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T he transport rattled beneath Andri’s feet, the vibration coursing through his boots like a heartbeat—his heartbeat. Steady. Unstoppable.

He stood at the viewport, his hands clasped behind his back, his military coat stained with red dust and sweat. The pilots murmured among themselves, reading out trajectory adjustments, but he barely listened.

Ahead of them, the ruins of a forgotten village appeared encased with the colorful canyon walls, a ghostly reminder of what had once been.

A fitting battleground.

A fitting place to erase the last of his enemies.

Andri turned his attention to the pilot when the man called out to him. The pilot pointed through the front glass.

“Sir, there’s… a body.”

Andri’s gaze snapped downward to where the twisted, discarded form of Zoak lay motionless in the dirt. The assassin’s lifeless eyes stared skyward, his body crumpled like discarded waste.

Andri’s throat went tight. His gaze swept the area, looking for additional bodies. Bodies that should have been left by Zoak, not the other way around.

He twisted, trying to catch a closer look at the transport that flew over. Zoak had been a force, a predator, a necessary monster. To see him like this—broken, abandoned, a corpse forgotten in the dust—it made something cold slither through Andri’s chest.

He was thrilled the assassin was dead—but it shouldn’t have been this easy. A whisper of doubt filled his head. He lifted his fingers to his sweaty temple and rubbed as the pressure built.

If they can defeat Zoak, can they defeat me?

His fingers curled into a fist and he pressed it against the side of his head. No. Zoak was reckless. He overestimated his prey.

Andri was smarter. Stronger.

The whisper vanished.

His hands stilled, his control returning. Zoak had been a weak tool of his brother’s. Nothing more.

Andri turned away from the viewport.

“Prepare to land,” he ordered.

The pilot acknowledged, adjusting their descent.

The momentary flicker of doubt was gone—obliterated by the iron will that had carried him this far.

Andri was chosen.

The stars had aligned for him.

Those thoughts had no sooner flitted through his brain when the transport shuddered violently, throwing him off-balance. He caught the handrail with one hand while a soldier grabbed his other arm to steady him. The transport rocked violently. Andri’s free hand reached to grab the railing as his feet lifted off the floor. Alarms warned of engine damage and power loss as the ship jerked sideways.

“What the hell was that?!” Andri snapped, gripping the railing.

The pilot’s frantic response came through the comms. “Direct hit! Starboard engine is failing?—!”

Andri lunged for the viewport, his vision narrowing on the sky.

Above them, a second ship moved, momentarily blocking the suns and casting a shadow. A Gallant shuttle—unseen, cloaked, deadly.

The rebels!

His rage boiled, roaring through his veins.

The Gallant rebels did this.

The ship tilted sharply, spiraling toward the ground. The wreckage of buildings rushed up to meet them.

“Brace for impact!” the pilot warned.

Andri twisted and fumbled to grab the railing. The soldier who had helped him before reached out, jerking him forward. Andri’s hands wrapped around the metal bar just as the transport slammed into the earth.

His grip loosened. He was thrown violently forward, his shoulder colliding with steel, pain exploding through him as the bar hit his collarbone. The world twisted sideways as the viewport cracked, dust and fire spilling into the shattered remains of the ship.

The transport spun, tossing the unprepared like rag dolls in a cyclone. Andri’s head swam as the world tilted, spinning, filling with heat, smoke, and pain before finally coming to a stop, the side door partially crumpled and torn.

Then— blissful stillness.

Andri heard the moans and groans of pain. None of them came from him. He pulled himself up by the bent metal bar he was still holding, doing a mental assessment of his body. His shoulder hurt where he’d hit the bar, but other than that, he was fine.

He was alive.

He was alive… because he was meant to be.

He forced himself upright, blood trickling from a small cut on his temple, his uniform torn on the sleeve.

A handful of his soldiers—those who had survived the impact—were stumbling outside, their weapons drawn, waiting for his command.

Andri straightened his collar, ignoring the pain. Bending, he squeezed through the narrow opening before straightening. His gaze warily swept the sky before he looked behind him. He could see the burning remains of their other transport. There were no survivors.

He stepped forward, his voice cutting through the wreckage like a blade.

“Move into the village. Find them. Kill them.”

