Page 160

I stumble out of the cockpit and onto the sands. Fay runs out of the stealth ship, her baby cradled in her hands, and we go to our men. I put my hand on Doman’s wrist. He’s frozen in place, unsure for the first time in his life.

As one, the four blades deactivate.

I look up into his bright blue eyes, the eyes that stared into mine as his head was severed.

“Doman, is this real? Are you here?” My voice quavers.

Then my smart-watch blinks blood red. So do the three of my triads.

I look down as reports come in, first a stream, then a flood.

“Oh Gods,” I say, as I understand.

“She didn’t,” whispers Gallien, his voice hushed, equal parts horror and awe.

Trillions.

Trillions of souls wiped out of existence. Reports are flooding in from my spy networks, from every news agency across the universe, garbled reports of planets gone.

The Planet-Killers were not in their home on Colossus. Queen Jasmine mobilized them, without us knowing.

And at once, they were used. She gave the command to fire every one in unison, blotting out every planet controlled by Obsidian’s forces. Planets with mere thousands of Obsidian’s troops, and billions of human lives. Planets that had surrendered to the War-God instead of fighting.

Trillions of innocents, pulled into the nothingness of the Rift.

Was it vengeance, for the firstborn prince? Or did they truly understand that the blast of energy could rip through time itself?

My mind rebels against the horror, trying to quantify it into strategic terms to keep my sanity. I know what I’m doing, and I don’t stop it, letting my thoughts race and focus on every permutation other than the lives lost.

I look over at Obsidian. His blade is on the sands, and instead, in his arms his babe is quiet. Fay is wrapping her arms around his huge waist, sobbing into his chest.

46

OBSIDIAN

Icradle my son. He’s perfect. None of my agony transferred to him, the curse of my blood that torments me. He’s got her nose, and I gently stroke his cheek, feeling his smooth skin.

Mine is marred. I’ve gone through hell. The scent of my Mate is in my nostrils as Fay holds me, unable to even wrap her arms around my bulk, sobbing tears of relief into my side.

She’s relieved that I’ve been brought back from the dead.

She still doesn’t know that the horrors have just begun. This close to me, my pain is soothed, the volcanic burn of my veins that I grew up with cleansed. Only she can assuage my torture.

I hand my child to her, gently, like he could shatter into a thousand pieces, and search her eyes and aura for any sign of disgust.

I know what I’ve become. My melted flesh, my scarred body, my DNA poisoned by the nuclear blast. I’m a shell of what I used to be. A monster. I kiss her on her forehead, and she doesn’t recoil.

My mind is full of her. Yet, it’s emptied.

I had so many pinpoints of consciousness. Eighty percent of the warships and sentry drones were blotted out in an instant, ripped out of existence by the mad queen.

She did the unthinkable.

She, and her Imperial triad, unleashed the Planet-Killers. My network of eyes was not enough. They slipped through the cracks, the ships barely bigger than Reavers, and they waited to unleash death.

Thirty-two planets, my mind recoiling from the number. Scorched earth. All those who opposed her, the trillions of lives, innocent civilians and so many of my soldiers, snuffed out. I was linked to every Reaver, to every battle-station and orbital defense.

I heard the screams of their last messages as they were pulled into the Rift and annihilated.