Grinning, I rushed to greet my friends, throwing my arms around them and pulling them close.

“We thought we’d never see you again,” Lauren said softly.

“We had no idea what had happened to you,” Angie added, with a hint of a reprimand.

I smiled sadly. “I’m sorry, guys—it all happened so fast. I’m still not even sure I know what’s going on, and I’ve been living it. But enough about me for a second. How are you two?” They had looked genuinely shaken by their run-in with the guards, and I wanted to make sure they were okay.

“It’s all kind of a blur, to be honest,” Lauren replied, pushing her purple glasses back up onto the bridge of her nose.

“Yeah, I seriously wasn’t sure I’d come out of all that with dry pants,” Angie said.

I smirked. “Let me know if you need a change of undies.”

“Speaking of a change of undies,” Bashrik interjected as he glared at Angie and Lauren, “what the hell were you two thinking? You almost got me killed!”

My friends suppressed a smile, sharing a conspiratorial glance.

“Sorry about that, Bash,” Angie said, before turning to me. “After we got the call from Navan, it didn’t seem right allowing Bashrik to leave us in Texas. I mean, what were we going to do? Sit around, twiddling our thumbs, while our best friend was stuck on a planet on the other side of the universe, and potentially in mortal danger? We would have gone insane. So, we made an executive decision.”

“Angie made an executive decision,” Lauren corrected. “I didn’t have much choice in the matter.”

“But aren’t you glad you came?” Angie asked.

Lauren grimaced. “Ask me in a few days.”

“As much as I hate to break up this charming reunion,” Navan interrupted, “we really should brief you all on what has been going on before Queen Brisha sends for you again. We have a very fragile position here, and we’ve been forced to tell a few tales to ensure we didn’t end up dead. So you’re going to have to get up to speed pretty quickly. Bashrik, I know I told you some of what Queen Brisha wants from you, but you’ll need to know the ins and outs of things, too. Hopefully by the end of this everyone will have the whole story instead of little fragments.”

Bashrik nodded, though his sapphire eyes were still flashing with annoyance as he glanced across at Angie and Lauren. “I still can’t believe you snuck on board my ship,” he muttered.

“No harm done though, right?” Angie said sweetly.

He scowled. “I’m sending you my medical bills.”

Navan coughed, diverting everyone’s attention, and I sat beside him, my hand on his. Once the whole group had gathered on the sofas, he began to tell the tale of what had brought us here. He told them all about the failed rescue attempt at the hidden rebel compound, and the promise we’d had to make to get out of there alive, which had led us to Vysanthe. I chimed in here and there, and together, we explained all about the chip, the undercover operation to garner intel for Orion on Queen Gianne’s queendom, and our escape over the border into Northern Vysanthe.

“Hence the arm,” Navan noted, lifting his bandaged limb.

“I was wondering about that,” Bashrik noted. “It’s not like you to get injured.”

“A lucky shot, nothing more,” Navan retorted.

Ignoring their brotherly banter, I pressed on, explaining Queen Brisha’s rules, and the need for outsiders to prove themselves. Here, we got to the grim part. Looking at Angie and Lauren, I went into detail about the blood and what she expected of them. Predictably, their faces twisted up in disgust.

“I hate needles.” Lauren shuddered.

“Yeah, and I’m not letting some nasty grayskin near me with something pointy!” Angie said.

Bashrik flashed her a look. “I’ve asked you not to call us that.”

She sighed. “I didn’t mean you. I meant the evil ones who want to take our blood.”

“Even so, could you not?” Bashrik remarked frostily. Not waiting for her response, he turned to Navan. “What about the pod with the blood sample in it? Do we know where it is?”

“Vanished,” Navan replied. “It had a tracker inside it, programmed to start flashing only when it reached a certain point, to keep the location of Earth secret, but the beacon went dead a few days ago outside the Ferrite System.”

Bashrik frowned. “Weird.”

Navan nodded. “Very weird. We just have to hope it’s broken down, or has been snatched up by someone who just wants the parts.”

“Do we really have to have our blood taken?” Lauren asked, bringing us back to the matter at hand.

Before I could answer, alarms erupted all around us, the sound piercing through my eardrums with a deafening shriek. It screamed in a very particular pattern, starting quieter before reaching earsplitting levels of loudness. Navan and Bashrik looked at each other, fear paling their faces. Lauren and Angie were looking at me like I ought to know what the sound meant, but I was just as confused as they were. The only thing I did know was that I had never seen Navan so frightened. He was truly rattled, his eyes wide in panic.

“What’s going on?” I asked frantically.

“It can’t be…” Navan whispered.

“Navan, what is it?!” I pressed, grabbing him by the face and forcing him to look at me.

“They’re air-raid sirens,” Bashrik hissed before Navan could reply. “We’re being attacked!”

A second later, Pandora burst through the door, wielding two crackling sabers in her hands. On her back, she had two silver rifles, and at her hips were four silver pistols, flanked by pockets of ammo. She looked intense, to say the least, but I knew she might be just the woman to get us the hell out of here.

