Barely a minute later, the door opened again and three coldbloods entered.

The first was a thin-framed, wizened coldblood with half a wing hanging from his shoulder-blade and milky eyes that barely seemed to see anything. The second breezed in behind him, her elegant, ruby-tipped wings tucked neatly behind her back. I recognized the vivid copper hair and almost-silver gaze in an instant. Queen Gianne had come to interrogate Navan herself.

My heart beat faster as she stopped in front of him. “Navan Idrax,” she announced, her intense gaze flashing to me. “And what are you?” Her nose wrinkled, as though she’d smelled something unpleasant.

“My… slave… Your Highness,” Navan replied, still straining against the pain from the torture device.

Queen Gianne turned to Kiel. “Turn that thing off,” she ordered.

Kiel jumped to action, pressing a button on the device, and Navan immediately relaxed. “Now then, that’s better, isn’t it?” she said silkily, taking the seat opposite Navan.

“You are too kind, Your Highness,” Navan replied, getting his breath back.

She laughed, the sound strangely pleasant. “Now, everyone keeps telling me you’ve got a hell of a story, and I for one am dying to hear it,” she said, her eyes fixed on his, to the point where it began to make me feel uncomfortable.

With a heavy sigh, Navan told his story again, including Jethro and Ianthan’s betrayal, and how he discovered the rebel outpost.

All the while, I watched the shifting expressions on Queen Gianne’s face. It was hard to tell what she was thinking. One moment, there was a smile upon her lips. The next, a bitter scowl. Although, it didn’t always fit with the story. No, her expressions were on a journey entirely separate from the words Navan was speaking. However, throughout it all, there was fascination in her eyes, and she didn’t speak until Navan was finished recounting his tale.

When he was done, the wizened old coldblood who had entered the interrogation room with the queen leaned down to whisper something in her ear. It was the first time I had seen him move or speak since they arrived. In fact, I had almost forgotten he was there, he blended so well into the background.

Queen Gianne nodded at whatever the wizened coldblood had said to her. “Thank you, Aurelius,” she said softly, before turning to Navan. “And thank you, Navan Idrax,” she said, standing with a bone-grating scrape of the chair. Without saying another word, she walked toward the door, Kiel hurrying after her, a confused look on his pugnacious face. This Aurelius guy didn’t move a muscle, standing like a statue.

“Your Highness, what shall I do with him?” Kiel called after her, prompting her to pause on the threshold of the room, turning to look over her shoulder with a dramatic swish of her long copper locks.

“Alas, I hate to see such potential go to waste,” she sighed, her silver eyes widening. “But, on this occasion, it must be done. Despite promising beginnings, enviable rank, and a father whom I would trust with my life, it would appear the apple has fallen woefully far from the tree... I can tolerate many things, Navan Idrax, but I can’t tolerate lies. You’ve left me with no choice, as much as it pains me to see you destroyed—to have such a specimen as yourself put down, no better than an icehound. Such a shame.”

Shock seized my muscles, and before I could even react, Kiel drew parallel to Navan with supernatural speed. He pressed the tip of a blade to Navan’s temple, the sharp point nestling just to the side of his slate eyes. I cried out and jolted forward to try to stop him, but one sharp blow from Kiel sent me sprawling to the floor like a ragdoll.

His weapon thrummed with energy, like the rest of the Vysanthean weapons seemed to. Placing his palm on the butt of the knife, Kiel braced his shoulders, ready to push the blade through the skin and bone of Navan’s temple.

Panic hit me like a tidal wave as I realized that would be it. As soon as the blade pushed through his skull, I would lose Navan, and I didn’t need to be a genius to figure out my life would be ended soon after that. How long could I possibly last, alone on this planet, where even butterflies wanted to kill you? This couldn’t be happening. I wasn’t ready to die. There were still a thousand and one things I had to do, most important of which was protecting the human race. What would happen to Earth if Navan and I were killed? What would happen to Angie, Lauren, Jean, Roger…

My brain froze as Kiel drew his hand back, preparing for the killing blow—but just as he was about to drive his weapon down, Queen Gianne raised her hand and called out, her voice splintering through the tense atmosphere.

