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“My second degree. Remove the rings from your fingers. There has been too much death. Now, it is time for life.”

In unison, the Aurelians rip the rings from their fingers. They are flung, into the sands, thrown with all their strength. Those rings severed them from the connection to their Mates, so they would not be pulled from war. Triads stare out in different directions, drawn to the woman they sense deep in their blood.

But while most of the triads have hope painted on their faces, others sit down heavily, their legs weak. Raw grief stains them. My heart breaks as I realize they sense nothing—their Mates were killed in the war, many of them probably slain in the very moment when Queen Jasmine used the Planet-Killers.

If they had just ripped the rings from their fingers a day earlier, they might have sensed her, and they might have saved her.

Now it’s too late.

Triads file out of the arenas, and Reavers take off. The war is over, and now they go to hunt down their Mates. The sky is filled with white attack ships piloting away.

Most of the triads leave. The ones who stay, some few of them Elites, in their blue-black orders, all have the same dull acceptance. They sit, in silence, until a triad stands with their heads down, trudging towards the exit. Another triad follows, then another, until they are a long line leaving the coliseum.

With a jolt, I understand—they are heading to the cryo-bays, to let their body be burned to dust in the final replication process, to create the next iteration of their DNA. Their last thoughts will be that of hope, that their clones will succeed where they failed. Other triads, though clearly grieving, leave with heads high, hands near their blades. They will live on, even without hope of a Mate. Someone has to defend the Empire while the mate-mad triads hunt, after all.

Finally, the last of the triads has left. It’s just the four of us, sitting in towering thrones overlooking the pure white sands of the arena, dotted with the gleaming, ominous darkness of the Orb-Rings. I look down at those stands, then up to the sky, the warm glow of the sun cascading over me, and I ache for Virelia. I want to walk in the lush green fields, stroll under the canopy, hug my sister again.

Doman reaches out, taking my hand in his, slowly rubbing his fingers against the back of my hand as his aura flows into mine. Titus and Gallien enter my mind, gentle, comforting, sensing my longing for home, and though I’m galaxies away, I’m no longer alone.

I look up at my men, my kings, my protectors. Doman is a flawed, beautiful alien emperor who now sits at the head of the greatest dynasty in the universe. He’s led a triad his entire life. Now he’ll be leading millions of fierce alien soldiers, soldiers who have been let free to hunt their Mates and forge Bonds. It’s the quickest way to reward the men who voted for him, and to ensure the loyalty of his soldiers, but it will put the Empire into turmoil as the great fighting force is preoccupied with their ancestral hunt.

He’s ruling with the leader of his foes in his prison, with branded enemies who will not all surrender, and who will now have nothing to lose as they fight for their lives. He’s up against Priests who have tasted of power and will not easily let it go. And in the darkness of the Rift, an even greater evil lurks, an evil that all the prophecies claim will plunge us into an age of darkness if the War-God is not on the throne to protect us. I pray that Gallien was right and that no predictions could be accurate anymore, not after the explosion of energy that blotted out so many innocent lives, staining the victory for eternity.

A million questions of what’s to come rush into my mind, and they all evaporate as I stare into his diamond blue eyes, eyes that look deep into my soul and answer them all in an instant.

Whatever comes, we will face it together.

A new age is here. An age born of endless death but not wedded to it.

An age of life, of families formed, a golden age of Bonding that will strengthen the Aurelian Empire in the face of whatever is to come.

48

ADRIANA

The trees rise not as a wall but as endless protectors welcoming me home. The well-trod path beckons me, the same path that thousands of brides have walked before, the path I dreamed of walking when I was a little girl. Back then, I’d imagined a tall, caring man, someone who had devoted his life to work for the wardens, protecting our ancient forests. I never could have imagined the three marble-skinned Aurelians who await me in the sacred grove.

I’m in a simple green dress, designed by my sister, on short notice. My cheeks went rosy red when she pressed me for details on why her “masterpiece,” as she called it, had been ripped to shreds. She’s enjoyed teasing me, and I enjoyed letting her since I touched down on my home planet three days ago. It’s our honeymoon, and I will be wedded properly here, in the customs of my people.

All talk of impeachment and war crimes evaporated the instant I was made Queen. My involvement in the Black Death, as the massacre has been known as, harkening to an ancient plague on Old Earth that killed many, went from complicit to innocent bystander when the balance of power shifted.

Pentaris didn’t survive this long as an independent power by making enemies. The snap election elevated Helena from head of the legal council to Prime Minister, and she’s a good fit. Coldly competent, level-headed, and generally well liked by all five of the planets.

She was quick to laud the gifts of the Aurelian Empire, from the patents that have improved our crop yields to the high-tech med-bays that have cured so many fatal diseases. She understood the optics. She made sure the credit was given not to the former Emperors but to Doman and his triad, as well as my own skill negotiating.

Thus, while there’s a general sense of unease at the existence of the Planet-Killers and the terror they can mete out, there’s a clear bifurcation between the actions of a crazed few and the new guard.

All that feels so far away, the flurry of activity, of meetings and decisions that filled my schedule in the month since becoming queen of the Aurelian Empire. A human cannot be an empress, and my triad have the official seats of power, but I saw how Queen Jasmine was at the center of decision making—and my triad, too, listens intently to my suggestions. I had thought the weight of rule would be heavy on my triad. Instead, they took to the positions easily. Doman was born to rule.

I take a deep breath in. There is no air purer than the ancient Virelian old growth forests. The sunlight glitters through the thick canopy, reflected on the obnoxious diamond of the ring that was placed on my finger in the first wedding, when the stress of the escape weighed anxiously upon me. That’s all in the past now. Obsidian and his Mate are technically still imprisoned, but they have free rein of the palace grounds, and they are no longer separated. The War-God, once such a fierce and brutal foe, now seems to be in a constant state of grateful bliss, never out of arm’s reach of Fay.

That man went through so much pain, and caused more. His scarred body is recuperating in the presence of the only medicine that can cure him from the inside out, his Mate.

Oakly and Owen, in their full warden garb, stand on each side of the path. They are beaming with pride. Any initial resistance they had to the Aurelian triad disappeared after they watched my three warriors not only face down the War-God in mortal combat but then ascend to the seats of greatest power in the universe to usher in a new age, no longer controlled by the former Imperial triad and their Queen. If anyone in the world is going to have the power of the Planet-Killers, they want it to be me, and the three men who were willing to risk their lives to end the war. The bachelor party Oakly threw is already the stuff of legends.

“Ready?” asks Owen, gruff, trying to pretend his eyes aren’t wet.

“Don’t rush her,” says my brother, who is fresh faced—Mom made him the clear root tea again, even after promising it was the last time she’d spare him the price of a hangover a hundred times over. He’s been non-stop celebrating since my return.