rooms were empty. No prisoners. No guards. Just more water, pouring in from somewhere.

In the distance, Dysis picked up the sound of shouts.

“This way.” She sprinted toward the end of the hall. Santos and Otto followed, their feet splashing in the water. Already, Dysis was wet to her knees.

At the end of the hall, a heavy door led to what they’d been looking for: the cells.

As soon as Otto pried the door open, screaming and cries for help washed over them in a headache-inducing wave.

Here, the water was deeper and swirling. Rising fast. The ocean would soon claim this room. Maybe the whole building.

“We need to get everyone out or they’ll drown!” Dysis shouted to Santos and Otto.

They split up, using their utility knives and the butts of their solaguns to break the electronic lock panels. Luckily, the ceiling lights still worked.

“Major Vadim!” Dysis called, staying focused on her mission and hoping against hope that he was being held here. The building was huge, with interrogation chambers scattered on every floor. If he was being held somewhere else—

Up ahead, an Aris look-alike dragged a prostrate form from one of the cells. She—he—was struggling to keep the unconscious person’s head above water. Dysis splashed forward to help.

The body was bruised, with deep gashes that still bled, coloring the water pink. His swollen face was nearly unrecognizable, but the blue Ruslanan pants were not. Major Vadim.

“Good work!” she shouted over the sound of rushing water. “Let’s get him out of here.” She bent to thread her arm under Major Vadim’s shoulders, but the soldier holding him grabbed her in a sudden, tight embrace.

“Oh holy, Dysis! You’re here. Gods, I’m so relieved. I thought for sure . . . that explosion, was it the bomb? What did Pallas do? I thought we were dead for sure, but now—”

The babbling continued, but Dysis stood frozen, half of Major Vadim’s body draped over her arm. She studied the Aris before her. Same dark hair. The eyes were right. What if . . .

“What do you mean about Pallas?” Dysis asked abruptly.

The Aris look-alike smoothed back Major Vadim’s hair. “Pallas showed up and killed my guards. They were going to make me fly the wingjet with the flaming scorpion, but Pallas had a diatous veil. She looked like me. She fooled them . . . I don’t know why.”

Dysis took a deep breath, the first in what felt like hours. “You’re Aris. The real one.”

Aris raised a brow. “Of course I am.”

Dysis couldn’t help it; she laughed. “You need to stop pseudo-dying on me. It’s getting to be a bad habit.”

Aris gave her an odd look. She shifted Major Vadim into a more secure position. “Milek needs serious care. He’s been unconscious for at least an hour. I’m worried he’s got internal bleeding.”

Dysis cleaved through the water with renewed energy. “Right. Let’s get out of here.”

Inside, her heart did tiny cartwheels of joy. Aris was alive. And by Gods, if Dysis had anything to do with it, she was going to stay that way.

Chapter 39

“What’s it look like out there?” Aris asked, as she and Dysis hauled Milek out of the cell. Aris wasn’t sure why they were still alive, but she said a prayer of thanks anyway. When Pallas had run for the wingjet carrying the bomb, she assumed that would be the end.

But the danger wasn’t over. Milek’s heavy body dragged against her sore arms, and the water in the lower level was rising fast. She tried to see the fact that he was still breathing as evidence that he’d be okay, but the alternative kept niggling at her, sapping her hope.

No. She wouldn’t let him die.

Dysis adjusted her grip on Milek so she was carrying more of his weight. “The only structural damage I’ve seen is on this level. But there are a lot of Safaran soldiers here. Jax has reinforcements on the way.”

All around them, other prisoners were splashing toward the door. The roar of water got louder. The lights flashed, and part of the long room plunged into darkness.

Cold water licked at Aris’s waist.

“That’s everyone,” Otto said as he approached.

“Otto!” If her arms hadn’t been full of Milek’s unconscious body, she would have hugged him.

He gave her a strange look. “Yeah, Santos. What’s so exciting about me?”

At that moment, another figure wearing her face approached them. “This floor’s about to go. We need to get out of here before the whole building collapses.”

Otto looked between the two of them in confusion for a second, but there wasn’t time to sort it all out. Aris and Dysis handed Milek off to the taller soldiers and pushed toward the door. Most of the prisoners had made it into the hall.

“Is the lift safe?” Aris asked. Even as the words left her mouth, the end of the next hallway came into view. People were crowding into it, jostling for position. A man slipped and fell, his head dipping below the water.

Aris pointed to a door halfway down. The stairwell.

Dysis led the way.

As far as Aris could tell, the lowest level of the prison had been left unguarded. No one accosted them as they slowly made their way out of the water and up the iron stairs. The building shivered, wounded in some deep, unseen way by the quake. She hoped the prisoners crowding into the lift made it to safety.

Otto grunted under the weight of Milek’s legs. The other soldier, still wearing Aris’s face, kept moving slowly but steadily up the stairs, hands under Milek’s arms.

Milek’s head lolled with every step, his skin pale. She walked beside him, her hand drifting along his bare shoulder. She was afraid to take his pulse.

Dysis led them up four levels, and by the time they reached the door, they were all panting. Aris’s broken ribs screamed now that she wasn’t so focused on keeping Milek’s head above the water. She hadn’t eaten or drunk anything in at least a day, and the shakiness in her knees was ceding to an ominous rubbery feeling.

“Otto, give Aris your solagun,” Dysis said, pausing at last outside a solid metal door. “Your hands are full with Major Vadim.”

Aris took the gun and reluctantly moved away from her post at Milek’s shoulder.

Behind her, a faint groan.

“He’s waking up,” Otto said. “We’ve got to hurry. I need to secure him and assess his wounds. I don’t want him wiggling!”

He’s alive. The knowledge strengthened Aris’s resolve. She nodded at Dysis. With a grunt, Dysis forced open the heavy door.

Immediately, the air filled with the hiss of solagun fire. To the right, the air was murky with smoke. A group of Atalantan soldiers had taken cover behind a heavy metal table someone had dragged into the hall. All of them looked exactly like Aris.

Beyond the table, at the far end of the corridor, an endless parade of Safaran black pushed ever, inexorably, forward. In the space between the two armies, the humps of fallen soldiers dotted the floor. Immediately, the Safarans adjusted their aim, targeting Aris and the others in the doorway. Aris and Dysis ducked back into the stairwell. As Aris snuck another glance, two of the Safarans collapsed, taken down by the soldiers behind the table.

She glanced back at Otto and the other soldier. “We’ll help the others cover you. The landing pad’s to the left, a hundred yards down the hall. We’re aiming for the nearest wingjet, Safaran or Atalantan. Doesn’t matter. I can fly it. Just get Milek inside safely, no matter what.”

Her own face nodded back at her. Otto shifted his grip on Milek’s legs. “We’re ready.”

Aris shot a look at Dysis. “This isn’t going to be fun.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I’ve been stuck in the sick bay for weeks.” She had the nerve to grin, though her eyes held the weight of what they were about to do.

With a last deep breath, and a fervent prayer, Aris led them into the fray.

They made it the first few feet before the Safarans got lucky. Aris bit back a scream as a shot sliced her arm. Dysis took down three soldiers before they had time to re-aim their weapons.

The Atalantan fighters behind the table shifted backward with them, to help protect Milek. Slowly, so slowly, they made it down the hall.

At some point, if they survived this, Aris was going to ask why there so many people with her face running around, but for the moment she focused on making her shots count.

When they finally reached the landing pad, the sight was dizzying. A full-scale air fight raged above them, with black and silver wingjets diving and spinning, filling the dawn sky with flashes of fire and the caustic smell of smoke. As Aris watched, a Safaran jet exploded before plunging into the ocean.

