Page 107

ADRIANA

“ W ill they truly be safe?” I glance back at the hallway, which leads into the bedrooms.

“The public word of the Aurelian Empire is at stake. They will be safe,” answers Gallien, but his aura is fraught with trepidation. The human queen and her Imperial triad have gone far beyond his darkest predictions. This is uncharted territory, and my own life hangs in the balance.

“Unless she brands me a traitor,” growls Doman. “Then my word is worthless and represents nothing. I’m not bringing you to Colossus, Adriana. I’ll have Obsidian shift an escape pod to the borders of Pentaris. Your people can pick you up.”

I walk to Doman, wrapping my hand around his thick wrist. “You really think I’d let you go alone, after all this?”

He can’t make eye contact with me. Instead, he looks over my head, guilt flowing through his aura. I feel the weight of each of the lives weighing on his conscience. “I should have listened to you,” he manages, the words choked.

“You didn’t know. You couldn’t have known.” I trace my fingers against the ivory skin of his forearm, his pulse drumming steadily from a heart that stopped as he bled out. I lost him, again, and I cherish every second.

His mind reaches into mine, probing. He searches for my hatred. For the part of me that blames him for everything.

Instead, he finds my own guilt.

“Aeris predicted this,” I whisper, in response to those probing thoughts. I’m sickened at myself. We let it happen. How long were Doman’s parents planning this? When did they bring the Planet-Killers out of storage, piloting them secretly into position?

How could I have missed it?

Gallien steps in close, placing a heavy hand on my shoulder and squeezing reassuringly.

“She didn’t predict this. She predicted nothingness.

A universe rent in two and collapsing in on itself.

Whatever visions she witnessed, none of them go past the moment when the Planet-Killers fired.

We’re on a new path now. A path no vision or prophecy guides. ”

I pull myself away from the two of them. Titus is sitting heavily in his Orb-gunnery, hands on his legs, staring out through the reinforced glass of the cockpit at the packed stands. His aura is a black storm. He was made for war. He died with courage, and that was meant to be his end.

“Our fate is uncertain. But his...” I glance black at the hallway that leads to where Obsidian and Fay are sharing their last, precious moments.

“Gods. To finally be reunited, after all that time. To hold your son...” I trail off, my eyes wet.

Poor Fay. She went through hell. She persevered and got back to her Mate—and now she can do nothing to stop him from being executed on Colossus.

There was no other choice. Obsidian knows he can’t flee. That Queen Jasmine is capable of anything, and that the only way to save his Fated Mate and son is to surrender. He’s trading his life for their future, his final sacrifice.

My watch is flashing crimson. Reports are flooding in: Aeris has publicly condemned me.

She is in an interview saying that I assured her the Planet-Killers were in Colossus, to be used only for defense.

A snap election has been called, my Administrators unanimously stripping me of my position in government.

There are missives from my legal team, stating that I am to report back to the high court immediately.

I pull my watch from my wrist. There’s a pale white circle where it’s been for years, even against my skin that hasn’t seen enough sun since I took up the mantle of prime minister. I place it in my pocket.

No one can help me. Not the team of advisors and legal minds, who are currently plotting how to distance themselves from me as I take the fall. Not the coffers of the businessmen who got me elected, who will move onto whichever candidate they think will give them the biggest tax breaks.

Even if the entire army of Pentaris wanted to help me, they couldn’t. Not once I go to Colossus. Not once I’m firmly in the web of the Queen.

I look up, into Doman’s diamond blue eyes. I can still escape. I can tell him to get Obsidian to shift me away from all this, to someplace safe, some backwater sector the wars have not touched.

I steel myself. Holding my head high, I nod, ever so slightly, and he knows that we’ll face whatever comes our way, together. His watch is flashing red, and as he glances down, his grimace is obvious.

We’re being summoned to Colossus.

“The Orbs preventing shifting to Colossus will be disabled for just long enough for us to shift,” states Gallien, his voice analytical, his aura tormented. “I’m going to get the coordinates from Obsidian.”

With that, he leaves the cockpit, the doors hissing as they open and shut. I walk to Titus, putting my hands on his neck, massaging him. He flinches at my touch.

“It’s okay,” I try, reaching out into his auras, repulsed by the raging storm of his being. He’s staring at a single spot in the crowds, not blinking.

“I failed you,” he rumbles.

“You didn’t.”

