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ADRIANA

“ T his is absurd. How much does this all cost?” I exclaim, eyeing the holo-vid detailing a single day of the wedding plans.

I’m with my triad in one of the countless chambers of the Imperator, a sea of white marble and oversized furniture, all echoing spartan simplicity blended with blatant opulence.

These quarters evoke the feeling of someone who dons themselves in the simplest cuts of clothing but ensures you recognize the luxury of the fabric.

Gazing at the holo-vid between us, I can’t help but shake my head.

It’s not just the countless fresh flowers, feasts, fanfares and parades, or the hefty security costs required to host the universe’s VIPs, flying in from all reaches of allied space.

It’s the marble spire, adorned with platinum vines that circle up the monolithic statue, rising north of the city.

It’s the first significant change to the capital’s skyline, a monument celebrating the crown prince’s union, destined to endure like the great coliseum and the royal palace.

Gallien’s lips curl up almost imperceptibly. “Consider it part of the propaganda budget. Obsidian’s forces are scattered in Wild Space while we build.”

“It’s a bloody stupid idea,” grunts out Titus from my left. “They like to think of themselves as hunters, here to tear down our decadence. This will only harden them.”

“It’s not to cow our enemies. It’s to show our strength to the humans and Toads,” states Doman. “For my mother, it is an insult. She still has no idea you are my Fated Mate, Adriana, and it must burn her to see us wedded.”

“Thanks for the reminder, I was just thinking how great it’ll be to meet the in-laws.”

We left Pentaris territory six days ago, after traveling back through my home system, a flurry of meetings and plans for my absence.

To my surprise, while all the Administrators refused the interrogation process, using the excuse that they would need to stay back and govern while I was out of contact, nearly forty of my staff, from cleaners and cooks to strategists and diplomats stayed onboard.

Others were keen to stay, but the Interrogators had less than a week to conduct their intensive sessions, and they marked some of my staff as requiring more processing before vetting was complete.

I made sure the eight who didn’t get through the Interrogation didn’t feel like they failed, or that there was any suspicion on them: and each is filed away as men and women loyal to me whom I can count on.

Most of those who went through the Interrogation, which involves being in a room, alone, with three of the cold, unsettling old Aurelians and being questioned endlessly about anything from your favorite food to your most nerve-wracking memory, were from Frosthold and Virelia, as I predicted, but citizens of each of the five planets underwent the intensive psychological process to stay on.

We’ve all become closer because of it. We’ve all been on a ship that was in combat, and we all feel like we’re on a mission for the fate of the Pentaris Alliance.

That flurry of activity, sleeping two hours a night, seems like a far-off dream now.

Days spent talking with a hundred different management teams and working through disputes as petty as a new tax to provide for people whose jobs were taken away by advancements in agricultural technology to life and death agreements on allocation of the Aurelian med-bays.

The last six days has been radio silence, and it’s the best I’ve slept for as long as I can remember. Not even encrypted messages are being sent to the Imperator. I’m completely cut off from Pentaris, and the first day I nearly went crazy with stress, but it’s funny how quickly you get used to it.

We can’t risk a single communication. If Obsidian got an energy signal on us, he wouldn’t just teleport in Reavers, he’d shift in his entire fleet, and hungry, battle-mad triads would overwhelm our hallways as their warships blast us from the outside.

We survive through stealth, by being impossible to find in the endless black of space.

There’s been a strange normalcy to the last six days, spending each night in a different room with my triad.

We avoided talk of the war that raged around us, we ignored the Orb-Rings on their fingers that are a constant source of tension, and we just lived.

They showed me the Olympic sized pools deep within their warship, the gardens where fresh fruit grow, we ate in the mess hall with the troops one day then had a private dinner in the view-bay the next, dining while staring out at endless, swirling stars.

I look down at the holo-graphic image of the huge coliseum before me, the Arena of the Gods where this all began, where Doman’s fathers cut down General Asmod and took the throne, not knowing that Asmod’s infant son would come back hundreds of years later to threaten them.

Now, that Arena is decked out in flowers, banners flying, waiting for us to arrive.

It may be adorned with color, but I won’t forget I’m being wed in killing fields.

The anticipation of the royal wedding has filled me with a dozen different emotions, but I’m strangely relaxed.

Not having to be there for every single crisis is a huge weight off my shoulders.

There’s one thing that eclipses them all—getting to Colossus, sealing the wedding between our two people, and saving Fay before it’s too late.

I left governance to the twelve Administrators, instructed them to contact me only in case of hostile intrusion on our border or an existential threat to the Pentaris Alliance.

I run my hands over the cool marble of the table, sitting on a raised stool that gets me to a respectable level between Gallien and Titus, with Doman peering through the image from the other side.

“We still don’t have a plan.” I say the words I’ve been biting back for the last six days, days the felt like a dream that could be shattered at any moment if I mentioned what’s been plaguing me.

“We do,” assures Doman, his voice with that quality that makes him seem like he always knows what he’s doing.

“We’re keeping flexible. We land on Colossus, and there will be a lull before the wedding.

You will activate your spy network. I’ll meet with my brother Bruton.

He’s been on Colossus since wedding his mate, and he doesn’t agree with Fay being held captive either. He’ll help us. I know it.”

“Never thought I’d see the day he could keep himself from the frontline,” muses Titus.

“A Mate changes a man,” replies Gallien. “And Bruton knows, deep down, that Obsidian will come to Colossus. Bruton will be there to face him, for the final stand.”

“So where are we going to take her?”

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.