“Look!” Dysis pointed. “Do you see that?”

Big red wingjets flitted around the fiery scene above. Aris couldn’t believe it. “Castalia reinforcements!”

There wasn’t time to celebrate. Beneath them, the building heaved, and a giant crack appeared where the tarmac extended over the water. Aris searched for the nearest wingjet; so many were already engulfed in flames. But there, teetering along the rim of the pad, just over the crashing waves . . .

She pointed. “That’s where we’re heading!”

Most of the Safaran fighters were inside the building, far above in wingjets, or dead. There was little resistance on their route to the wingjet, but the building continued to groan and shake. The tarmac cracked and crumbled, huge chunks falling to the ocean.

Aris and Dysis led the way, with Santos and Otto carrying Milek in the middle, and the surviving Atalantan soldiers who’d covered them in the hall bringing up the rear.

Halfway to the jet, a flash of movement caught Aris’s attention. It took her a moment to process what she was seeing.

Ward Balias was sprinting across the tarmac. He was a good runner, fast, his sandy hair and tan skin lit by the fires of dead wingjets and the flashing weaponry above. He was flanked by a handful of soldiers, and his destination was clear: the only wingjet still intact.

The wingjet Aris was aiming for.

Behind her, even amid the noise and confusion, she heard Milek groan.

The world slowed, and sounds faded as Aris skidded to a halt, straightened her stance, and raised her weapon. Through the chaos, the only thing static—the only thing clear—was Balias’s face. He saw her an instant before she fired. He didn’t have time to evade her. No time to hide behind his entourage. Only enough time to know who pulled the trigger.

It took three shots for him to fall, but each one struck its target. In as few seconds as it took him to kill Alistar, Aris took Ward Balias down.

Chapter 40

“Come on, Aris, come on.”

The world sped up again, so abruptly Aris stumbled. Dysis grabbed her arm and dragged her forward. “Come on,” she said again. The ground shook beneath them, pitching sideways.

The men with Balias were still running toward the wingjet. Aris turned away from the still form of the ward, alone on the cracked tarmac, and ran.

The Atalantans made it to the wingjet first.

Aris was relieved to see it was a big one—a Safaran transport. She hit the passcode into the pad over the wing, praying it hadn’t changed in the months since she’d last flown a Safaran jet. To her relief, the glass slid open. She climbed into the jet and flipped the switch to open the cargo hatch. Otto and the whole group of Aris-faced soldiers hurried Milek into the bay, several backing in, weapons spitting fire at the last of the Safaran soldiers.

Dysis leapt into the front of the wingjet just as the tarmac buckled and the jet began to slide. “Hurry, hurry!” she yelled.

Aris flew through the start-up sequence, desperate to get up into a hover in time. “Get on comms! Find the Atalanta frequency. Let them know who we are, so they don’t shoot us out of the sky.”

Dysis nodded, even as the wingjet shuddered, one wheel skidding off the edge, pitching them toward the sea. “Aris!” she shouted warningly.

“Hold on, everyone!” Aris yanked up on the controls, and the wingjet held them in a hover, just as the chunk of tarmac they’d been sitting on crashed into the water with a giant, roiling flash of white.

Aris took a last look at the landing pad. The prison was collapsing, slowly but inexorably, the landing pad going with it. Ward Balias’s body joined a host of others sliding toward the sea. In seconds, he was gone.

The nav panel started a panicked beeping. Aris spun out of range of the missile. “Get on the comms before our own people shoot us down,” she shouted again.

“This is Specialist Latza, of the Atalanta military,” said Dysis a few seconds later. “We’ve commandeered a Safaran jet, ID number 2648. Do not shoot. We’re friendly. Repeat. We are friendly. We have Lieutenant Haan and Major Vadim on board.”

“Message received. Good to hear your voice, Dysis.” Jax’s voice filled the cabin.

Dysis let out an audible breath. “Likewise.”

Aris sped away from the worst of the fighting. With the Castalian reinforcements, the Safarans were on the run as it was. “How we doing back there?” she called, with a quick look over her shoulder into cargo.

Otto popped his head into the pass-through. “Patient is resting comfortably and has regained consciousness,” he said brightly. He rubbed at his forehead. “The rest of us were a little less prepared for the acrobatics. But no major injuries.”

“Sorry,” she said, relief spilling through her. “And Milek . . . is he going, I mean, are his injuries—”

Otto grinned and reached across the pass-through to pat her shoulder. “Nothing a vacation won’t cure.”

“A vacation!” Beside her, Dysis laughed, and for the first time Aris could remember, there was no lingering darkness, no anger, hidden in the sound. “That’s an idea.”

Vacation. It had a pleasant, alien ring to it.

Aris smiled as she steered the wingjet toward Atalanta and the brilliant glow of the rising sun.

***

It wasn’t until she landed at Mekia that Aris discovered Otto had lied. As soon as the Safaran jet touched down and she opened the cargo hold, he rushed onto the tarmac and called for menders.

A flurry of white-garbed men whisked Milek into the building before Aris could extricate herself from the wingjet, her own injuries slowing her down. Dysis rushed off to find Jax, her dark, spiky hair weaving through the returning soldiers.

Otto approached Aris, the concern in his eyes clear enough. Her heart beat sluggishly. “Milek . . .” She trailed off, unable to say the words.

He put an arm around her shoulders and they stood still for a moment, while the remains of their team shuffled into the building. “I do believe he’ll be okay. But he needs surgery, and I didn’t want to worry you when you were working so hard to get us out of there.”

Aris sagged against Otto’s sturdy frame. The memories of Balias’s prison still clawed at her. She’d never be able to forget Vik’s knife slicing into Milek’s skin. The noises Milek made as the Safaran soldiers beat him. The instant when Balias realized Alistar’s deception and shot him through the throat. The flash of green as Pallas killed Vik and the other guards.

All the blood.

“How long do you think it will take,” she asked, “before it actually feels like we won? Did we win? Was it enough?”

Otto squeezed her shoulder. “Who knows? But I do know what will help, and that’s rest.” He pulled her toward the building. “Get yourself to the sick bay, have your own injuries tended, and then sleep for a while. Major Vadim won’t be out of surgery and up for visitors for hours. You’ve got time.”

“What are you going to do?” Aris’s mind was fuzzing around the edges. She knew she should be frantic with worry over Milek, but her own body was close to collapse.

“Oh, I’m going to celebrate,” Otto replied, with one of his jaunty grins. “Comm Dori, tell her how instrumental I was in saving the day. See if I can find Santos and persuade him to share his stash of vutzo.”

Something about his aggrandizing humor bothered her. Aris gripped his shoulders and held his gaze. “You were instrumental, Otto. You saved my life, and Milek’s, too. You helped us end this war. Tell Dori the right way, not like it’s a joke, so she knows the truth.”

Two pink spots appeared on Otto’s cheeks. “Uh . . . alright, then.” He cleared his throat. Then, with a roll of his eyes and a little smile, he pushed her toward the door. “Now go on, Lieutenant.”

Aris limped into the building. After the menders patched her up and she got some rest, she needed to find Jax and Commander Nyx. And Dysis. There’d be debriefings. Endless meetings. But maybe, just maybe, this really was the end.

Maybe, when she woke, Milek would be okay and the war would finally be over.

Chapter 41

Aris knocked softly, bracing herself. The door slid open.

Milek sat in a med-bed, white sheets covering him to his chest, propped up on pillows. One arm rested outside of the sheet in a sling. A black line of stitches ran along his forehead. Aris knew that if she lifted his shirt, there’d be more angry black lines along his chest and stomach. After all, she’d seen Vik’s knife cut him, again and again.

