“Who are you?” the coldblood growled, his dark blue eyes glinting furiously.

Judging by the name above the archway, I guessed Navan had sent me to one of his family member’s houses, though I doubted he’d meant for me to run into one of his brothers. This coldblood had to be one of Navan’s brothers. The hair, the build, the striking eyes, the angry demeanor… The resemblance was uncanny.

“Navan sent me,” I managed, finding my voice, though my throat was constricted by fear. “He’s in a… bit of trouble, but he’ll be back for me. He sent me here,” I added, though I knew none of it made much sense.

The coldblood’s eyes darkened. “I ought to kill you right here, to teach that traitor a lesson he’ll never forget.”

I gulped. This wasn’t exactly going the way I’d hoped. Then again, just because Navan and Bashrik tolerated outsiders, it didn’t mean any of their other family members would. After all, their mother and father had ignored me outright, which, I had to say, was preferable to the threatening look this Idrax was giving me.

“What’s your issue with Navan?” I asked, desperate to buy myself some time. Surely, Navan couldn’t be too far away. There was no way Aurelius could overcome someone like him. However, a lingering doubt remained. If Navan never made it back, I was as good as dead.

The coldblood snorted derisively. “Other than the fact that he betrayed our queen and tarnished our family name?”

“Seems to me like you’ve got a more personal grudge, though,” I said. It was a shot in the dark, but I had to keep the conversation going.

“To have a grudge against him would imply that I care, and I do not care about that scumbag. Navan means nothing to me; I do not even allow him into my thoughts,” he retorted, his tone dripping with contempt.

It was a defensive tactic I’d seen before. Those were words of hurt and abandonment.

“It sounds like you do care,” I said brazenly, hoping it didn’t result in my head being detached from my body. “Come on, I’m curious. What did he do to make you hate him so much? Did he get a better job than you? Your parents love him more than you? What?” I pressed, feeling his irritation rise, his shoulders tensing in anger. I gritted my teeth, steeling myself, praying I hadn’t gone too far.

The coldblood snarled. “You know nothing about him, and you know nothing about me, outsider. What are you, anyway?” he asked sharply, reaching out a hand to snatch up my wrist, his eyes scrutinizing my veins.

“Kryptonian,” I lied, my body trembling. The fragile skin of my wrist was so close to his mouth. One bite with those sharp fangs, and I could bleed out.

He grunted. “Let me guess, he picked you up on one of his famous explorations? You his new pet, or something?” he said bitterly, surveying the length of my arm.

“Something like that,” I said quietly, realizing their parents must not have said a word about me after they met me at Gianne’s celebrations. It didn’t exactly surprise me. They had barely acknowledged my presence at the time. Maybe they were even embarrassed by Navan bringing an outsider into Vysanthe, given the South’s distaste for such things. It appeared I was the dirty little secret, kept from those who didn’t need to know.

“That’s all he ever does, you know? He just runs, all the time. He gets up and he goes, and he doesn’t care about anyone else but himself.” A morose look rippled across the coldblood’s face for a moment, before anger replaced it.

“Why do you think that is?” I wondered, sounding more and more like a therapist. Next, I’d be asking how it made him feel.

He shrugged angrily. “He thinks he has more of a right to run away than any of us. Every time we confront him about it, he says he can’t bear to be here, in Plentha, where she was. It’s ridiculous. He’s always acting like he was the only one who suffered after our sister’s—” He stopped abruptly, casting me an odd look. It was somewhere between suspicion and surprise. Even so, he didn’t continue, probably realizing he’d revealed too much to a total stranger. Worse than that, an alien stranger who was traveling with a much-despised brother.

The rustle of wind distracted my attention as a figure landed in the street behind me. Navan folded up his wings with a grimace and walked toward us, his face bruised and swollen, his arms covered in welts from Aurelius’s gunshots. He was moving unsteadily, as though walking brought him immense pain. Without a word, he put his arm around me protectively, pushing me slightly behind him, forcing the coldblood to let go of my arm. A wave of relief washed over me, but Navan’s eyes were fixed on his brother.

