Nexus

They joined with Nor.

Andi shook her head, willing away the treacherous notion. Her crew would never join with the queen of Xen Ptera, no matter how threatened. But what had Dex said about them...changing?

Then the door slid open, and all thoughts were driven from her mind as Andi darted inside, quickly scanning her palm on the interior access panel and entering a command to seal off the bridge. She exhaled, for what seemed to be the first time since she woke up, as the door slid shut behind her. It wouldn’t keep Dex out forever—after all, the ship had been his for years—but he’d still have a hell of a time getting in here once he came to.

For a moment, Andi rested her forehead against the cool metal of the door, which was at such odds with her flaming flesh. She closed her eyes and took a slow, deep breath, then turned to look at the row of seats where her crew had once sat.

Seats that were now so terribly empty.

Her vision, once murky from the drugs, slowly started to clear as Andi made her way toward the front of the bridge. A groan slipped its way past her lips when she finally sat down in the pilot’s seat. It felt so wrong sitting there, as if she were taking the space that had always belonged to Lira. A space that she had no right to claim, after what had happened to Kalee. But Andi pushed her discomfort aside, replacing it with the fierce need to get her girls back. How she felt about piloting didn’t matter—not when their lives were at risk.

That was, if Queen Nor hadn’t killed them already.

Even as the thought crossed her mind, she vanquished it immediately. They were alive. They had to be. She couldn’t afford to think otherwise; couldn’t deal with that pain. It would hurt more than being skinned alive and slowly burned until her bloody flesh crisped over.

She had to save them, even if she got herself killed in the process.

Trying and dying was better than not trying at all.

With every second counting against her, Andi willed her aching arms up onto the console and slowly, painstakingly entered the coordinates for Arcardius. The navigation holoscreen began to flicker before her eyes, highlighted by the swirling, shimmering clouds outside the varillium walls of the ship.

The dense fog of color obscured Andi’s view of the stars, and the sight of it sent a shiver of dread down her spine. “Memory?” she asked breathlessly.

The soothing female voice of the Marauder’s control system came to life around her. “How may I assist you, Captain?”

“Where exactly are we?”

There was a long pause before Memory responded. “The navigation system is currently off-line. I am unable to determine our precise location at this time.”

Andi stared at the dancing whorls of pink and gold mist, a sudden suspicion dawning. “Memory, what was the destination of the last hyperspace jump?”

“The last coordinates entered were for a location just outside the Xintra Nebula.”

Andi’s hands began to shake with rage. Her ship was inside a damned nebula. A massive pocket of space filled with gases and debris that rendered the Marauder’s tracking and navigation systems utterly useless. A place only the most skilled pilots could hope to fly through without losing their way.

And not just any nebula—the Xintra Nebula. Clear across the galaxy from the Phelexos System, and Arcardius. As far away as she could possibly be from her girls.

Andi choked out a humorless laugh. She was going to murder Dex when he woke up.

The sound of a pounding fist on the bridge’s door made her jump, sending a wave of pain crashing through her body. A muffled shout echoed from the other side. “Andi, please, let me in!”

The unfamiliar voice had Andi rising from her seat and instinctively reaching for her twin swords. She cursed softly when she realized that they were likely still in the med bay, and began scanning the room for another weapon. Surely Gilly or Breck had stashed a gun in here somewhere.

The person outside hammered on the door again, more urgently this time. “Andi, it’s Lon. Open the door! We need to talk.”

Andi’s knees went weak with relief. Lon. She’d forgotten that Lira had arranged for him to be moved onto the Marauder during the Ucatoria Ball, to speed the crew’s departure from Arcardius after they finished their guard duties for General Cortas. He must have already been on the ship when Dex brought her on board after the attack.

And, most important, he was an ally. Surely Lon wanted to rescue his sister just as much as she did. Together, the two of them could convince Dex to pilot them out of here and back to Arcardius.

The anger and adrenaline that had carried her thus far was quickly dissipating, though, and the distance to the access panel suddenly seemed a lot farther than it had earlier. Andi sank back into the pilot’s seat, cursing under her breath at the state her body was in, and said, “Memory, unseal the damn door before Lon pummels it to death.”