Milek smiled when he saw her, his teeth unusually bright against the dark, swollen bruising of his face. “Aris.”

She limped to his side. Her own stitches made her skin feel tight and unfamiliar. Thick bands encircled her torso, holding her broken ribs in place.

On the other side of the bed, a mender studied Milek’s data on the monitor, but Aris hardly noticed. She felt every individual beat of her heart as she carefully slid her hands around Milek’s uninjured arm and lowered herself to sit beside him on the bed.

“You’re wearing your ring.” His fingers slid against hers. Both of their hands were battered and swollen, but Aris’s Promise ring still fit. It glowed bright and blue against the stark white sheets.

“I couldn’t bear not to. Not anymore.” Tears slipped unnoticed down her cheeks.

Milek leaned forward and kissed her nose, wincing a little. “You didn’t drop the bomb.”

She closed her eyes and shook her head, her face still close to his. “I was never going to.”

Whatever evils Pallas had done, Aris was grateful for the woman’s final act. She didn’t want to think about how close she’d come to losing this, how final their goodbyes had felt.

“Have you spoken to your mother yet? I’m surprised she isn’t here to oversee your care in person,” Aris said.

“She vid commed me the second I was conscious.” Milek relaxed back against his pillows. “She’ll be here tomorrow, I think. She wants to be with Ward Nekos when he announces the end of the war. All the wards are scrambling, trying to figure out what to do with Safara.”

Aris had slept for almost twenty-four hours after the menders had patched her up. She was pretty sure she could sleep for another week and still feel tired. “I guess there are a lot of things for us to figure out, too.”

Milek pulled her slowly down beside him. “Not right now.”

Aris thought about arguing, but instead she snuggled into him and closed her eyes.

When she woke, Commander Nyx was standing over her. Aris sat up too quickly and her body jangled, all her hurts twinging into wakefulness. Milek continued to sleep soundly, though his brow was furrowed and his breath hissed a little as he inhaled, as if his injuries plagued him while he slept.

“What is it?” Aris whispered. She swung her legs slowly off the side of the bed but didn’t stand up.

Commander Nyx stared at her impassively. “There’s a rumor floating around that Ward Balias was killed during the battle of the flaming scorpion. Seems someone thought they saw you shoot him. Is this true?”

Aris could read nothing in Nyx’s face, no clue as to which was the “right” response. So she stuck with the truth. “It is.”

Nyx’s lip hitched up at the corner. “Good. Ward Nekos will be pleased to hear that. He’s about to give a statement and wanted confirmation.” In an uncharacteristic move, she reached out to help Aris down from the bed.

“They’ll want to debrief me, right?” Aris flexed her feet, stretching her calves. Her impromptu nap had left her creaky and stiff.

“Of course. Hours of debriefing. They’ll talk you ‘til you’re hoarse.” Commander Nyx headed for the door. “But not right now. Most of the base is gathered in the rec room to watch the ward’s announcement. You should join them.” It was less of an order than usual, but even a suggestion from Nyx felt like an imperative.

Aris kissed Milek’s cheek, smoothed a hand over his short hair, and followed the commander into the hall. Nyx peeled off down the hallway that led to her office, and Aris continued on, running her fingers along the smooth, white wall.

When she arrived at the rec room, Aris headed over to a table in the corner, where Dysis sat with Otto, Lieutenant Santos, Mann, and Nyal. A few menders were present, but she didn’t see Calix.

“Nice to see you back,” Aris said as she approached Mann, knocking a fist into his arm. It was an overly chummy move, but she didn’t know how to act around someone she’d accused of treason.

Mann shot her a mild glance. “Thank you, Lieutenant.”

Otto stood up and swung an arm around her shoulders, his feet unsteady beneath him. “Think they’ll throw another ceremony for us?” The sharp tang of apricot and ginger clogged her nose.

“Celebrating already, I see.” Aris grinned.

“Join us,” Lieutenant Santos said, handing her a poorly hidden bottle in a rolled-up shirt. His dark eyes danced.

Aris sank into a chair next to Dysis. All around the room, the din was increasing, barks of laughter drowning out the quieter conversations.

“Why not?” She grabbed the bottle from Santos and knocked back a healthy gulp.

Otto whooped, bumping into Mann in his enthusiasm, and Nyal hiccupped a laugh, and suddenly everyone was laughing, big heaving gasps of mirth.

When the soldiers got themselves under control, Dysis scooted her chair closer to Aris’s and asked, “How’s Milek doing?”

“Much better,” Aris replied. “Still pretty banged up, but he’ll be okay.” Just then, she noticed a newcomer at the door. “Excuse me,” she said, standing. “I’ll be right back.”

She wove her way through tables overflowing with white-clad menders and soldiers in Atalantan green, everyone waiting to hear Ward Nekos’s announcement.

Aris didn’t stand on ceremony this time. When she reached Dianthe, she gave the tall woman a quick, tight hug, ignoring the twinge in her ribs. Dianthe’s look of shock as Aris pulled away made her laugh.

“Disguising men as female soldiers . . . I hear that’s your new thing,” Aris joked.

Dianthe shot her a look. “Surely you’re not complaining.”

“Absolutely not,” Aris said. Dianthe’s skill in creating diatous veils had saved her life. In truth, it had changed her life. And it had saved their Dominion. “What will you do now?” she asked, her voice softer. “Will there be need for the veiling tech?”

Dianthe didn’t answer for a minute, as she surveyed the room. “I imagine not,” she said at last. “But I knew the second your true identity was announced after you rescued Ward Vadim that things would change for me.”

Aris’s chest tightened, but to her shock, Dianthe smiled. An actual, genuine smile. “Change isn’t always a bad thing.”

Just then, someone turned up the volume on the bank of monitors along the wall. They all showed the same scene: an empty dais in Panthea’s capitol framed by enormous flowering trees in gilded pots. A reporter said in a whisper that Ward Nekos was about to take the stage.

Commander Nyx stomped into the room and took a spot against the back wall next to Dianthe. Aris made her way back to her seat. She wished Milek could be here for this moment.

The room erupted in applause when Ward Nekos climbed onto the dais, followed by Ward Vadim and Ward Rossum. They were all elaborately dressed, Nekos in an emerald-green tunic heavily embroidered with gold thread, Vadim in a cobalt-blue gown with streaks of sparkling silver. Ward Rossum’s ruby dress was inlaid with swirls of white pearl. More importantly, they all wore matching looks of triumph.

When Ward Nekos stepped up to the podium, the room quieted abruptly. Dysis bumped Aris’s shoulder and they shared a look. Aris knew what Ward Nekos was about to say, but she still held her breath.

“People of Atalanta,” Nekos began, his voice strong. “It is with joy, reverence, and humble relief that I am able to announce the official cessation of Military operations against Safara. Atalanta and her allies are safe. At last, the war is over.”

Chapter 42

As the door slid open, Galena took a deep breath. Elom sat at the edge of the cot, facing her, in his usual manner. His gaze pierced through the space between them like a knife.

Before she stepped into the cell, she stood still for an extra moment, knowing she would enjoy what came next. Then she crossed the threshold, gesturing to the guard to leave the door open.

“This will be our last visit together, Elom,” she said, her voice mild. “The war is over.”

Something flickered in Elom’s eyes, but his expression didn’t change. “Oh, is it?”

“Ward Balias is dead.” The words echoed in the small room. “The weapon has been destroyed, as well as the lab and the technology with it.” His cheeks were reddening, his hands closing into fists. She went on, savoring the moment. “Castalia joined our final assault. Their troops have stayed to help establish an interim Safaran government. A temporary ward is already in place.”

“Why are you telling me this?” he asked through clenched teeth.

