“What happened?” Navan asked, as he and I arrived back in our chambers. After finishing the meal in intense silence, Queen Gianne had dismissed us and we had abandoned the palace (though not before Lazar had narrowed his eyes at me and told Navan, “I think you and Riley may need to have a few words…”).

“Uh, I was about to ask the same of you,” I said, gesturing to the small, silvery pod now hovering outside our bedroom window. “You were expecting me to just take off with Lazar like that?”

“What happened exactly?” Navan asked, eyeing the pod.

I exhaled. “When Queen Gianne took you out of the room, the rebels all left too, except for Lazar. It was just me and him in there, and he told me that this was my moment to escape—that he had already triggered a pod to wait outside my room, and I had to climb into it and it would shoot me off into space, alone, and you would apparently come floating out to find me at some unspecified point in the future… That was really your plan?” I raised my eyebrows, hoping he realized how sketchy that must have sounded to me at the time, especially coming from Lazar.

Navan grimaced. “Well, not exactly—it’s been hard to predict the exact moment we’ll be able to get out of here, with so many moving pieces. But I told Lazar to be on the lookout for escape opportunities, too—so yeah, you should have done as he asked.”

“You know, it would have been really helpful if you’d told me that last night, instead of the cryptic gibberish you gave me. I promised you I’d jump when you said—not when Lazar said. I didn’t know if I could trust him about something as big as this!”

Navan sighed. “Seems like we really need to work on our communication skills.”

I widened my eyes at him. “Excuse me, our?”

“Okay, mine.”

“I mean, honestly. Is this one of those ‘Procrastinator Navan’ things again?”

He sighed. “Miscommunicator Navan. Gets ahead of himself when he has a lot on his mind and presumes others understand things he hasn’t actually explained.”

“Sounds about right. He and his twin brother are probably enough to drive me crazy.” I was starting to realize coldblood men really weren’t that different from human men.

“I shall endeavor to stick to Sexy, Amazing Communicator Navan in the future.”

I suppressed a smile. “I’d love me some of him… But, seriously, what now? I’m fine to leave this place as long as you’re close behind. Also, what did the queen talk to you about?”

Navan winced. “She wants me to depart with several squadrons tomorrow, to lead the attack mission on the rebel planet… I may need to keep up the pretense a while longer, or else she’ll suspect foul play. Once we’re far enough away from Vysanthe, I’ll do what I can to escape, and join you when I can.”

“So you’re not escaping with me?” I gasped, wondering what the hell that meant for the both of us.

“I don’t know what else to do, Riley,” he replied in frustration. “She wants me to leave the rebels behind, too—she doesn’t trust them enough, and she wants to see what other information she can extract from them. If I leave now, their lives will be forfeit. Lazar’s, too.”

“What am I supposed to do?” I asked, terrified by the prospect of drifting alone in the gaping vacuum, God knew how many millions of miles away from home.

“Lazar would arrange a pickup to take you back to Earth,” he said. “I would keep Lazar in the loop regarding where I was, so he could pass messages to you, and then I’d join you when I could. I would never leave you alone out there, Riley. I’d find a way to get to you.”

I still couldn’t believe what I was hearing. In theory, if all went according to Navan’s plan, I could make the journey back by myself, but I’d be a nervous wreck. Not only at the idea of the ship breaking down or any number of other things going wrong, but also because I didn’t want to leave Navan here, not knowing what might happen to him. What if, somehow, he couldn’t get away?

I opened my mouth to speak, but the words froze on my lips as a cry rang out, piercing the air. It was coming from outside, just beyond the door of the chamber. Whirling around, I glanced back at Navan, my nerves shot.

“You heard that, right?”

Navan nodded, brushing past me to reach the door. He flung it open, and a second later, Lazar tumbled into the room, collapsing on the floor, his arms reaching out for us. Dark blood smeared his face and soaked his clothes. His features were battered and bruised, one eye closed up entirely.

“Lazar!” I cried, running to his aid. With Navan’s help, I hauled him up onto a nearby chair. As I ran to get water to sponge some of the blood away, I could hear him croaking out words.

“The queen… She knows,” he said, his voice strained. “Soldiers are… coming.”

Navan paled. “Now?”

Lazar nodded, wincing in pain. “I… just managed… to get away… in time.”