The bridge door slid open with a hiss, and Lon entered cautiously, a wary expression on his blue face. Andi raised an eyebrow at him and turned back to the holoscreen, which was flashing with an error message. She swiped it away and brought up a diagram of the Mirabel Galaxy, projecting it into the air around them.

“We’re in the Xintra Nebula,” Lon said, pointing to the dusty pink cloud that hovered in space between the Olen and Tavina systems.

“Yes, I’d gathered that already,” Andi remarked dryly. “And why, exactly, are we here, when my crew—when your sister—is on the other side of the galaxy?”

Lon looked weary as he sank down into the seat that was usually Breck’s. “We’re here because Queen Nor is also on the other side of the galaxy. Along with her army of mind-controlled minions.”

She blinked. “Excuse me? Mind control?” Even saying those two words sounded ridiculous. “What the hell are you talking about?”

He sighed in exasperation. “Seriously, Andi? Didn’t you let Dex explain anything before you knocked him out?”

Andi felt her temper rising as heat flooded her cheeks. “He left my girls behind, Lon. I wasn’t exactly in the mood to listen to anything he had to say.”

“He didn’t have much of a choice. If he’d tried to rescue them, too, we’d probably all be dead or under Nor’s control now.” Lon shook his head and rose to his feet, holding a hand out to Andi. “Come on. Let’s head back to the med bay. You’re bleeding all over the place, and we can try to wake Dex up. He was there—he can tell you what happened much better than I can.”

* * *

For years, Andi hadn’t allowed herself to rely on anyone but herself and her crew. No one else had proved worthy of her trust, and even when it came to Lira, Breck and Gilly, Andi vastly preferred being the one guarding their backs.

So as she and Lon made their slow trek to the med bay, Andi was mortified to find herself leaning on him more and more, unable to stand upright on her own. She gritted her teeth in frustration and tried to will some strength into her legs, but the effort was useless.

“There’s no shame in accepting help, Andi,” Lon said gently. “You nearly died, and you’ve been heavily sedated for almost a week now. I’m surprised you were even able to make it to the bridge in the first place.”

Andi stumbled to a halt as a wave of shock washed over her. She could feel the blood draining from her face as she turned to look up at Lon. “I’ve been out for a week?”

He caught her as she swayed, then guided her the last few steps toward the med bay. “Andi, I don’t think you realize how badly you were hurt, how much blood you lost before Dex managed to get you and General Cortas onto the ship.”

“Wait,” Andi said, her mind reeling with confusion as Lon raised a hand to the access panel beside the med bay door. “The general is here? Cyprian Cortas is on my ship?”

The mere thought of that man here, aboard her ship when her girls were not, made Andi’s blood boil.

“Was,” Lon said. The door slid open, revealing Dex’s muscular frame sprawled out on the floor. Lon entered the med bay swiftly, kneeling down and shaking his shoulder roughly. “He died shortly after we left Arcardius.”

Andi braced herself on the door frame, trying to gauge how she felt about the general’s passing. Cyprian Cortas had been a cruel, ambitious man, but he’d also been one of the greatest generals in the history of Arcardius. And he was the father of the girl she’d once loved like a sister—the girl she’d failed to protect.

Kalee.

The sound of Dex’s groan pulled her away from her dark thoughts. She watched, feeling slightly guilty, as he stirred and raised a hand to his neck, wincing when he touched the spot where she’d stabbed him with the syringe.

As Lon helped him sit up, Dex’s dazed brown eyes slowly rose to meet Andi’s. She held his gaze for a moment, hesitating, wondering what he was thinking. Then his lips quirked up into a half smile, and he said, “I know I needed the sleep, Baroness, but you could have just suggested I take a nap.”

His tone was teasing, but Andi could see the underlying sadness and worry in his eyes. She tried to keep her voice light as she asked, “And would you have actually listened?”

Dex ducked his head, but not quickly enough to mask his pained expression. “Probably not. You know I’ve never been very good at that.”

A pang of remorse filled her chest, adding to the gradually worsening ache from her wound. “Me neither,” Andi admitted.