“Because I have always wished to hurt you the way you hurt me,” she said matter-of-factly. “And this is how I’ll do it. Elom, your dominion has renounced you. They have wiped their hands clean of you. You will not be put on trial. You will not be sentenced to death for your crimes.”

She took a step back, one foot over the threshold.

“You will be left alone, in this room, to rot.”

He stood suddenly, and lunged forward against his shackles. “You can’t do this.”

She shook her head, chin up, so her scars were on full display. “I didn’t. You did this. You helped Ward Balias destroy his own dominion from within, and then you tried to destroy me. You did this, Elom, and I will wake up satisfied every day for as long as you live, knowing you are here, alone, with life itself as your punishment.”

Elom gave a great yell and reached for her, his eyes breaking to show the evil and agony he usually kept hidden.

Satisfaction. That was the word for what she felt. Not joy, nor pleasure or pride. Just peace at the knowledge that, for Elom, justice had been served.

***

Galena met Pyralis at a tiny restaurant hidden in a corner of the city on the riverside. The dark paneled walls and candlelight gave the place an intimate feel; the large, scalloped panels between tables offered additional privacy. Tonight, though, there was little need for them. They were the only patrons.

The muffled pop of fireferns filtered through the restaurant’s quiet music. There were pockets of Atalantans celebrating in the streets all across the city. Throughout the evening, the news vids had shown footage from villages doing the same. Most began their revelry with a vigil for those lost, sharing a moment of silence over flickering candles.

Galena and Pyralis held their own vigil as they sat across from each other, the candle burning between them. After everything they’d been through, what was there to say?

Finally, Galena broke into an awkward laugh. “Maybe you were right.”

“How do you mean?” Pyralis lifted a brow, smiling. His golden skin glowed in the dim light, his brown eyes warm as melted chocolate.

“We don’t seem to have anything to talk about now.” She meant it as a joke, but a thread of unease ran through her all the same. They’d acknowledged their feelings for each other, yes. But how much of their connection had its roots in their shared history, and how much in the necessity of fighting a war together? Without the war . . .

“Of course we do,” Pyralis said. “Forgive my silence. I was admiring your beautiful face in the candlelight.”

Galena ducked her head. She wasn’t ashamed of her scars, but beautiful?

A server swept up to their table with dishes of sweet nut bread and savory peshka, its green basilis sauce swirled artfully on the white plate.

“Thank you,” Galena murmured.

When they were alone again, Pyralis reached across the table for her hand. “Elom won’t hold this power over you forever. His crimes—”

“He holds no power over me,” Galena interrupted, raising her chin. “He has nothing left. And I have everything.” She squeezed Pyralis’s hand. “I won’t be visiting him again.”

They were more than words. They were freedom.

Pyralis’s face broke into a huge, happy grin. “I’m happy to hear that.”

He’d told her that he’d visited his wife at the prison the day before, but she’d refused to see him. Their marriage breaking wouldn’t be final until next year, but Pyralis had begun the process the day he learned of Bett’s involvement in Galena’s abduction. In a year or so, if they wanted, Galena and Pyralis could marry. She was glad they would have that time forced upon them. She wouldn’t have been able to make that kind of decision now.

“Will you be heading back to Sibetza soon?” Pyralis asked, a little too casually.

Galena wanted to say no, but her job there wasn’t over. “My focus must be Ruslana now. Our fight has forced me to neglect my own dominion for too long. After my visit to Milek tomorrow, I’ll be heading back— ”

“And there will be no reason to return to Atalanta for some time,” Pyralis finished for her.

She tightened her grip on his hand. “I was going to say, ‘but I imagine there will be a need for many diplomatic trips to Atalanta in my future.’”

He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her palm. “Ah, the joys of diplomacy.”

The night unfurled before them, rich with the strains of soft music, the flavors of fine food and spicy wine. Their conversation meandered. Easy. Unhurried.

And Galena basked in it, let it envelope her. This . . . this was joy.

This was peace.

Chapter 43

In the airy kitchen of Aris’s parents’ house, her mother Krissa flitted about like a madwoman. The long slate counter heaved under endless platters of starberry pie, olive sandwiches on crisp thin-sliced bread, thick chunks of feta and tomato doused in silky basilis sauce. The scents of roasted potatoes and browned butter drifted through the rest of the house and into the high-walled courtyard.

Aris hugged her mother from behind, her strong arms holding the woman still for a brief moment. Krissa craned her head back to kiss Aris on the cheek. “I’m so thrilled you’re here, my doll,” she said. “Now let me cook.”

Aris laughed.

She and Milek had arrived in Lux late the night before, three and a half weeks after Ward Nekos announced the end of the war. It had taken that long for Milek to heal enough to travel, and for their leave to be approved. They’d been granted a month’s vacation. A whole month. Aris couldn’t wrap her head around it.

She left her mother to her work and headed into the living room to check on her father, who had taken the day off. She found him perched on the back of the white sofa, stringing twinkle lights along the wall, Milek uncoiling and handing them up to him. Milek’s left arm was still heavily bandaged, but he was slowly increasing his range of motion each day. On the floor nearby, Samira’s son, Jaff, watched them, transfixed.

“Have you seen Kori?” Aris asked, leaning against the white-washed wall. “Dysis and Jax will be here any minute.”

At the sound of her voice, Milek turned and shot her a smile.

From his precarious position atop the sofa, Gus said, “I think he’s in the courtyard with Samira and Hazel.”

She lingered a few seconds longer in the doorway. Watching Milek and her father work together on a task so normal felt like she’d entered another dimension. Or a dream.

She didn’t want to wake up.

Aris reached the courtyard just as a Military wingjet soared overhead and slowed. It made a sweep and then drew into a hover above their private landing pad. She hurried to Kori, who leaned heavily on his crutch in the corner of the courtyard, watching the wingjet. She couldn’t believe, after everything, that this moment was actually about to happen.

She crouched in front of the boy. His golden-brown eyes kept flicking toward the archway leading to the landing pad. “How are you doing? You okay?” she asked.

His eyes focused on her with an effort. She could see through the cracks in his defensive armor as he shrugged. Beside him, Samira put a hand on his shoulder.

“You’ve got this, kid.” She ignored Aris.

As soon as the wingjet landed, Aris ran through the archway, her short blue dress fluttering against her legs. “I owe you big-time for this. Thank you for finding them!”

Jax grinned as he disembarked from the flyer’s seat. “Of course. I told you I would. It was easy, now that official channels are open. Ward Vadim helped grease the wheels.”

There were still pockets of fighting within Safara, but between the influx of Castalian troops and the steadiness of the interim ward, peace was coming quickly to the dominion. It would take longer to rebuild the infrastructure; Ward Balias had severely strained the dominion’s resources and left many of his people without food and clean water. The irony was that with aid groups flooding the dominion with resources, Safara was now benefitting from the very things Balias had claimed he was fighting for.

Dysis jumped down from the gunner’s seat and gave Aris a hug. “Hey you.”

Together, they ran to the back of the wingjet. Aris helped a slim woman carrying a small child from the back of the cargo bay. The woman’s flowy, patterned dress threatened to swallow her as the cliff breeze caught it.

“We’re so glad you came,” Aris said, holding tight to the woman’s arm.

“My Kori is really here?” she asked, and Aris felt tears prick her eyes.

Jax stood off to the side with Dysis. Aris pointed toward the archway, where Kori stood frozen, his angular face caught in an expression somewhere between disbelief and anxious hope.

Slowly, Aris led the woman and her daughter to him. Jax and Dysis followed, giving them some space.

“Kori?” The woman’s tremulous voice carried on the breeze.