“How does she know? Does she know everything?” Navan pressed, as I returned, dabbing at the horrific wounds on Lazar’s face and torso. From the looks of it, something—or someone—had ripped him to shreds. Deep gashes lacerated his entire body, the skin torn off, hanging in ragged ribbons of dripping flesh.

Again, Lazar nodded. “Shifter was… caught… contacting Orion,” he said, before a wracking cough halted his speech. Blood bubbled up over his lower lip, trickling from the corner of his mouth.

“Where’s the shifter now?” Navan demanded, a cold look in his eyes.

“Tortured. Forced information from… him,” Lazar choked. “Then… they killed him. You… have to go… now.”

I looked at Navan, not knowing what to do. We couldn’t just leave Lazar here, to the mercy of the queen’s soldiers. My gaze turned toward the little pod ship, still bobbing outside the room. That was our way out.

“Lazar, you have to come with us,” I said, gesturing toward the vessel. “We can all get out of this.”

Lazar shook his head. “I will… stay, and fight… the queen’s guards. It will… buy you… time,” he replied firmly.

Navan took his uncle’s hand. “Look at you! You can’t stay and fight anyone in this condition. You’re coming with us.” He leaned down to lift Lazar’s arm over his shoulder, but Lazar pulled back with surprising strength.

“Take Riley… and go!” he demanded.

“We’re not leaving you,” I cut in.

Lazar turned to Navan, pulling his face down toward his. “If you… don’t leave now, without… me, you will never… get out of… here alive,” he warned. “If you want… her to live, you have… to go!”

Navan looked at me, his face a vision of torment. Neither of us felt right leaving Lazar here, but the threat of the soldiers loomed over us. Through the still-open door, I saw the lights on the elevator flash, and heard the telltale thud of boots coming up the stairs to the side of the landing. They were almost here.

“I’m sorry, Uncle,” Navan said, running to the door. Just as the elevator pinged, he slammed the door shut and turned the lock, before returning for me. He grabbed my hand, pulling me toward the bobbing ship, pushing me out of the window onto the narrow ledge outside. He followed straight after, his hand reaching up for the side of the vessel.

With a whoosh, the back door slid open and a gangplank shot out. Behind us, I could hear someone breaking the door down. Every thud made my heart pound harder. Would we make it out in time? Glancing through the window, I saw Lazar rising from his chair, raising a gun to the door.

“Go!” Navan shouted, forcing me into action.

I leapt for the gangplank and hurried into the ship’s belly. Navan was close behind me, his hand slamming down on a button that shut the vessel’s door after us. Without pausing for breath, he headed for the pilot’s seat and brought the command console to life. It flickered and beeped, ready for his instruction.

As I sat down in the seat beside him, my ears still pricked for the sounds of a battle, he took hold of the controls and lifted the ship upward. It rose with a jolt, soaring into the air. Without looking back, though my thoughts were with Lazar and his last stand, we zipped across the landscape, the vessel moving at breakneck speed over familiar territory.

Just then, red lights began to flash, and a siren blared inside the ship. This pod wasn’t anywhere near as advanced as the Asterope, but they shared some technology. A translucent screen slipped across the windshield, the words Incoming Message blinking furiously.

“Do we answer it?” I asked, already fearing whose face I would see.

Reluctantly, Navan pressed another button on the console. After a crackle of white noise, an image appeared. Queen Gianne was staring right at us, her eerie silver eyes practically popping out of her head. Her cheeks were flushed an angry red, and a burning fury ignited her gaze. With her teeth bared, her fangs flashing, she leaned closer to the camera.

“I’m going to blast you out of the sky!” she screamed, the sound shattering my eardrums. “You won’t escape me, traitors! I will follow you to the ends of the universe if that’s what it takes! Nobody betrays me!”

Navan quickly shut off the transmission, but it was too late—the fear had already set in. The thing was, I believed every word of what she had said, and it chilled me to the core. Queen Gianne would not stop hunting us, and if she would not stop, then… my hopes of returning to Earth had become little more than a distant dream. If we went back to Earth now, Queen Gianne and her entire military force would follow us, putting my home planet in untold danger. I couldn’t risk that. Not to mention, we’d have to reach the Asterope first—this little pod wouldn’t go the distance.