He looked up at her incredulously, hope filling his face. Andi tried to smile at him, but it turned into a grimace as a stabbing pain coursed through her. She sucked in a breath through her teeth as Lon stood and hurried to her side.

“You both need to rest,” he said sternly, steering her back toward the bed she’d woken up in. “And you likely need some new stitches. But I think you might try to stab us with something worse than a dose of soduum if you don’t get some answers soon.”

“You’re not wrong,” Andi replied weakly, easing herself onto the mattress with Lon’s help. Dex clambered to his feet and made his way to her bedside while Lon peeled away the blood-soaked bandage on her chest. Andi glanced down and hissed at the sight of the angry-looking gash.

“Another scar to add to my collection, courtesy of that bastard Valen Cortas,” she said darkly.

“That description of him is truer than you might imagine,” Dex said, settling into a chair next to Andi’s bed as Lon hurried to fetch the supplies he needed to tend her wound. “Considering he’s not the son of Merella and Cyprian Cortas.”

Andi stared at him, certain she’d misunderstood. “Come again?”

“Well, Cyprian is—or rather, was—his father,” Dex clarified. “But his mother...his mother was Klaren Solis.”

Andi’s jaw dropped. “What?” she yelped. “But...that means...”

Dex nodded. “That he’s Queen Nor’s half brother, yes.”

Before she could fully process the horror of that thought, Lon returned with a needle, some surgical thread and bandages. He coaxed Andi back onto the pillows and began repairing the damage she’d done to her wound as Dex filled in the rest of the story, telling her what the general had revealed during his dying moments.

How Klaren had somehow bewitched him during the years she’d lived on the Cortas estate as his prisoner. How she’d become pregnant with his child—a son he’d always feared would someday inherit his mother’s strange abilities. A son he could never trust, could never name as his heir.

A son who was half–Xen Pterran—or perhaps something else entirely.

“So Valen and Nor have some kind of compulsion ability?” Andi asked as Lon finished smoothing the new bandage into place.

“Judging from what happened during the Ucatoria Ball, I’d say definitely,” Dex said, his expression darkening. “All those people who were shot... I thought they were dead. But they weren’t bleeding. The room should have been full of blood, but there was hardly a drop. And then...” He shuddered, as if he were reliving the memory in his mind. “They started to rise. And when Valen told them to bow to their queen, they just...did. Without question.”

“The girls, too?” Andi whispered.

Dex nodded jerkily, and Andi looked away, her eyes welling. She breathed in deep, once, twice, holding back the tears that threatened to fall.

Tears wouldn’t save her crew. Tears were a weakness she couldn’t afford.

“We have to go back,” she said. “We have to free them.”

“It’s not that simple,” Lon interjected, shaking his head. “We have no idea how Nor and Valen are controlling them. How they’re controlling everyone. We can’t just go flying back to Arcardius and hope for the best. We need more information. We need a plan.”

“They want to be there, Andi,” Dex added, taking one of her hands in his. “Or at least they think they do. They’ll likely fight us if we try to take them away from Nor.”

She didn’t want to believe their stories of that night. But their faces were haunted, as if, even though they wished it weren’t true, they could not escape the reality of it.

The thought of leaving the girls in Nor’s clutches broke her heart. Valen and the Xen Pterran queen could be torturing them right now, or forcing them to do the most horrific things. But Dex and Lon were right—they’d never be able to rescue her crew if they got themselves killed in the process.

Andi squeezed Dex’s hand and nodded decisively. “So we find a way to free their minds and come up with a plan to get them out.”

“And then?” Lon asked.

Andi allowed an icy smile to spread across her face. “And then the Bloody Baroness will go hunting.”

CHAPTER 3

VALEN —THREE WEEKS LATER

Valen’s fingers twitched as he paced the floating garden that had once been the favorite haunt of his younger sister, Kalee.

Half sister, he reminded himself. Now that he was back on Arcardius, Valen found it all too easy to get lost in the memories of his past. A past in which Kalee had been the only bright spot; the only person he’d truly cared about. Merella, the woman he’d once believed to be his mother, had always been distant with him, never quite embracing him with the same warmth she’d given Kalee in abundance. And his father...