Aris held her breath.

Kori paused another moment, and then he jerked forward and wrapped his scarred arms tightly around his mother and sister. The woman began to weep.

Aris smiled back at Jax and Dysis. She’d promised Kori she’d find his family at a time when she was grounded in Safara and couldn’t even find her own way home without help. She’d had no idea if it could be done—if his family was even alive—but Kori’s pronounced limp and fiery defiance had spoken to something deep inside her. That this moment was actually happening . . . that Jax had actually found them . . .

Aris couldn’t quite see clearly through her tears.

“When will the refugees go back to Safara?” Dysis asked, her voice soft enough that it didn’t interrupt the reunion.

Aris sniffed, trying to pull herself together. “A few weeks, maybe a month. Might take longer for those here in Lux, as most of the children don’t have homes to go back to. But Ward Nekos has set up a task force to help return the child soldiers to their parents, so hopefully there will be more scenes like this soon.”

Together, they watched Kori pick up his little sister, his slight body already seeming stronger. Aris had never seen him smile before, and the expression gave his whole face new life.

New life.

That’s what the end of the war had given them all.

“Do you want to take care of the other thing now?” Dysis asked, glancing pointedly at Samira, who stood inside the courtyard, close to where Hazel played in a pool of shade created by the large, leafy palms that arched over the high wall.

Aris swiped at her face and straightened her shoulders. “Yes, please.” She threaded an arm through Jax’s. “Samira can be prickly. I don’t know how she’s going to react.”

Jax smiled, his eyes sparkling. “Oh, I know. It’s one of my favorite things about her.”

Aris let out a little laugh. She’d forgotten Jax had spent a lot of time with Samira and Alistar when they’d first come to Lux. He’d been the one appointed to question them about the flaming scorpion.

She, Jax, and Dysis wove around Kori and his family into the courtyard. As Aris passed, Kori looked at her, really looked at her, his gaze steady. His defensive armor was gone. When he smiled, she almost started crying all over again.

Samira watched the group approach, arms crossed over her chest. The sunlight brought out the slight red in her dark braids. “More requests? I went to Castalia, as you demanded. My brother died for your victory. There’s nothing more your dominion could possibly want from us.”

“That’s true,” Aris replied. The night before, she’d told Samira how sorry she was about Alistar, how much she’d respected him. How he’d try to save her and Milek, how much she owed to him. Samira had left the room without a response, her face tight. “But there’s something my dominion would like to offer you.” Aris nodded to Jax, who removed a shining gold medal from his breast pocket and held it out. “Atalanta has given your brother a posthumous award for bravery and selflessness. They’d like to hold a ceremony to honor him, but I said I would talk to you first. It will be up to you if you’d like Alistar’s actions made public.”

Aris remembered how she felt when Milek had come to her and offered her a promotion and a place in the military as herself. He’d given her a choice. She wanted to give that to Samira now.

For a few seconds, Samira stared at her, emotions flitting below the hard lines of her face. She reached for the medal slowly, as if she expected it to bite.

“A ceremony,” was all she said.

“Also, a fund has been set up for you and your children.” Aris glanced down at Hazel, who was sitting on a soft blanket, playing with a stack of leaves. “If Alistar were an Atalantan soldier, dying in service to his dominion, his family would be supported. Ward Nekos thinks you and your family should be, too.” Before Samira could respond, Aris added, “You don’t have to stay in Atalanta. The fund is yours to use how and where you see fit.”

For a long time, no one said anything.

Samira’s husband and brother had been killed in the same war, on opposite sides. She and her children were caught out of place, out of time. She’d been living in someone else’s home for weeks. Aris knew Samira wasn’t one to accept help lightly.

At last, Samira shifted and cleared her throat. “Alistar deserves recognition for what he did. I told him he was stupid for risking his life like that, and I was right. But he saved his people, and yours.” She eyed Aris warily. “I’ll accept whatever your dominion decides to pay for his sacrifice. I won’t act like I’m ashamed, or like he betrayed Safara. He may never be honored in my dominion like he should be, but at least he’ll be honored here.”

“Samira—” Aris began, but the woman wasn’t done.

“I want to use the money to care for the orphans here,” she said, her chestnut eyes blazing. “Will you find out who I need to meet with to split it into trusts for all of these children, Hazel and Jaff, too? Can you do that?”

Aris nodded, and Jax stepped up, closer to Samira. “I’m staying in Lux for a while, as your liaison,” he said. “Whatever you need, I’m here to help.”

“Thank you,” Samira said, her expression softening a hair.

Aris wanted to hug the woman, but she knew the contact wouldn’t be welcome. Instead, she said softly, “My family is your famiy. You are welcome here for as long as you need.”

Samira nodded, and a swift, unacknowledged understanding passed between them.

Chapter 44

“I can’t believe you grew up here.” Dysis rested her hands on the translucent wall of one of Lux’s raised pathways and stared out at the sparkling blue of the ocean. “No one really lives in places like this. They’re for vacations. Or, I don’t know, dreams.”

“It feels like a dream now, after the past year.” Aris laughed a little. “It doesn’t feel real to me anymore either.”

“So will you stay?” Dysis asked. “After our vacations are up, I mean. Will you transfer here and go back to the Enviro sector?”

Aris leaned her arms on the wall. “I don’t know. Milek and I have to figure that out.”

Major Vadim was inside Aris’s house with her family; they’d all eaten lunch here, with her mother cooking an elaborate meal and flitting around asking if everything was alright about a million times. Aris’s mother got like that when she was anxious.

“There’s something I need to talk to you about,” Dysis blurted, before she could lose her nerve. She wasn’t sure there was any point in saying anything—who knew what would happen—but she was here, in Lux, and . . .

And so was Calix.

“What is it?” Aris asked, brow raised. Most of the bruises on her face had faded to yellowish shadows. She looked more relaxed than Dysis had seen her in months, maybe ever. But they all still carried the war with them. Aris was no exception.

“When I was hurt and stuck in sick bay,” Dysis began, already promising herself that if there was any weirdness in Aris’s response, she’d forget the whole thing. “Calix and I were kind of forced to spend a lot of time together.”

Aris smirked. “You’re not asking my permission to see Calix, are you?”

The question completely threw her off. “I . . . um, I just . . .”

Aris full-on laughed. “When have you ever needed permission to do anything, Dysis? Tell me you haven’t lost your edge—”

“I just didn’t want to lose my best friend,” Dysis said, exasperated.

Aris’s face fell into softer lines. “Oh.”

Dysis turned back to the sea. “Look, it’s no big deal. I don’t even know if it’s anything at all yet. I just wanted to respect your history with him. Let you know that something maybe was going on. A courtesy. I wasn’t . . . uh . . . asking permission.”

Aris bumped her arm. “Just don’t let him treat you like a doll.”

Dysis looked at her, brows raised. “He wouldn’t dare try.”

“You’re right, he wouldn’t.” Aris smiled, but with a hint of sadness. “Not with you.”

For a few minutes, they stood in silence. Then Aris sighed. “It is beautiful here. I’d forgotten.”

Dysis watched a fanax dive toward the water, its dark wings clashing with the bright sunlight. “Do you think Pallas knew no one would get hurt if she dove into the ocean before the bomb exploded?”

Atalantan reporters didn’t seem to know what to do with Pallas. She had been a spy for Safara, the one who led to the destruction of stationpoints and who knew what else, but she was also the dominion’s savior. Panthea was full of living, breathing people because of her.

Aris might have been thinking about Pallas, too, because she didn’t seem fazed at the change of topic. “When I saw her, she was hell-bent on killing Balias. But she was hurting, too. Her whole family had been tortured and killed . . . and they’d used her to betray us. I think . . . I don’t know, but I think if she’d been trying to kill Balias, she would have dropped the bomb on the prison, like she’d planned. Something changed her mind.”