Andri pulled a laser rifle and a blaster from a dead soldier. He followed in slow, measured steps behind the soldiers who were spreading out into the ruins like vipers in the dust. They would flatten this place to the ground until nothing remained. No reminders that it had ever existed.

He moved cautiously forward, his eyes scanning the cliffs, rising to the top, sweeping the sky, before falling back to the dry dusty floor of the canyon. Sweat, mixed with blood from his cut, ran down the side of his face. He lifted his sleeve and wiped it away.

The deeper he stepped into the village, the greater the gnawing doubt grew.

It is too quiet. The canyon walls should be echoing with movement, with fear, with retreat.

Instead—there was nothing. The ruins felt alive, waiting, watching.

A trap. It is a trap.

Andri’s hand slipped down to his side. He dropped the pistol and pulled the ornate cylinder-shaped weapon from his uniform coat. It had been a long time since he held this weapon.

“You are not worthy to carry such a weapon of honor. Neither of us were.” Coleridge’s mocking voice whispered through his head.

“That is not true. I am the only one worthy of carrying it. I will not let you trick me, brother. This is my destiny. Yours was to die!” he hissed.

“Sir?”

Andri impatiently waved on the soldier to his right who had turned when he spoke. He was about to order the man to move ahead when the soldier jerked to a sudden stop, surprise widening his eyes before he dropped dead.

“One!”

Andri’s head swiveled back and forth as the voice bounced off the canyon walls.

“Two!” a voice answered, as the soldier in front of Andri crumpled to the dirt.

Shouts of warning echoed from the soldiers in front of him. He ran for cover near the first house, reaching it just as a series of blasts opened up holes in the wall near his head. Three more of his men fell.

“Save some for us!” a feminine voice shouted, her voice ricocheting and repeating before it faded.

Andri’s heart hammered in his chest. The Ancient Knights were picking his men off one at a time. He slid around the curved remains of the building where he had taken refuge. His gaze bored into the cliff above him. He saw a flash from a darkened ledge.

He twisted when more holes opened up across the building in front of him. He lifted his Staff and extended it. Aiming at that ledge in the cliff across from him, he released a powerful charge.

The explosion of rock sent a cloud of dust and debris into the air, sending him running for cover as large chunks of the ledge above came raining down around him.

“Son-of-a-bitch! They have a rocket-launcher.”

Andri cursed as he sought coverage along the wall of the canyon behind a line of fallen boulders. There was no way he could reach the man above him from the angle, but the man could also not reach him. Andri didn’t know if he had killed the one across from him, but he hoped so.

As he moved between the massive boulders, the battle raged around him. His soldiers were falling one by one. He didn’t care.

His focus honed in on one thing. He would find Roan. The death of his nephew was the only thing that would silence Coleridge’s mocking laughter ringing through his head.

Andri threaded his way through, sometimes sliding on his belly under a boulder to avoid the firefight. He paused only long enough to look over the crumbled walls of burnt-out huts to see if anyone was hiding in them.

“They are everywhere, Andri. You can’t defeat them. This village is filled with ghosts who help protect them .”

Lies! They are dead. They will bleed. I will show you how much they will bleed.

“The only one who will bleed is you, brother. Roan will see to that. He will be the only one of us to survive.”

Never!

Andri stumbled to the back entrance of the last hut. Splaying his hand against the white wall near a window, he registered the two headstones nearby and the mounds they protected. He wiped the sweat from his burning eyes, staring at them. Once this was over, he would dig them up. He would show his brother there was not such things as ghosts.

A sound inside the hut pulled his attention. A slow smile of satisfaction rose inside him. Finally, he had found where one ghost was hiding.

He waited, using the cover of the battle to hide the sound of him pulling open the broken window. He slid his leg over, ignoring the way the red dust and chalky white paint stained his uniform. Twisting, he caught a faded blue dress, fingering the material before he dropped it to the floor.

He winced when his boots crunched over glass. The continuing sound of blasting told him that whoever was in the other room was unaware of his presence. Andri smiled, extended the Staff again, and stepped out of the bedroom toward the noise.

This is how you kill ghosts, brother.

Dorane stiffened when he heard the soft crunch of glass. He fired several shots of his blaster at two soldiers pinned down across from him. In the shadows, he could see Kella moving up behind them. He sheathed his depleted pistol and pulled his father’s Gallant Staff from his waist, extending it as he moved along the cabinets to the corner where the kitchen opened up.