“Sarrask, you know that’s not true,” Navan whispered. “I know you all suffered when Naya died, but not a single one of you stood up to our father, or came to see Ronad after he lost her. She loved him, he was part of the family, and you all pretended he never existed, even though his heart was torn out that day. He held her as she died, Sarrask. He fed it to her as a gift, thinking that’s what it was. Do you have any idea how that must have felt?” he continued, his voice rising in anger.

Sarrask pulled a sour face. “He didn’t deserve her in the first place. He was low-born, sponging off our family for years. Who’s to say he didn’t make it all up, to frame our father?” he countered, his fangs flashing.

“If you believe that, you’re more of an idiot than I thought you were,” Navan snarled. “Naya loved Ronad, and that’s all there was to it. Our father is a psychopath. If he hadn’t done what he did, Naya would still be alive, which is a fact you all seem far too eager to forget!” he added savagely. “What, you scared he’ll cut off your credits if you defy him?”

“I don’t need Father’s charity,” Sarrask sneered, “but at least I value everything he’s done for us, unlike you. You wouldn’t have gotten that Explorer job if it wasn’t for him, but you look down your nose at him every chance you get. Not to mention the fact you keep dragging our name through the mud! Do you know what our father had to go through to claw back his position when you betrayed everyone?” He glowered at Navan. “No, I bet you don’t. You don’t care about us. You never have. It was always you and Ronad, off in your own little tribe, roping Bashrik in because he was too stupid to see you were trouble.”

“You leave Bashrik out of this,” Navan warned.

Sarrask gave a tight, bitter laugh. “Oh, you’ll be pleased to know our dear uncle managed to evade capture, too. That must be where you get your traitorous blood from, because you definitely didn’t get it from Father!”

I glanced at Navan, reaching for his hand. Lazar was alive? With his body drenched in blood, the soldiers swarming into the room, I had been sure Lazar was a goner. How could he have evaded capture? How could he be alive? It didn’t make any sense.

Navan kept his focus on his brother, though I could see a twitch in the muscle of his jaw, his teeth gritted. He was just as surprised as I was to hear that his uncle had escaped. I could sense it in the way he squeezed my hand tighter.

Without missing a beat, despite his surprise, Navan replied, “Lazar would betray anyone and anything to get what he wants. Don’t you dare tarnish me with the same brush as him,” he said sourly. “I am nothing like him. If I see him again, I will be first in line to end him,” he added, casting a knowing look in my direction. After the trick he’d pulled with the tracker chip, I supposed Navan still hadn’t forgiven him. In many ways, I hadn’t either, though it was hard not to thank him for what he’d done in helping us escape Gianne’s soldiers. Without his assistance, there was no telling where we’d be right now. For that, and that alone, part of me was glad he’d evaded capture, though I still had no idea how he’d managed it. Lazar had been half dead already when we’d left him, but the crafty old fox was still alive, hiding out there somewhere.

“Then why are you here?” Sarrask asked, a touch confused. “Aren’t you back to find out where he is?”

“No, of course not!” Navan replied, before speaking a string of seemingly random numbers. There were seven of them, with Navan repeating the order, as Sarrask stared at him in wide-eyed surprise. “Now that I’ve given you the code as a show of my goodwill, I need you to promise you won’t inform Gianne of our presence here. It’s essential we leave without anybody knowing we were here. Do you understand?”

Several moments passed before Sarrask offered a reply. “I will keep your presence a secret this time because of what you’ve given me in return, but I will not be so generous next time I catch you here. If I find you trespassing in our nation again, I will deliver you straight to Queen Gianne, and I will kill this pathetic specimen on sight. Do you understand?” he muttered, irritation flickering across his dark blue eyes.

“Thank you, Brother,” Navan replied, holding out his hand for Sarrask to shake. Reluctantly, his brother reached out and gripped him by the arm, with Navan mirroring the gesture. The two of them shook hands like warriors.

“This doesn’t mean you’re forgiven for any of it,” Sarrask said tersely as they released one another.

Navan shrugged. “I didn’t think it would.”

“Get out of here before I change my mind,” Sarrask barked, his face twisted in disgust.

“Gladly,” Navan muttered, placing his arms around my waist before he took to the skies, carrying me upward with him. I didn’t know what it was like to have brothers and sisters, but I could picture the petty conflicts between the Idrax siblings as youngsters, especially with so many of them. Naya must have felt so protected and loved with a team of burly brothers around her. With a smile, I realized Ronad must have been a brave man, to fall in love with a woman who had so many brothers.