“Would you have done it? Spied on your unit to save someone you loved?” Dysis had been thinking about it ever since Pallas had told her they’d abducted her family.

“I don’t know,” Aris said. She wrapped her arms around herself, as if she felt a sudden chill. “I wouldn’t have dropped the bomb, I know that. I was ready to sacrifice Milek and myself to make sure it didn’t hit Panthea. But the other stuff? I don’t know.”

Dysis took a deep breath. “A year ago, I would have. Without a thought. If someone had come to me when Jax was missing and told me they’d save him if I spied on my unit, I would have done it.”

Aris cut her gaze to Dysis. “But you wouldn’t now?”

“Family isn’t just about blood, is it?” It was the closest she could come to telling Aris what their friendship meant to her.

Aris seemed to understand. She bumped against Dysis’s arm again and shot her a smile. “I, for one, am happy I’ll never have to make that choice.”

“It’s weird to think it’s really over, isn’t it?” Dysis wasn’t sure what she’d do next, except that she didn’t want to go home, back to her job teaching mechanics to the children in her village. She’d stay in Military, if they’d have her. Maybe join one of the teams being sent to help Safara rebuild, or take a job as a town protector. There were plenty of Atalantan towns to rebuild, too.

Aris straightened abruptly. “It is over. And we’re on vacation. I think it’s time to celebrate.”

Dysis raised a brow. “What did you have in mind?”

With a grin, Aris twirled into the center of the pathway. “I’ll go get Milek. You find Calix. He lives three houses down, on the right. Tell him we’ll meet at The Toad. He’ll know what you’re talking about.”

She didn’t wait for Dysis’s objections; with a flutter of her dress, she disappeared into her parents’ house.

Dysis lingered for a minute. Somehow, without imminent death hanging over her head, she felt almost shy when it came to Calix. They’d seen each other only briefly at Mekia before everyone had been awarded leave. Dysis had left to help Jax hunt down Kori’s family, and Calix had gone home to see his parents. She wasn’t even really sure if what they had was anything at all.

But she was here, in Lux. Only three houses down. “What the hell,” she muttered to herself. She walked along the pathway and tried not to look at the shadowy silhouettes of trees beneath her. It made her nervous how the whole village was built on stilts high above the ground.

She reached Calix’s house shortly, a large, one-story house with a blinding white roof and pale-blue siding. Like Aris’s, it overlooked the ocean.

Calix answered her knock more quickly than she was prepared for.

“Er, hi,” she said awkwardly, hand still poised in the air.

“Dysis!” His eyes widened in surprise.

Right. He wouldn’t exactly expect me here, would he?

“Hey. I was helping Jax with a refugee thing. That’s why I’m in Lux,” she said quickly. “You know, not stalking you or anything.”

Calix smiled. “That’s a shame.”

Dysis froze. How did he manage to throw her off-balance like that? She really didn’t like the feeling, and she didn’t like this sudden shyness either. It wasn’t her.

So, before her brain could catch up with her intentions, she flung herself forward and brought her lips to his. A no-warning kiss even she hadn’t expected.

Calix’s arms went around her in the next instant, and her impulsive kiss became a slow, burning one. He pressed into her, running his hands down her back, across the silky material of her tunic, and tasted her with the need of a starving man.

Dysis’s brain went muddy and quiet, and all she could think about was his lips, his tongue, his hands.

Eventually, they broke apart, both of them breathing as if they’d just run miles. Dysis couldn’t put coherent thoughts together. Calix looked stunned himself. He ran a shaky hand across his short, dark hair, his green eyes still a little foggy.

She loved that he was just as undone as she was.

“So, Aris wants to celebrate,” she said airily, as if she didn’t want to push him backward into his house and kiss him some more. “She said we should meet her at The Toad, and you’d know what that means?”

It took Calix another couple of seconds to recover. “The Toad . . .” His voice trailed off. Then his eyes focused, and a little smile started to grow along his lips. “The Toad sounds good. Lots of dark corners and loud music.” He winked. Then he took her arm and led her down the elevated path without further explanation.

With his warm bare arm entwined with hers, and his eyes sneaking a glance at her every few seconds, she had to admit . . . dark corners and loud music sounded awfully nice.

Chapter 45

The Toad wasn’t far from her house, but Aris decided to take her wingjet anyway. Milek climbed slowly into the cabin, his brow furrowed with the effort. Aris ran through start-up, reveling in the simplicity of the nonmilitary nav panel.

“Are you excited to be back?” Milek asked, as he settled into his seat.

She strapped herself in, incapable of withstanding the huge grin that wanted to spread across her face. “I’m excited about this,” she said, and then she pulled up on the controls, and they went soaring.

Like a silver arrow, she shot out over the ocean, caught between the roll of deep cobalt and the lighter blue of the sky. She climbed, higher and higher, flirting with a bank of puffy white clouds before tipping backward to free-fall. She pulled out of the dive and skimmed just above the water, egged on by Milek’s delighted laugh.

Now, because of Military, her flying meant something. But that didn’t take away the sheer joy of dipping and flipping and spinning without the bark of enemy fire at her tail. Today, it was enough to dance along familiar cliffs, tip her wings to the history she shared with this place, the past that had shaped her and driven her to who she’d become.

At last, when she had shivered the ache to fly out of her bones, she slowed and headed toward The Toad. Milek placed his hand over hers. “Aris,” he said, “truly, you take my breath away.”

Even as they landed, her heart soared.

Before Aris could open the glass shield, Milek threaded his hands through her hair and drew her close and pressed his lips to hers. The kiss was a revelation, removed from the desperate longing and worry of their stolen moments at Mekia. Aris smoothed her hands over his shoulders, melting into him, and suddenly her very first dream of Milek returned to her, and she pressed closer, suddenly quite enthusiastic about reenacting that particular fantasy.

“We should probably go in,” Milek breathed against her lips.

She kissed him harder, then broke away with a little groan. “A week alone. That’s all I ask.”

He leaned forward to kiss her nose. “Lucky for you, we’re on vacation. We can make that happen.”

With that lovely promise, they finally climbed out of the wingjet.

Once inside The Toad, the scene so surreal, Aris hardly knew what to do with herself. Winding through the darkness, through the pumping music and spicy bakka smoke, were her friends, both old and new: Phae, regal in a red tunic and flowing pants, hand in hand with Rakk, whose scarred face couldn’t dim his happy smile; Echo, in sparkling silver, a tray of frothy drinks in her hands; and Calix, his arm entwined with Dysis’s. They were all amazingly, impossibly, here.

She leaned a little closer into Milek’s side. His face and body still bore the vestiges of his torture, but he was here, too. Alive. “Are you ready for this?” she asked.

He grinned, his scar now joined by a new one over his brow, and a scabbed nick on his chin. “It’s midafternoon. How crazy can it get?”

Aris shook her head and said, “You’ll see,” just as the wave of excited voices reached her.

“Oh gods, I can’t believe you’re here, Aris! I was absolutely wrecked at your burning, and then we heard you weren’t dead, and it was all anyone could talk about!” Echo buried them both in her mass of lavender-scented hair. “Oh, and who are you?” she added, glancing appreciatively at Milek.

He was pretty beat up, but somehow that made his clear blue eyes and square-jawed face even more attractive. Aris wasn’t surprised at her friend’s reaction.

“This is Milek,” she said. “Where’s . . . your man?” Aris asked, hoping Echo didn’t realize she couldn’t remember his name.