He lifted the Staff just in time, deflecting a blow that would have killed him. A large hole opened in the wall to his right just before he blocked the swing of a Gallant Staff. Dorane’s eyes widened with surprise before they narrowed when he recognized Andri.

Andri smiled. “You should have died with the rest of them.”

Dorane’s grip tightened on his weapon, straining as Andri pushed back on him.

“I was the one who gave the order to raze this village,” Andri continued, letting the words sink in, letting them dig deep. “I remember killing your family, your parents most of all. They were the first Knights of the Gallant I killed. The first is always so sweet, don’t you think?”

Dorane’s breath hitched.

Andri smirked. “They were an example. You were supposed to die too. But you were too afraid. You ran and hid, leaving your brother and sister to die on the floor alone.”

“I’m going to enjoy killing you,” Dorane growled.

Andri’s sneer curled his lips. “With your father’s Staff. A weapon that you know nothing about?”

“I don’t need it to kill you.”

Dorane pushed the vivid images of his brother and sister lying lifeless on the floor in the other room from his mind. He would not let Andri into his headspace. Instead, he struck out with the cold, deadly purpose of ending this battle once and for all.

Andri met him head-on, their Gallant Staffs clashing with a crack of energy.

“You didn’t think your parents were the only Knights, did you? Coleridge and I were trained, too. That’s how we knew exactly who to eliminate. I was a Gallant Knight before you were even born,” Andri mocked, blocking Dorane’s blows. “I was one of the elite Knights.”

“That was a long time ago… old man,” Dorane hissed.

Their weapons clashed in a violent dance, dust and debris swirling around them. Dorane fell back a step, blocking a series of powerful moves. He gritted his teeth as Andri kept countering him. He swung low, trying to slip under Andri’s Staff when a powerful blow to his side sent him flying out the open front door.

His breath hissed out of him when he hit the hard ground. His father’s Staff flew from his hand, landing several feet away. Dorane scooted back along the ground, his boot sliding against the compact, pebble and sand soil. His hand went to his side. Warm blood flowed between his fingers, and his side burned like hell.

He glared up at Andri’s satisfied expression.

“One down,” Andri declared.

Dorane lifted his chin, his eyes blazing with hatred as Andri lifted the Staff in his hands to fire a powerful bolt into his chest. His eyes widened when the Staff was knocked to the side and a small, deadly woman stood in front of Andri.

A bemused smile curved Dorane’s lips when he saw how Andri froze. He rolled to the side, his fingers stretching for his father’s Staff while his eyes remained locked on the dance in front of him.

He recognized the moment when Andri realized he was up against someone better than him. Mei struck, again and again. She had traded the Gallant Staff for a long, curved sword. Her movements were graceful, beautiful, as the blade sliced through the air.

“No,” Andri snarled, slashing at her again, harder, more desperately.

But Mei was effortless. She parried, her movements precise, patient, her body fluid, her arms flowing in a language that Dorane wanted to learn, to know. She spoke then, serenely, as she littered his body with tiny cuts.

“You are nothing but a failed tyrant. You think yourself chosen,” she murmured, countering him with unshakable calm. “But you are nothing but a man drowning in his own madness.”

Her blade cut deep.

Another wound.

Another failure.

Dorane scooted against the wall. His breath caught when he realized that Mei was slowly driving Andri away from him and out into the open. His eyes flashed across the open area. He breathed a sigh of relief when he counted each of the men and women he had come to know and respect emerging. They were watching Mei with the same awe and respect as he was.

Andri staggered, his limbs heavy, his strength fading. His rage was turning to panic. He was losing and he knew it.

“No,” Andri whispered.

Mei took a step closer.

“There is a saying that a man who dies by a thousand cuts feels the weight of sin upon his soul,” she said softly. “Each cut is a wound of your own making.”

Mei sliced another cut, this one across Andri’s face, the same place where Andri had cut his brother Coleridge. Andri screamed in rage, lifted his Gallant Staff, and twisted it.

“Mei—!” Roan shouted.

Dorane realized at the same time what Andri was doing: setting the Staff to overload. Roan lunged, yanking Mei a safe distance away.

And then—the world erupted in brilliant white fire.