NOR
THE QUEEN’S LAB was a space born of desperation.
A pathetic echo of the grandeur that was long ago destroyed in The Cataclysm. The remnants were mere scraps of her father’s once glorious dream—a place meant to heal the planet of Xen Ptera, to bring back abundant life before it was too late.
That dream had died with her father. Now his old lab had morphed into the birthplace of death.
Nor was a queen, bred from the purest of blood, and she couldn’t bear stepping foot inside the lab unless absolutely necessary. It had taken Darai ages to convince her to come down here herself, ages more for Nor to actually do it.
Now, as she walked down the crumbling spiral staircase beneath the planet’s surface, she could almost feel the walls caving in on her, threatening to crush her once again.
She froze as an image of her father ghosted into her mind. She could see his eyes bulging from their sockets, his skull caving in under the foot of a broken stone statue, blood staining the crumbling toes. It was as if Arcardius, and the rest of the Unified Systems, had stomped the life right out of her father when they dropped their final bombs.
“Nhatyla?” Zahn asked, stopping beside Nor to place a warm hand on her elbow. “What is it?”
She’d almost forgotten he was there beside her in the darkness. “I’m fine,” she said, swallowing the lump in her throat as she shoved the memories away. She breathed deep, despite the tightness in her chest, and silently recited the words Darai had raised her on: Fear Is Only an Illusion. Nothing would crush her or stop her until the fates had had their way. And they’d decided, long ago, that Nor would be the one to bring about Xen Ptera’s revenge.
“Should we turn back?” Zahn asked. His fingertips spun gentle circles across her skin.
Nor looked over her shoulder, where the faint light of day waited, beckoning her to turn back. To give in to her weakness.
The claustrophobia was one of her best-kept secrets. Only Darai and Zahn knew the truth about the trauma she’d faced the day of the attack, and the physical and mental scars it had tainted her with.
There hadn’t been many places within the vicinity of Nivia where they could put the lab, so when Darai found the ancient bomb shelter, still holding strong despite the crippling quakes, they started fortifying its boundaries to last.
“I am a queen who seeks to be a conqueror,” Nor said as the image of her father, and the sharp spike of fear, still begged entrance to her mind. She closed her eyes and focused on Zahn’s hand, soft and warm. “There will be battles far worse than this one.”
“And rewards for winning them,” he whispered, “should my queen wish it.”
Despite herself, Nor smiled. Silently, she walked past him, deeper into the torch-lit tunnel where Darai waited ahead.
The structure was run-down, and it didn’t improve the farther one went below. Nor’s metal heels clacked on the crumbling stones. Dark, putrid water ran beneath her soles as she hurried to keep up with her uncle, Zahn trailing behind her like a moving wall.
At the base of the steps, Darai turned right into a narrow hallway. The rafters creaked above them as subtle shockwaves shuddered their way through the ground. Nor pulled the hood of her cloak lower, shielding herself from the falling pebbles raining down from above, the edges of the hood like blinders to keep her at ease. One could easily get lost in these tunnels, so deeply carved that none would hear their call.
A few more steps, and they turned left at the end of the hall.
Straight ahead was a silver door, at such odds with the scenery around them it was almost laughable.
“They are expecting you,” Darai said. “I think you will be pleased at what you find inside.”
He held out a hand, ushering Nor toward the retinal scanner on the door. Faint green light illuminated the space as it beeped her in, and the door swung open with a heavy groan.
As she stepped inside, the pungent fumes of preserved bodies and toxins immediately overloaded Nor’s senses. She quickly covered her nose and mouth with a scented handkerchief.
It smelled like fire callas. They were her mother’s favorite flower, grown by gentle hands in the courtyard of the old palace. Now their scent brought a fresh wave of memories that only fueled Nor’s urge to seek revenge.
Zahn and Darai guided her deeper into the lit space, a cavernous bunker with heavy rock walls and ceilings that made her feel small.
Lab techs in red Xen Pterran coats stood before stone tables, their hands deftly working, tapping away at dimly lit screens, stirring milky vials full of bubbling substances. Long ago, Nor had stood in this very room, watching her father move down the aisles. She’d marveled at the glowing substances, the cherished seeds that her father’s scientists had so carefully tended to in hopes of making food grow.
The mission had changed, but the feeling in the room was the same. It was a place of order. A tangible bit of progress that set Nor at ease.
“They have been working around the clock, Majesty,” Darai murmured as he led her down the aisle.