“I failed every one of the lives lost. She knew. She saw the results of the test. She knew that firing the Planet-Killers would turn back time... or destroy reality itself. Queen Jasmine let us go into battle. Either we won, and ended the war by our blades, or she would end it by her hand.” He swallows, hard.

“If I had just been stronger. Better. If had just...” He goes silent, swallowing hard. His amethyst eyes are wet with grief.

My barbaric beast, my strength, and he’s in an agony that I can do nothing to quiet.

“Titus. I need you. I need you strong. I’m scared of what’s going to happen to us when we go back to Colossus.”

He tears his eyes from the crowd, standing to his full height, turning and wrapping me up in a massive embrace. I run my hands over his unmarred skin, his muscles, running my hand up his chest where Obsidian’s blade tore him in two.

“Nothing will happen to you. I promise you, Adriana. Nothing.”

“Thank you, Titus,” I whisper, feeling his aura of turmoil quiet, feeling him focus as his mind takes control, forging himself into the weapon he needs to be to protect me.

I hear Obsidian’s voice through the coms as he rattles out coordinates. Soft weeping in the background, Fay grieving him already.

“Orb-Drive activated,” states Doman. “Shifting.”

Titus wraps me up even tighter in his massive biceps, squeezing me as we blink out of existence.

There’s no ice cold, there’s no darkness. It’s just a blink, and we go from an arena with black walls to one with white, gleaming marble. The black sands that drank of my triad’s blood are replaced by the pure white of the Arena of the Gods.

“Together,” says Doman, and he goes ahead of me, Titus behind, as we exit the cockpit to the hallway of the Reaver. Gallien is walking beside Obsidian, while Fay clings onto her man, desperately clutching at his hand.

“No! Let me go with him! Please!” Her scream rends my soul. Obsidian growls, the huge beast of a man picking her up, pushing her into the bedroom, and closing the door behind her. A wail, her baby crying in unison with her, muted behind the door.

“Give me your word. Give me your word, they’ll be safe,” he snarls out, staring down Doman.

“You have it. I failed trillions of lives. I will not fail theirs,” states Doman, icy cold, filled with self-hatred.

The arena is packed. Aurelians sit in the rows wearing their togas, exposing the left hand of their unbranded flesh.

Elites in their blue-black Orb-armor are spread out in the stands, dots of blue against the sea of white.

I’m used to them standing like statues, but as I look out at the crowd through the open doors of the Reaver, I notice Aurelian warriors shifting in their seats, many of them glancing to us, then to the thrones where the Queen and her Imperial triad sit. There’s a disquiet.

“Look down,” barks out Doman, and Obsidian stares at the ground, lead out at swordpoint into the middle of the arena. Doman’s Orb-Blade is not activated, only the black metal extending from the hilt, the Orb-energy not wrapping it in a cloud of sparks and energy.

“Move.” Obsidian walks barefoot over the sands.

Wearing only his loincloth, his blade taken from him, his body burned and battered, he looks like the savage beast he was before he was found, before he was turned into a symbol of resistance for the Priests.

He’s no innocent. But he would have lived and died as an animal if he had gone unfound.

I step onto the sand. My wedding dress was tattered into shreds, and I’m back in my plain uniform, the uniform I no longer bear any right to.

Heat radiates back at me, and the gleaming walls of the coliseum rise around me.

Ahead of us, on the raised dais, is the seat of the throne, Queen Jasmine and Emperor Raegan sitting straight-backed, the final two of the triad in thrones that are slightly behind theirs.

“Kneel!” yells out Doman, and Obsidian falls to his knees in the center of the white gleaming sands, the same sands that drank the lifeblood of his father so many centuries ago, when the General Asmod was slain by the very man he now kneels in front of.

The Imperial triad have years, but they were fierce warriors, and each is deadly with an Orb-Blade.

There’s a pall of unease. I glance to the stands, where Aurelians are shifting in their seats. To a man, they would kill for their empire. They would die for it.

But they didn’t want to win the war this way.

None of them is comfortable with the death toll, none of them comfortable with Obsidian kneeling in front of them.

He died a warrior’s death, a proud one, with his opponent’s blade in his heart, and even that was robbed of him. Now he will be cut down like an animal.

Queen Jasmine wears a high-necked dress of pale grey, her golden crown atop her head as she rises. She raises a hand for silence, but the crowd is already deathly quiet.