The sound of splintering glass suddenly ricocheted in my ears, the windshield exploding inward in a hailstorm of glinting shards. I ducked as the debris rained down on me, while something much larger shot straight past my head. I covered my head with my arms, sliding down beneath the command console, praying for it to stop.

“Navan, get down!” I yelled, but he was still focused on getting the ship to move faster. We were sitting ducks out here.

A split second later, something blasted through the destroyed windshield, hitting Navan square in the shoulder. He cried out, clutching his arm. A crackling arrow had embedded into his skin, the point piercing clean through muscle and flesh. Blood poured from the wound, the bristle of the arrow’s electrical charge sending shocks through his body.

“Riley,” he gasped, nodding at the console.

I jumped up, knowing it was down to me now. Taking over the controls, I tried to remember the flight lessons I’d had in the Fed ship—it had been easy enough then, and this ship didn’t seem so different. It was small, with controls that responded in the same way. I tested it, seeing if the pod would rise with my instruction, while dodging the artillery flying through the window. To my utter relief, the ship shot up as I moved the controls.

Keeping focused, I moved the ship forward, accelerating quickly. I had thought about lifting the ship upward, toward the planet’s atmosphere, so we could punch through into the emptiness of space, but now we had a broken windshield—and in any case, I knew there was no point trying to leave the planet now. If the queen and her army were only going to follow us… that left only one option.

“We have to head north,” I told Navan, swerving the ship in the opposite direction and building up speed.

Grimacing through the agony in his arm, Navan looked up at me, an alarmed expression on his pained face. “North? We can’t go north!”

“We’re going north,” I replied firmly.

“That’s insane, Riley—we can’t go north,” he said, wincing. “The only thing waiting for us there is Queen Brisha.”

I shook my head. “The only way to stop Queen Gianne’s army from shooting us down is to go toward enemy territory,” I said. “The truce is already teetering on a knife edge, but Queen Gianne won’t want to be the one to cross it, not even for us.”

“Trespassing on Queen Brisha’s side of Vysanthe will probably land us in even deeper trouble,” Navan warned, though I could see he agreed it was our only choice. Whichever way we turned, death appeared to be waiting for us—and I knew I’d rather take my chances with Queen Brisha than Queen Gianne. I just hoped I wouldn’t live to regret the decision.

I forced the accelerator into overdrive, and we shot across the sky so fast everything became a blur, my movements on the console allowing us to evade the ships soaring toward us, firing at the pod. Lazar had picked the perfect vessel—it was small and quick, just the right kind of ship to avoid a horde of soldiers in.

With Queen Gianne’s fighters still tailing us, and the wind whipping into the ship so violently I thought my face might fall off, we reached the border. I could see it now, shimmering in the near distance, jutting up between the ridges of a jagged mountain range. We had just passed the spot where the fighting pits had been, so I knew I was going the right way. Holding my breath, I kept the pod going, not knowing what the shimmering barrier might do to it—or us, for that matter.

“Will the border hurt us?” I asked frantically, as we approached at a rapid pace.

Navan swallowed, his eyes trained on the barrier. “I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so?”

I squeezed my eyes shut as we barreled through it, only to open them again a moment later. We emerged on the other side, unscathed. Beside me, Navan leaned over and pressed a large white button on the console, and flashing lights went off around us.

“What’s that for?” I asked, my whole body shaking.

“I’m flying a white flag,” he said, “letting Brisha know we’re a neutral party.”

I frowned. “Will that work?”

He shrugged, grimacing in pain. “I hope so.”

Suddenly, the rattle of gunfire went off, making me duck for cover once more. I stayed under the console for several moments, covering my ears every time another assault peppered the air with loud explosions.

“It’s the border control, shooting down Queen Gianne’s ships,” Navan said, reaching for my hand, bringing me out from under the console. “They’re not shooting at us.”

I watched through the rearview monitors as flaming balls rained down from the sky, tumbling to the ground below—the remnants of those soldiers who had dared to cross the border in ships built for military action.

They wouldn’t be returning to Queen Gianne’s side of Vysanthe. Then again, neither would we. The only way for us now was forward, into the uncertain embrace of Queen Brisha.

At least she hadn’t shot us down. That had to be a good sign… Right?