The scientists bowed their heads as she passed, Zahn behind her like a living shadow.
Another metal door stood at the back of the room. Zahn entered in the code to unlock the private lab of her lead scientist, Aclisia, and the door opened instantly.
The two-headed scientist alone understood Nor’s passion for destruction, and her equal desire to make it a true work of art. Together they would give the galaxy a show, and every eye would be watching.
Aclisia stood behind a lab table with her back to Nor. In front of her, rows and rows of glowing silver vials lined up like tiny soldiers awaiting their orders. Zahn didn’t follow as Darai and Nor stepped forward, remaining back to guard the door.
Nor approached the table slowly, appraising the view. Half of her life had passed since the idea for Zenith had bloomed in her mind, and only now, after years of dreaming, was her weapon finally coming to life.
“Ahh, my queen,” Aclisia’s two voices said at once.
Nor looked up as her head scientist shuffled over.
To anyone else, Aclisia was a shocking sight. But Nor had spent years in her presence, watching the two-headed woman work. Two brains should have meant two separate people, but Aclisia’s heads worked together, as if they were one. The right head held her rational side and could converse for hours without skipping a beat. The left head was more off-kilter, but it was the part of Aclisia that Nor perhaps admired the most. It allowed her to dream, endlessly, until even the most irrational ideas became possible.
“Are you in the final stages of finishing the weapon yet?” Nor asked.
Aclisia’s two heads swung around to look at the lab table, both hands grappling for a single silver vial. The glass clinked as the scientist produced one, lifting it out of its case and holding it up to the light.
“Slowly, you dolt!” the right head screeched to the left.
The left head huffed in annoyance. “I’m merely trying to give our queen a glimpse of her new toy.”
“It’s a wonder I’ve been able to put up with you all these years,” the right head retorted.
“You haven’t a choice, my dear,” the left said back.
Both heads glared at each other, the right with short reddish brown hair sticking out like flames, the left with pale blond curls coiled tight against her skull.
Nor cleared her throat. “My patience is running low.”
Aclisia nodded her heads, then held out the vial. “Steady now, my queen,” the right head said.
Nor cradled the vial in her hands like a newly polished gem. It sparkled in the dim light of the lab, and it was warm to the touch, rather than cool, like she’d assumed it would be.
“Each vial holds thousands of doses,” the right head told Nor.
“Now we just need someone to play with,” the left head added.
“A test subject,” the right corrected.
Aclisia looked expectantly at Nor.
“That has been taken care of,” Nor said. She raised her gloved hand to signal Zahn’s attention. “Order the guards to bring forth the subject.”
Behind her, Zahn pressed a button on his wrist com, then whispered a command into it. Less than a minute later, a knock sounded at the door, and he strode forward to open it.
In the doorway stood a ragged-looking woman, struggling against her bonds as two guards hauled her inside.
“Queen Nor! Please, grant me your mercy.” The warden of Lunamere fell to her knees before Nor, her bound wrists held out before her as if in prayer.
Nor peered down her nose at the traitor. “You had one of the Unified System’s most wanted fugitives in my prison. And instead of keeping her there, where she could have been persuaded to join the right side of the galaxy...you lost her. Not only that, but an entire squadron of guards is dead, the prisoner from Arcardius is missing and my best Revivalist is mysteriously absent from her post. And you dare ask me for mercy?”
The warden sobbed at Nor’s feet. “Please.”
“Aclisia,” Nor said, not taking her eyes from the pathetic woman before her. The scientist hurried to stand by Nor’s side. “Here is your first living trial. And for the sake of this traitor here, let us all hope that it works.”
The warden screamed as the guards hauled her to her feet. The sound intensified as they strapped her to a chair in the corner of the room.
The screams turned to furious moans as they gagged her. Then a vial of silver liquid was produced, almost glowing beneath the overhead lamps. Aclisia looked to Nor with four bright, hungry eyes.
“Would you like to do the honors, Majesty?”
Nor looked upon the scene with a sudden warmth in her heart, as she listened to the warden’s unrelenting moans.
“I came for a show,” Nor said. “Give me one to remember.”
“With pleasure,” Aclisia’s two heads said at once.
Darai and Zahn appeared at Nor’s sides, flanking her like soldiers.
As Aclisia unstoppered the vial, Zahn took Nor’s hand in his.
They held on to each other, their heartbeats pulsing in time as they watched Nor’s greatest dream come to fruition.