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Doman considers. “It’s a good question. And we have options. There are plenty of safe havens, but she’s easily recognizable. The truth of it is, Adriana, she’s going to live her entire life hidden away, and her son will as well. It’s the only way to keep her safe. She can’t be part of society, for her own sake.”

I sigh. “I know. I don’t think your parents would really… but there’s a chance, you know?” I don’t want to think of what would happen to that poor baby if he’s born under the royal palace, under the control of a woman at war with the son of a man her triad slew.

Red light bathes the room. Doman is up, blade in his hand, flicking his smart-watch. The holo-vid feed that was showing wedding celebrations changes to a dual image—one showing a feed of the view from the ship’s bridge, the other the Aurelian triad in command.

“Speak!” barks out Doman.

“We’ve got sight of something. It feels off.”

“I trust your instincts. Zoom in.” The viewport feed narrows towards a small point. For a second, I remember that single dot that remained after the Planet Killer demonstration, but as the image enhances, I see that this one is tangible.

It looks like a metal ball, perhaps the size of a volleyball, covered in black, shiny dots.

“We don’t know what it is,” states the Aurelian at the bridge. “Do we fire on it?”

“Fire! Now!” Gallien barks it out, and blue-black beams lance out, obliterating the metal sphere.

“What the hell was that?” I gasp out, my heart pounding.

“A scanner. Obsidian is pumping them out of his factories and sending them through space. He’s getting eyes in the darkness.” Gallien’s voice is ice, and I can tell he’s piecing it together in real time, that he alone of the three knew what it was and the risk it posed.

“Doman. Signatures in the Rift.” The Aurelian and the bridge’s voice is taut, urgent, a decibel point below a shout.

My chest feels tight. He knows. The War-God has sight of us.

Doman closes his eyes, slowly sitting. When he opens his eyes again, the way he’s staring at me fills me with new terror.

It’s like he’s looking at me for the first time and the last, imprinting every inch of me on his mind, the way a man on the gallows would stare at the sky one last time before that awful drop.

“Adriana.” His voice is calm and clear. “Obsidian knows where we are. He’s sending in his fleet to kill us.”

“What do we do?”

“We have one way out. We Orb-Shift.”

Panic. Panic I’ve felt only once before, when I was swinging through the trees as a teenager and missed the mark, tumbling two hundred feet, the wind whistling past my face as I screamed like a rabbit. I knew I was dead, and my brother swung down at the last second, catching me in his arms ten feet off the ground.

“No, no, we can’t,” I gasp, because I know the awful truth of the Rift.

Obsidian may have conquered it. We haven’t. Nearly half the ships that go into the darkness between realities never return. Titus holds my hand, swallowing it in his huge marble grip, while Gallien takes the other, centering me.

“There’s no other choice. Power the Orb-Shift drive,” commands Doman. The Aurelian on the bridge flinches visibly, unable to keep the emotionless mask that the alien species prides themselves on, then barks out the order.

The feed from the viewport shows the first enemy ship port in, a sleek warship, jet black, glistening with weapons. Then there are more, dozens of jet-black ships filling the viewport. Their weapons flash, Orb-Beams lancing out the instant they port in, and I can’t see anything, the feed through the holo-vid blindingly bright.

The ship doesn’t even shudder. The shields absorb the first wave of energy.

“Shields at twenty percent, Orb-Drive active!” the acting commander on the bridge yells, waiting for Doman to tell him what to do.

We won’t be able to withstand another volley.

“Shift.”

One word, and then everything is…

Gone.

I’m deep below the ocean, waters making me weightless, as if there is the perfect level of salt to make me float. There’s nothing, nothing but the firm grip of Titus and Gallien who keep me from going insane. From the depths of oblivion, the outlines of shapes, or perhaps the feeling of shapes, of something tangible in the nothingness appears.