“The soldiers have likely left without us by now,” Navan said. “We’ll have to head over the border on our own and explain the situation when we get there.”

I nodded, wanting to ask what those numbers were that Navan had spoken to his brother. They were definitely powerful. Turning up to gaze at him, I opened my mouth to ask the question, but the sad, faraway look in Navan’s eyes told me that now wasn’t the time. He didn’t say much else as we flew toward the barrier between the South and North, his eyes fixed on the horizon. It seemed both of us were lost in thought.

Halfway to the border, an earth-shattering boom shook us out of our reverie. We turned toward the epicenter, Navan pausing in flight, his wings beating slowly. A flash of light hurtled upward in the distance, sending smoke and debris rocketing into the sky. The very air seemed to vibrate with the heat and force of the explosion, the sound trembling toward us, rattling my teeth.

My heart sank at the sight. It wouldn’t be long before Gianne found out the truth of what had happened. Electric faults definitely didn’t cause that sort of destruction.

I knew this was one of those unforgettable moments, where nothing could be altered, the road taking one direction only. There was no going back from this. This was the true beginning of war. Here we were, watching the break in the treaty that both queens had been looking for, all this time. All that remained to be seen was how each sister would respond, now that the fragile balance had been shattered.

I looked up at Navan, surprised by the grimace I saw there. Clearly, it pained him to witness the loss of one of his homeland’s greatest structures. It was a prized focal point for Southern Vysantheans, and now it was gone, quite literally in a puff of smoke. It couldn’t have been easy to watch, yet I wondered if it was how the Northern Vysantheans had felt, watching their alchemy lab razed to the ground. In war, nobody won. And, at the end of it all, the prize was death and destruction, holding a throne over rubble and ruin.

“We should go,” I said softly, knowing he was suffering. His current distaste for his home planet didn’t take away the years he had spent here, growing up, making friends, becoming the man he was now.

He nodded, tearing his eyes away from the plume of thick black smoke that rose from the horizon. Picking up speed, we headed for the border, Navan’s mouth set in a grim line.

“What did you give Sarrask?” I asked, wanting to distract him. Plus, I was still eager to know.

He smiled sadly. “It was a passcode. It unlocks a safety deposit box, with all of Naya’s belongings inside. I’ve kept it from them for years, but Sarrask made me realize I don’t have a right to keep it to myself anymore. She was their sister, too,” he explained, his voice thick with emotion.

“You did the right thing,” I told him, recalling the genuine hurt in Sarrask’s voice when he’d mentioned his sister. Even if it hadn’t bought us our freedom, it would still have been the decent thing to do. “Can you believe that Lazar is still alive?” I remarked, changing the subject, wanting to take the sadness away from Navan’s face.

He smiled wryly. “It’s a miracle, that’s for sure. It seems that traitorous bastard can wriggle his way out of death itself,” he mused, half angry, half impressed.

“I was sure he was dead,” I murmured, remembering the gory sight of him slumped in the armchair.

Navan nodded. “Me too.”

As we charged toward the border, I wondered what kind of reception we might receive in the North. The others would have noticed our absence by now, unless they thought we’d been caught up in the blast. Given that we’d come from the South in the first place, I doubted their thoughts would be positive ones. They would think we’d betrayed them.

But whatever they blamed us for, it didn’t matter now. What mattered was that we got to Brisha and told her about Gianne’s new fleet, before Gianne could use it. With the newfound deep-space technology, Earth would have no hope.

There was just one problem.

“We can’t tell Brisha what the ships can do, speed-wise,” I said, the thought coming to me on a wave of dread.

Navan frowned. “The engines?”

“If she finds out about them, she’ll just go after the technology herself. We need to lie,” I said. “We need to tell her Gianne is building a fleet of super-powerful ships, but they’re powerful in their weaponry only. We have to persuade her to destroy the fleet instead of seizing one ship for study. No matter what happens, we leave out any intel about the deep-space engines, okay?”

“Understood. I just hope she listens,” he replied, a flicker of nervousness in his eyes.

I stared toward the horizon, praying she would too.