Echo waved an airy hand. “Oh, I’m over him. I’m concentrating on my art right now.” Which meant she was back to exploring her options. Aris couldn’t help grinning.

Phae and Rakk slipped into the booth beside Milek and made their introductions. Phae slid her hand across the polished wood table to squeeze Aris’s. “Don’t die on us again, will you?”

Aris tightened her hand on Phae’s. “No plans anytime soon. It’s good to see you.”

“And you,” she said, her dark eyes glowing.

When Calix and Dysis joined them, the whole table erupted into breathless chatter, as Dysis told the story of how Calix had cut the head of the snake that bit Daakon, making him sound every bit the hero he was. This time, no one seemed to mind talking about the war. Even Phae listened to the stories without worriedly glancing at Rakk or trying to change the subject.

Underneath the table, Aris squeezed Milek’s hand. They did have a lot of stories.

But no one told the tragedies today.

Later, when Echo went back to serving drinks and flirting with the men smoking bakka, and Phae, Rakk, Calix, and Dysis danced to the deep, pulsating music The Toad was known for, Aris sat back and shot Milek a look.

“How you doing?” she asked, noting the furrow between his brows. “Thinking deep thoughts over there?”

He smiled and kissed her, warm and soft. “I was thinking about our future.”

“Still want to settle down in a village like this, with a bunch of kids and a peaceful job as a town protector?” She trailed her lips along his cheek and gently nipped his ear.

“Is that what you want?” His voice rumbled against her neck.

“Maybe someday.” Kori and his mother and sister lingered in her mind. Kori had held his family so tightly, with a look in his eyes that said he’d been given a gift he’d never ever believed he’d receive.

For the first time, Aris could see her future with Milek. With the war over, the dark, impenetrable wall had crumbled. “But first, I want to go back to Safara. I want to help rebuild the dominion.”

She could feel his smile against her shoulder. Then he raised his head, and she could see the joy in his eyes as well. “That’s what I want, too. We worked so hard to win this war . . .”

“We can’t stop fighting now,” she agreed.

Milek pulled her closer, his lips claiming hers in the kind of kiss meant for the heavy, fragrant air of The Toad.

“Do you want to dance?” she asked at last, when they broke apart to catch their breaths.

Milek shook his head. “I could use some fresh air, though.”

As they stood, Aris caught a glimpse of Calix and Dysis dancing, their bodies perfectly in sync. And for a few moments, as she and Milek wove through the maze of tables and shadowy figures to the door, Aris imagined she felt the presence of all those they’d lost: Galec, Baksen, Alistar, Daakon, even Pallas. They were all there, still with her, still watching over all of them.

With a spark of something that felt like hope, she reached for Milek’s hand. When his fingers curled around hers, the touch both a comfort and a promise, she smiled and led him into the sunlight.

Acknowledgments

There are so many people who helped make this book, and the whole series, a reality. I am so incredibly grateful for their time, support, wisdom, faith, and especially chocolate.

Lanie Davis and Eliza Swift, you guys are masters of the compliment sandwich. I’m so grateful for your patented combo of honest, insightful critique and morale-boosting compliments. This series would have been a sad shadow of itself without you. Thank you for taking a chance on me, and on Aris.

To the rest of the team at Alloy Entertainment—Les Morgenstein, Josh Bank, Heather David, Romy Golan, and Elaine Damasco—thank you for making the Rebel Wing series shine. I can’t imagine a better home for it than Alloy. To Caroline Carr at Amazon, thank you for believing in this series and giving it so many opportunities to find readers.

To Rachel L. Hamm, Jax Abbey, J.D. Robinson, and Paige Elizabeth Nguyen: I’d like to raise a hundred flaming scorpions to you. When you move as often as I do, it’s tough to meet people, let alone make friends. And somehow, in Durham, I found four kindred spirits. Though we live far away now, I will never forget how amazing it was to be able to chill with all of you IN THE SAME ROOM and talk about writing. Don’t worry. I’ll be visiting often!

Aimee L. Salter, from talking me down to brainstorming new ideas, you always have my back. Big virtual hugs. I’m so thrilled that Alloy brought us together.

It seems that with every passing year and every new book, my writing family grows larger and more awesome. Shari Arnold, Jennifer Walkup, Susanne Winnacker, Ali Cross, Autumn Kalquist, Heather Hildenbrand, Morgan Michael, the Critters, S3G, Indelibles, YA Binders, etc—I’m so honored to walk this winding path with you.

Jody Escaravage: your faith in me makes me feel like a rock star. I couldn’t ask for more from a best friend. Thank you.

To my family, thank you for your incredible support over the past six months. I literally could not have finished this book without the grandparent time for Ollie, the place to live, the help with moving, and the encouragement. Honestly, I can’t believe I actually DID finish it, all things considered. It’s been a pretty crazy ride this year, and you made it a whole lot smoother.

Andy, you always believe in me, even when I don’t believe in myself. I’ll never be able to thank you enough for that.

To all the brave women and men who are serving or who have served in the Armed Forces, you have my utmost gratitude and respect.

Lastly, to my readers, especially those who’ve been around since the days of Shattered Veil: THANK YOU. The fact that you are out there, actually reading my books, taking the time to tell your friends how much you love them—I mean, that’s been my fantasy since I was five. You lovely people truly are my dream come true.

About the Author

Award-winning author, Army wife, and mom, Tracy Banghart has an MA in publishing and an unhealthy affection for cupcakes. Her quiet childhood led to a reading addiction, writing obsession, and several serious book boyfriends. Torn Sky is her fifth novel. Follow @tracythewriter on Twitter or visit her at www.tracybanghart.com.

Looking for more great reads?

THE CORRIDOR

by A.N. Willis

Stel Alaster has never known life without the Corridor. It appeared suddenly seventeen years ago, the only portal to a parallel version of our world—Second Earth. Everyone on First Earth fears Mods, the genetically modified Second Earthers who built the Corridor. They are too smart, too strong, and have powers that can’t be controlled. Any Mod found on First Earth is branded, then detained in the Corridor’s research labs.

Only Stel has a dangerous secret. She has a power, too: She can open a portal to Second Earth . . . and several other parallel universes she’s discovered. If anyone ever finds out, she’ll be imprisoned, no better than a Mod or common lab rat.

But when the Corridor starts to fail, emitting erratic bursts of energy that could destroy First Earth, Stel must risk everything to save the people and world she loves. With the help of an escaped Mod and an infuriatingly arrogant boy from a third universe, Stel sets out to unravel the mysteries of the Corridor and stabilize it before it’s too late. The fate of every world lies in the balance. . . .

Turn the page for an excerpt of the first book.

January 17, 2032

In the Colorado Mountains

The Corridor portal glinted in the sunlight. Melting snow dotted the ground, echoed by the white-capped peaks in the distance. Maintenance workers and Corridor Guards milled around the base of the portal, readying an aid shipment for the Second Earther refugee camps on the other side.

As I walked, my ankle boots sunk into the slush, splattering my jeans. The Corridor observation area was nearly deserted this afternoon—the weekly shipment of medicine and food rations wasn’t much of a draw—but I had work to do. I took out my Panel, unfolded it, and pulled my research notes up on the screen. Then I settled into a seat in the second row, and glanced up at the portal.

Control towers rose up all around it in tall pillars, housing the computers, wiring and monitoring equipment that promised to keep us safe from the portal’s vast stores of energy. Fusion reactors churned quietly from underground. They generated enough power to keep the Corridor running—a permanent gateway between our world and the parallel universe we’d dubbed Second Earth.

Inspiration, inspiration, I thought, tapping my Panel against my forehead. But my mind was quiet, as still as the portal.

Not good.