“Follow me!” she roared, before darting out of the door again. We ran after her, Navan suddenly returning to himself as he sprinted out of the room and down the hallway, following Pandora’s lead.

She took us to the end of the corridor, pausing in front of what looked like an ordinary wall. Bracing herself, she heaved a booted foot against the surface of the wall, kicking it with all her might. Something finally gave with a deafening crack. The wall crumbled, revealing the shape of a door that had been concealed by a layer of plaster. It was ajar, and Pandora slammed her shoulder against it, pushing it wide open.

“This way!” she bellowed, disappearing through the doorway.

It led to a series of winding staircases, which we thundered down, the rickety metal frame trembling beneath our weight. My heart was pounding as we hurried farther and farther down into the darkness, the way lit only by the dim glow of emergency lighting that clung weakly to the slick walls of the secret passageway.

After what seemed like a lifetime of running down stairs, we emerged in a brightly lit cavern. My eyes blinked furiously, getting accustomed to the light again, and I realized we were in an underground bunker, deep beneath the foundations of the palace. It was gargantuan in size and hewn from the rock itself, much like the hangar in Queen Gianne’s realm, but there were no ships docked here.

Instead, there were hordes of military personnel running around, barking orders. Others sat in front of glowing blue screens, watching a series of images and camera feeds while their fingers danced across smaller screens laid flat on their desks. They were jotting down what they saw, I realized. Where we would have had a keyboard, they had these small screens instead.

It was then that I understood what this place was—we were in a command center. This was the hub of security activity for Queen Brisha’s queendom. I gawked at the extent of her military operation. No wonder she knew so much. There were cameras everywhere, watching everything.

I turned as I heard the queen’s voice shouting above everyone else’s. She was dressed in black military fatigues, her hair swept back in a bun, her silver eyes moving between the enormous screens that hung from the ceiling of the cavern. Although she spoke with authority and intense volume, her voice was calm, her manner even more so. Every movement she made, and every word she spoke, was carefully deliberated—I could see it in her face. I had never seen a woman more powerful and awe-inspiring, staring at her where she stood giving orders atop a marble plinth. Even Pandora paled in comparison, and I had just watched her kick a wall down.

“Evacuate Lyceum, Vergar, and Nocta to the community bunkers!” she boomed, her mighty voice carrying across the length and breadth of the enormous underground chamber. “Rygel, Horvat, and Scahva can follow. Get every civilian out, now! Send the cargo ships to pick up any remaining civilians in the villages and hamlets surrounding the cities. Take anyone who is left and get them to the nearest bunkers!”

Up on the screens, I watched as a fleet of military ships took off from various hangars dotted around Northern Vysanthe. In other images, I saw soldiers and pilots sprinting around loading bays, gearing up their vessels for the fight ahead. Enormous troops of infantry marched into the bellies of gigantic gunships, where they strapped themselves in, the metal doors left open. In a moment of panic, I wondered how they would get down to the ground to fight… and then I remembered. They had wings. Perhaps they didn’t even fight on the ground at all.

Beside the large blue screens that were hanging down from the ceiling was another large screen, though this one was tinted red. On it, I could see the approach of Queen Gianne’s ships, her colors—black and red—streaked onto the outside of the vessels. They swarmed like a great metal mob, coming forward in seemingly endless numbers, with more ever-present on the southern horizon.

Palace staff were being ushered through several doors that branched out from the main command center, before being herded toward a large section at the back of the cavern, which held rows upon rows of small wooden huts.

It seemed like Queen Brisha had been preparing for this moment for a long time. But, although she was moving around her post with a calm demeanor, it was evident that this move had taken her by surprise. Even so, she was proving herself a worthy queen by getting her subjects out before the worst of the assault hit. Somehow, I doubted Queen Gianne would do the same.

Feeling as though I had just summoned the devil herself, Queen Gianne’s face suddenly appeared on every screen at once, looming large above us. Her expression was a smug one. At the sight of her, Angie and Lauren huddled close to me, while Bashrik and Navan looked up, their faces showing their rage at what she was doing.

“Dear Sister, I’m very sad it has come to this,” she purred coldly, her voice booming through every speaker in the cavern. “Unfortunately, you have only yourself to blame for this attack. I’m afraid you have forced my hand.”

Queen Brisha pressed a button on her wrist, causing a small screen to flicker up with her face on it. “Whatever makes you sleep better at night, Sister, knowing how many innocents you have slaughtered for the sake of your own paranoid delusions,” she retorted bitterly, though she was doing an impressive job of keeping her cool.

Queen Gianne glowered. “This is all on you, Brisha. I could have continued to keep the peace, but then you spurned our species by giving asylum to criminals like Navan Idrax and his little pet. You are not fit to wear a crown, Sister. You have lost your way—you have lost our way of living. What are we, if our race is not the most superior in the universe? If you spoil the blood by mixing species, where are we going to end up? No, Sister, I will not allow it. This is all on you.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Gianne,” Brisha said evenly. “I rule with a fair hand instead of an iron fist, and my people love me for it. Your people wish to dethrone you because they are terrified of you. You’re running scared, and you’re lashing out—you’ve done it all your life. Now, if you would just come to the palace and talk to me, I’m sure we can figure this out without the need for bloodshed.”

