Page 65

“What does it mean?” I whisper up at Doman.

I know that leaders have to show confidence in battle, and I’ve worn a mask a thousand times before facing my constituents and voting blocks, but I catch my reflection in the glass and see how pale I’ve gotten.

I’m shook, scared without quite knowing why, but this all feels so wrong.

Doman’s eyes are fixated on the point where the planet once existed.

“It means we have changed reality itself.” His voice is low, intense, with an eagerness that terrifies me.

He is wielding power that no man should have, and it excites him.

“Continue scan on former planet’s location. Report anomalies.”

“A… I don’t know how to explain it,” comes one of the Aurelians from the scouting Reavers. “There’s a mark, a dot on our scanner that simply isn’t… it’s not picking up anything, but…”

“Get a visual. With your eyes.”

The Reavers drift in closer, and sweat beads on my forehead. “Report.” Doman’s voice is harder, crisp and intense. Nothing strange is transmitting through the feed. To us, it looks like empty space.

“I see it. There’s a dot. A point.”

“Relay its coordinates,” states Gallien.

“I can’t. It doesn’t show up. I… I don’t want to look at it any longer.” The Aurelian in the Reaver is broadcasted on the tempered glass of the viewing port. He’s turned a paler shade of marble, and his eyes are wide, his brows furrowed in stress.

I scan the empty space in front of me, trying to see what he’s looking at, when my eyes glaze over it.

There is nothing there. Nothing, and yet, there is a point where space itself recoils, where empty space is distorted.

My pointing finger rises, and the Aurelian triad follows my gaze, scanning, but I know they don’t see it.

Doman sniffs, smelling the fear in my aura, when the point grows.

My head aches, fierce jolts of pain, because the point is expanding, larger and larger, and yet, the space around it is unchanged, this rip in time and space itself, this dot that should not be, and while nothing changes, I swear that it is watching me, that something is peering through the nothingness and locking in our ship, then red lights bathe the cockpit, and Doman whips around, sprinting with his triad to the bridge to take the captain’s seat.

“We’ve got activity in the Rift. Multiple signatures,” barks out the technician, his voice ice under the tension of war.

Doman’s in the center of the bridge, at the raised dais with his battle brothers, his eyes flicking over a thousand different things at once.

“Full retreat. Pull back,” decides Doman, swiftly. “Pull back.”

The bridge is a flurry of tension, but Doman is the calm in the center of the gale. He spares me a glance. “Go to our chambers.”

He barks out the order like he’s speaking to one of his soldiers, but I can see the tension in his narrowed eyes.

“I need to see this.”

“Go. I cannot command with you here.” His voice brooks no argument.

Reluctant, I head to the quarters, but I look over my shoulder before I get to the doors—because I’m terrified that it isn’t Obsidian’s forces coming through the Rift, but something darker, something more monstrous.

Three black Reavers flick into existence, only to be cut down by a barrage of las-cannons from the ambush.

They don’t trigger the nuclear bombs, and the tension of the bridge is one not of fear but of anticipation, hoping that Obsidian himself will teleport in his flagship and end the war here and now.

“Update. More contacts?”

“Rift activity continuing. Unsure what it means.”

I pause at the blast doors, torn, wanting to be here with the triad and witness the battle.

I could only be a distraction. I grit my teeth and leave, and a set of Aurelians escort me, walking by my side, hands on their blades even in the safety of the Imperator as they take me deep within the warship to Doman’s chambers.

And then I am in his quarters, the sprawling, marble expanse built for three of the towering species, and I am all alone.

I pace, checking my smart-watch periodically, and when an hour has passed, I sit on his bed.

There’s pain in my mouth—I gnawed at my cheek without realizing it.

It’s torture, waiting without knowing, being useless, without any idea if a battle is raging outside or Doman is lying in wait for Obsidian to teleport in.

Over and over, I see it in my mind’s eye. That black beam, so thin, that simply blinked out of the Planet-Killer, and in an instant, an entire world gone. It could have been a world filled with people, and that awesome power would have obliterated them in an instant.

And that power is ours, ours to command, and I’m part of it.

I’ve been the one who Pentaris relies on. The first person who gets called with an emergency, the first of a hundred billion souls who knew of the civil war between the Aurelians, who was alerted when the crown prince himself was at our borders.

And I’ve been reduced to nothing but a betrothed waiting for her soldiers to come home. I can’t accept it. Not for myself, and not for the people I’m pledged to protect.

The door to their chambers hisses open, and the triad marches in, Titus twisting around the still-opening doors to get inside quicker.