The application deadline for the Multiversal Physics Institute was only three months away, and I still hadn’t come up with a thesis for my advanced study project. I needed something that would impress the admissions committee. But somewhere in the last seven months, since graduation from Corridor Prep, my progress had stalled. I’d grown up here at the Corridor Facility, and my father was Chair of the Facility Administration, so a project relating to the portal had seemed like the obvious choice. Even scientists like my dad knew so little about how the Corridor actually worked, so coming up with a research question should have been easy for me.

My Panel dinged with an incoming call. I held it up, eager for a distraction—until I saw who was calling. I groaned internally. My finger hovered over the image of my best friend Lissa’s face. I’d known since this morning that this call would come, and still I had no clue what to say. Might as well get it over with. I tapped the screen and her picture came to life as the feed connected.

“Estele.” Lissa pushed her sunglasses onto the top of her head. She had on a shimmery green bikini top, and I could see breaking waves in the background. But the expression on her face didn’t match the rest of the idyllic scene. Her eyes were puffy and red from crying, and her lips were pressed together in a thin line. “Where are you?” she asked, her voice thick. “Why’s it so bright there?”

“I’m at the Corridor. The sun’s actually out today.” I nodded toward the portal. Its rounded surface shone faintly blue, like a layer of glacial ice. It was deceptively peaceful without the usual storm clouds gathering above it. But the electrical storms would roll back in eventually. They always did. “Lis,” I said gently, “are you okay?”

“I need—” Her voice skipped in her chest as she breathed in. A wave crashed into the shore behind her. “I need you to talk to him for me, Estele. Please.”

I swore under my breath. A Corridor Guard glanced at me from a few feet away, his gloved fingers tapping the butt of his rifle. “You know I can’t do that,” I whispered, not wanting the Guard to overhear. It might get back to Justin. “He’s my brother. When the two of you got together you both promised me that—”

A low hum interrupted me, buzzing like a faraway swarm of insects. The portal’s skin rippled slightly, as if disturbed by the noise. It felt like the sound had slipped beneath my skin. I shivered, rubbing my arms to try to banish the sensation.

It’s probably nothing, I told myself. Just your imagination.

The crew working on the Corridor’s control towers didn’t seem concerned, and the Guard had gone back to watching the delivery truck.

Lissa’s platinum blond hair stuck to her damp cheeks. “When I left after graduation, Justin said he was fine being long distance until I got back from my trip. So I don’t understand why—” She paused. “What’s wrong?”

“Sorry, it’s nothing.” I rubbed at the skin by my ear. “Justin is . . . he’s really upset about this, too. But . . .” That humming noise had moved up along my spine and settled inside my skull. “Lis, do you hear that? Some sort of hum?”

“Hear what?” She angled her head. “Just tell him to message me back. I would ask my mom to do it but that would just be weird.”

“Very weird.” The awkwardness would be unbearable if Lissa dragged her mother, Sam, into this. Sam worked closely with my father, and had for years. And Justin adored Sam—she was trying to help him get a promotion to lieutenant in the Corridor Guard. She was practically our surrogate mother. Which would make Lissa and Justin essentially siblings, a comparison that Justin really had not appreciated when I’d pointed it out last year.

Justin had told me this morning that he was going to end it. A year apart while Lissa traveled the world was just too long. And secretly, I was relieved. This turmoil would soon pass, and we could all go back to being a family again.

“Lissa, I hate that you’re hurting right now. But it’s for the—”

I swatted at the air as if I could wave the buzzing noise away. Instead, the hum intensified, breaking into layers and harmonies of sound. It was coming from the portal itself. The workers on the control towers had stopped, and were looking around with alarm. So they’d finally heard it, too. It sounded almost like . . . music.

The Corridor was singing.

“The Corridor . . . It’s . . .”

I dropped my Panel onto my lap, and it slid off my knees to the ground. “Estele? What’s going on?” Lissa’s voice was so small, so far away.

It’s glowing.

The rest happened in seconds, but felt like a slow-motion slideshow. Light kindled inside the portal, sparking like a fire. Electricity crackled in the air.

My dark brown hair rose from my head and stood on edge. My body subtly vibrated, teeth chattered and ears rang with the noise.

Then my entire world ignited.

My vision blanked out—white tinged with pale blue—as fire ripped through me. Pure, vivid agony; a single brief moment that held an infinity of time. I was the fire, burning from the inside out in bright blue flames.

Then, suddenly, I could breathe.

I was on the ground, gasping, wedged in between the first and second rows of seats. A sharp, metallic taste coated my tongue. Shapes started to emerge from the haze around me. People from the Corridor maintenance crew were running toward the portal. And Corridor Guards dropped their rifles as they rushed to help.

“Get back,” someone yelled. “It was a surge! The containment field is shot—nobody touch the Corridor!”

I pushed up into my seat, cradling my arms against my stomach. My fingers bent inward, frozen into claws. I couldn’t open my hands. I held them up, looking for burns—my skin still felt hot, but the sensation was quickly fading. The skin wasn’t even red.

My boot knocked against something; a blackened, twisted lump of plastic lay at my feet. My Panel—or at least, it used to be. Lissa’s image was long gone from the screen.

The maintenance crew clambered over the control towers, pulling out fried dysprosium circuit boards as the Guards looked on helplessly. They’d all been standing right next to the Corridor when it happened, and yet no one else seemed to be hurt.

But it couldn’t have just been me.

With all the confusion, no one seemed to notice me. All I could think of was Dad—had anyone told him about the surge? Somehow I had to get home. I stumbled over to the light-rail station that connected the Corridor area to the rest of the Facility. All the overhead lights were out. The adPanels lining the walls usually flashed in bright colors but now they were dead and black, smoking at the edges. The light-rail was probably down. I was stuck here.

Every joint in my body ached. I looked around for a place to sit, but broken glass was everywhere. I crouched at the edge of the platform, staring down into the train tunnel. My eyes strained in the dark.

There was light coming from somewhere. Faint at first, but then it started to build. A train? Had they already fixed the light-rail?

The platform around me began to gleam, light dancing among the shards of glass. I tripped backward, trying to figure out where it was coming from.

“Hello?” I called out. “Anyone there?”

I held my hands out in front of me, still backing away from the edge of the platform. Then a blinding burst of light swallowed me up inside it. In a split second, the whole train station had disappeared. Instead there were trees. Suddenly—impossibly—I was standing in the middle of a forest.

Icy wind tugged at my hair and stung my cheeks. Snow fell from the steel-gray sky, dusting my shoulders with white. My body shivered in the cold; the temperature had somehow dropped thirty degrees in one moment.

“Hello!” I screamed. “Help!”

I squeezed my eyes shut, positive I was hallucinating. Whatever the Corridor had done to me—it scrambled my brain.

I wandered through the trees, searching for something familiar. It looked like the woods beyond the Corridor Facility, but overgrown and wild. I couldn’t find the Helix—the thirty-story tower at the center of the Facility that could usually be seen for miles around. It was almost as if I’d stepped through the Corridor and ended up in some other place. Some other world. But this wasn’t Second Earth, I knew that much.

Where was I? And how did I get there?

Then I noticed my hands.

A pale blue circle of light glowed inside each one of my palms.

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All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Torn Sky © 2015 by Tracy Banghart

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of Alloy Entertainment. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), write to permission@alloyentertainment.com. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

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First edition August 2015

Cover design by Elaine Damasco
Author photo by Regina Wamba
Map design by Natalie C. Sousa
Map illustration © Robert Adrian Hillman under license from Shutterstock.com
Cover photo © MNStudio under license from Shuttershock.com

ISBN 978-1-939106-53-7