But it was clear Queen Gianne was way past that. There was a mania in her eyes that terrified the living daylights out of me.

“I can see them!” Queen Gianne said sharply, her finger jabbing at the screen. “Those traitorous cretins! And… Bashrik Idrax?! The whole family is rotten! See, you let defectors and traitors into your midst! You shelter them. You aren’t fit to be queen!”

I glanced at Navan, feeling panic rise in my throat. Queen Brisha still thought that Navan and I had run to her because of our illicit romance, but if Queen Gianne were to expose us as traitors now, revealing our connection to the rebels, then it would all be over. This war between sisters wouldn’t matter to us, because we wouldn’t be alive to see it. Angie, Lauren, Bashrik… all of us would be doomed.

To my relief, Queen Gianne skipped over the details, choosing to simply call us every expletive under Vysanthe’s sun. She stared straight at us with her enormous eyes, blown up to epic proportions on the screens in front of us, her rage palpable, even though she wasn’t actually in the room.

“You think I’m not fit to be queen?” Queen Brisha scoffed. “Look at yourself. You’re a quivering wreck. You think you can send every ship you have at us and hope to win, but there’s no strategy there—there’s no skill or intellect involved in anything you do. You rush in headfirst, cause a huge mess, then run off with your tail between your legs, leaving everyone else to clean up after you.”

Queen Gianne looked like her head was about to explode. “How dare you,” she breathed. “You’ve never even seen any action, because you don’t take any risks—you’re a coward, with your head always hidden in a book. Even your subjects think you’re a pushover. They don’t like you—they think you’re weak!”

“Better a kind queen than an incompetent, mad one,” Brisha shot back.

“You’ve always thought you were smarter than me, Sister, but we’ll see about that,” Gianne remarked, her eyes narrowing to almost reptilian slits. “You think you’ve got the upper hand when it comes to the immortality elixir, but you’re wrong. It is slipping away from you as we speak. While you have been chatting away, I’ve been busy.” She smirked. “We will see who wins this race, Sister.”

A split second later, the video feed ended, the screens switching back to images of the fleets taking off and the townships that were coming under fire.

“I want security at maximum to prevent any more hacking!” Brisha demanded.

“No!” Navan suddenly bellowed.

Everyone in the cavern whirled to look at the screen his eyes had turned to. In the image, bombs were being dropped on a striking building, and I realized what it was. It was the only place Gianne could bombard that would hit Brisha where it hurt—her alchemy lab.

For a moment, Queen Brisha’s cool, calm façade slipped. An almost innocent look of terror flickered across her face, her eyes burning with a bright rage. She recovered fast, turning to her military personnel.

“Why weren’t those ships stopped once they got over the border?!” she roared. “Get them shot down, NOW!”

Her team jumped to action, barking orders through their comm devices to the military leaders and skilled pilots on the other end. On the screens, I watched as Brisha’s ships maneuvered into position, blasting the enemy ships out of the sky… but the damage was already done. Blinking on a broken feed, I saw the remains of the alchemy lab, plumes of black smoke rising up from the debris. It was a pile of rubble now, nothing more.

Queen Brisha’s eyes lingered on the image, her face contorting into a mask of pure hatred. “This is an act of war!” she cried. “We will retaliate, and we will be smart about it! We will use strategy, and we will show Gianne what true triumph looks like! We will not allow this to stand!” As she shouted, her team whooped and hollered below her.

Indeed, it seemed her sister was wrong—Brisha had the full support of her people, by the looks of things, and now she was mad.

“Bashrik!” she barked, taking him by surprise.

“Your Highness?” he replied, hurrying to meet her as she approached.

“The alchemy lab I require of you, in return for Navan’s place in my realm, must be built a few weeks from now,” she demanded. “I had hoped we might have months, to make it truly perfect, but as you can see… we don’t.”

Bashrik looked aghast. “A few weeks? That’s impossible.”

Queen Brisha glared at him. “Nothing is impossible, Bashrik.”

He sighed, clearly not wanting to argue with the queen. “Well… I will do what I can. But I can’t promise beauty, Your Highness.”

“Then promise me practicality instead.”

“That I can do, Your Highness,” he replied.

With that, she turned to Navan. “My sister took me by surprise this time, but she will not get the chance to do that again. For that, I want your help,” she said sternly. “I need more bodies on the ground. I need more soldiers, Idrax, and we’re going to start with you. From this moment on, I am drafting you into my army. You are strong, you are fast, and you are smart—the perfect combination. I don’t doubt that you will become a great leader one day, but you will begin with the rank of infantry soldier. Your training will start soon.”

I gazed desperately in his direction, but his eyes were focused on Brisha. I could do nothing to stop this runaway train. It was out of my hands now—Brisha’s word was final, but where did that leave us? With him drafted into the army, and Bashrik engaged in building the alchemy lab, how were we ever supposed to find a way to leave Vysanthe now?