The three of them are still clad in full armor, giving their monstrous forms an added imposing bulk that makes the spacious room feel cramped.

I jolt up from bed, turning to face them, but their grave expressions and the gleaming armor gives me pause.

Titus raises his hand, stopping the squires who were following them in with a single motion, and with a flick of his fingers, they scurry away.

The three titans enter their living quarters, bringing with them an icy chill.

They help each other out of their armor without a word, not even addressing me, like their minds are still locked in battle.

“What happened up there?” I can’t take the silence any longer.

Doman’s lips curl back in frustration. His bright blue eyes have a coldness to him, and there is an imperial arrogance.

I just watched him commanding men who obeyed him instantly, and as Gallien helps him out of his Orb-Armor chestplate, the aura of leadership exudes from his every micro-movement, from the set of his jaw, the intensity as he stares through me.

“Obsidian is wily. He didn’t engage once his scouts were picked off.

All that preparation, and we have three Reaver kills to show for it.

He held back his main forces.” Then, something breaks the icy chill of command, a hint of vulnerability as he seems to be looking at me for the first time since entering the chambers.

He runs his eyes up and down my body, a gentleness to him as he strips down to his black briefs.

“I was relieved. Knowing you were on board… the tactical play would have been to bait him. To send the Imperator forward, a target so valuable Obsidian might risk his flagship even if he suspected a trap. But I couldn’t do it. Not with you here.”

Doman sets his armor down and walks towards me, his long legs eating up the distance.

“I had to be there. I’m part of this. I let you through my territories. I’m responsible for the Planet-Killers, just like you.”

He stops short of me, like my words jolt him. “As Prime Minister of Pentaris, it was your right to be here,” he says, cold once more, the emotion gone from his voice.

Titus throws his Orb-Armor down, thudding duly on the ground, and paces the room like a storm brewing.

Each step is a crackle of electric tension, and while Gallien finishes disrobing, putting his armor neatly in a pile and walking to the wardrobe with Doman to clad themselves in the standard white robes of their species, the bull of a man strides up and down the room.

Doman cinches his belt tight around his white robes, the hilt of his Orb-Blade dangling.

They’re always ready for battle, even here, deep in the confines of the royal flagship, the one place that should be safe.

Titus stops abruptly, jaw clenched, and glares at Doman, facing him down.

The two huge men lock eyes in a silent, intense exchange, subtle emotions flickering over their near unreadable features.

The subtle shifts in expressions—a tightening around the eyes, a flicker of anger—speak of a conversation I’m not privy to.

I’m walled out of their telepathic communication, an invisible thread weaving through the air that excludes me as Doman and Titus argue in silence.

I feel even more isolated than when I was alone, waiting for the triad to return.

My simmering frustration is starting to boil over, and it takes all my diplomatic training to keep my face blank, to stop my hands from balling into fists, but as Doman growls under his breath, shaking his head, I can’t take it a second longer.

“I was just forced to sit here for hours, not knowing if we were under attack, and now you’re speaking to each other like I don’t exist.”

Titus whips to face me, his black mane flowing, framing his barbaric wrath. His visage is a mask of fury, but it’s not directed at me.

“Bringing her into a battlefield? When Obsidian could have shifted in his entire fucking fleet? We don’t deserve a Fated Mate if this is how we protect her!” His voice erupts, booming out, all the more jarring for the terse silence of the three men broken in his outburst.

His words strike a nerve. “I’m not going to be locked away in a safe little jail cell. I’m not going to be treated like that. I’m not a vase, to be put in storage where it can’t be knocked over.”

Doman is caught in the middle. His eyes flick from Titus to me, then he opens his mouth to offer some justification, or to comfort me, and I don’t wait to find out which.

I raise my hand. “This isn’t just about a ship battle.

The Planet-Killers we just tested affect our entire universe, not just you three.

I’m not going to be left in the dark, waiting behind to hear what happened, and I’m not going to spend my life in a safe little hiding hole while you three risk yours. ”

My words hang in the air, heavy, and the three Aurelians exchange glances, not sure how to react. They haven’t taken orders from anyone since their time in Academy, and they aren’t used to being spoken to as equals.

“Look, I’m not asking for a front-row seat on the battlefield.” My voice softens, but it’s laced with resolve. “But I need to be included. I’ve got a hundred billion souls resting on my decisions. They rely on me, and I can’t do what’s right if I’m blindfolded.”

I stride out of the room, letting them chew on my words and giving them space.