“Wait!” she said. Kiel brought his hand up short, his whole arm shaking with the exertion it took to stop himself, mid-momentum.

As I watched her walk over to Navan, I thought my lungs might burst out of my chest. In the chaos, I had forgotten how to breathe, my cheeks reddening, my eyes bulging. Relief crashed over me, the adrenaline leaving my system in one hurried rush, leaving me trembling. He was safe… for now.

Queen Gianne approached Navan, examining him with a birdlike curiosity, her striking eyes looking over him as though he were an exhibit in a museum. Her head tilted this way and that upon her slender neck, her long fingers tapping at the dark red pillow of her bottom lip. It wasn’t an appropriate time to go to Navan, I knew, and so I held back, once again going against every instinct I had. Instead, I focused on Queen Gianne, despising her and loving her in equal measure, for halting Navan’s execution.

“Looks like you’ve passed my little test, Navan,” she chirped, her voice oddly cheerful. “I had to see if you were telling the truth. Nothing brings honesty out of a coldblood like a near-death experience, but it would seem there was no other tale to come trickling out of you.”

“Perhaps you ought to question him again, Your Highness, just to be sure?” the half-winged advisor, Aurelius, said quietly, his raspy voice barely making it across to where the queen stood.

She shook her head, visibly irritated by his question. “Not now, Aurelius. Navan Idrax has proven himself worthy today, and that is all there is to it. If I feel like interrogating him again, one day in the future, then I will.”

“As you wish, Your Highness.” Aurelius nodded, backing off.

“Besides,” Queen Gianne said, with a smile, “I think Navan might prove very useful in our fight against the rebels, given what he knows about them and their outpost. Plus, he must be very charming, to have persuaded so many to his way of thinking…” She stroked a fingertip down the side of his cheekbone, and I flinched at the contact, wanting to smack her hand away.

“I will tell you all I can, Your Highness,” Navan replied, his face giving nothing away.

“Yes, perhaps I will make you my advisor on the subject,” she said, a strange smile curving up the corners of her lips. Nearby, Aurelius shook his head. Clearly, he wasn’t into the idea of Navan stepping into his shoes. “Oh, and I do hope you know where the main rebel base is, somewhere in that pretty little head of yours, considering the fate of your comrades is still uncertain. I may not keep them around long enough to gather anything useful,” she added, tapping Navan’s temple precisely where the blade had been about to pierce.

“They are your loyal servants, Your Highness,” Navan assured her, a pleading note in his voice. I understood why. If any of the Asterope crew were killed, Orion’s suspicions would likely be aroused, and that would signal pain and suffering, if not certain death, for me. I didn’t know how exactly Orion would know if something had gone wrong—whether he was relying solely on one of our teammates reporting back to him, or he had some other trick up his sleeve—but I was sure he had his ways, and I wasn’t about to underestimate him.

“At this moment in time, I can only offer freedom to the pair of you. Take it or leave it,” she retorted. “I will decide on your comrades at my leisure.”

“Please, Your Highness, take my word that they are as loyal to you as any of your most-trusted citizens. They are as loyal to you as my father—I would ask that you reconsider. There is so much they can tell you.”

“You will have to tell it to me, if I decide to do away with them,” Queen Gianne replied tersely. “Now, do you want your freedom or not? I don’t have all day.”

Navan glanced at me, our eyes meeting. I wanted him to refuse her offer—one for all, all for one—but I wasn’t really sure we had a choice. Testing the queen’s patience didn’t seem like a good idea, given that Navan was still sitting in a torture chair, and from the resigned expression on his face, he seemed to think so too.

“We accept your generosity, Your Highness,” he murmured.

“Then go, before I change my mind,” she said crisply. “Aurelius, be a dear and help Navan out of his chair—then show them to one of our nicest state rooms,” she called out. The wizened old man acquiesced, then followed us out into the hallway.

For a moment, the paranoid half of me thought it was a trap, but as we entered the corridor, there was nobody to shove us around or arrest us again. There was only Aurelius behind us, ready to take us to the room that Queen Gianne had promised.