Well, now he knew the truth. Now he knew why Merella had never loved him, and why his father had always hated him.

The air was crisp today, a reminder that the cold season was approaching. With the first frost, the verdant plants and jewellike flowers of this garden would turn a frothy blue, a sign of hibernation. They would spend the five months of the cold season frozen between life and death—held in limbo, just like Valen had felt for his entire existence.

Until Nor.

The only reason Valen stayed on Averia was because he loved his other half sister. The floating mountain that was home to the Cortas estate had always felt like a prison to him, and even now, with the Cortas family gone, his memories of them continued to hold him captive. But Nor had rescued him from his false life. She had saved him by giving him a name.

Not Cortas, but Solis.

He owed her everything, for the way she’d allowed him to see the truth of who he really was: a man with compulsion in his blood, with a rightful claim to a life that was so much richer than the one he’d always known, but never truly felt part of. And even though he held control of the minds across Mirabel... Nor was his true queen.

With every moment that passed, with every new soldier that set out across Mirabel to spread the Zenith virus, more minds were added to Valen’s nexus of connections. At first, he’d felt the exact moment when each silver bullet hit its target. The bullets contained a serum that Nor’s two-headed scientist, Aclisia, had perfected back on Xen Ptera. She’d somehow replicated strands of Valen’s DNA and used them to create a virus that forever linked the minds of its victims to his own, leaving them vulnerable to his compulsions.

The noise had been too much to bear at first.

The first few connections during Valen’s training on Xen Ptera had nearly overcome him. Nor had supplied traitors and criminals for him to practice on, and he’d often lost himself to their dark thoughts in those early days. Darai, the ancient adviser who’d served Nor all her life, had assisted with Valen’s training in the beginning, but Valen hadn’t been able to tolerate his condescending nature for long. Nor had taken over then, and eventually, Valen had learned how to control his power.

Over time, he discovered a way to quiet the minds, to lock them away in their very own realm, so that when a new mind was added, it was simply background noise. He’d strengthened the mental boundaries around that realm, building walls around those other minds, until they were contained in an impenetrable fortress that rivaled the obsidinite prison he’d once been trapped in on Lunamere.

And then, finally, there was silence.

Now he need only hear the minds when he pleased. And with the help of the Zenith virus, Valen could reach them from anywhere in the galaxy. He compelled them to serve Nor, their true queen—no matter the cost.

Hiding away again, little brother?

His sister’s teasing voice cut through the birdsong in the garden. It entered his mind like a warm, comforting blanket, soothing Valen in a way nothing else ever had. He’d come to love their connection, his power feeding off it every time they spoke into each other’s minds.

On Xen Ptera, they’d shared a life together—two years spent honing Valen’s powers. And all the while, his heartless father never came looking for him. Valen had once cared about pleasing the general, but now he knew that hope had been futile. Foolish, and utterly pointless. His father had never been capable of loving him, of feeling pride in his son.

Now all he cared about was pleasing Nor, and making up for the time they’d each lost to their tainted childhoods—Valen a prisoner to his father, Nor a prisoner to her pain and grief.

Now they could delight in their shared freedom.

I’m not hiding, Valen thought back to Nor, a smile spreading across his face. I’m simply avoiding a certain adviser who gets on my nerves. Whenever Darai calls a meeting, you can guess what my next move will be.

Valen could practically see his sister rolling her golden eyes on the other side of their link. She knew he felt a strong dislike for the old man. Darai reminded Valen of his father—something about his face, or perhaps the darkness in his eyes. He always felt like Darai didn’t think he was good enough, worthy enough, to be so closely linked to his precious Nor.

Valen suspected that part of his distaste was due to the history Darai and Nor shared. The old adviser had practically raised Nor, and she saw him as an uncle, albeit one who frequently irritated her. And during all their years together since Nor’s birth, they’d never had to pretend that Mirabel was all that mattered. They’d always known the truth, while Valen was still playing catch-up.

With a scowl, he tossed a rock into the pond across from him, startling a purple-eyed creature lazing at the water’s edge. It scampered away, fading into the overgrown foliage, and Valen followed its path until his eyes landed on the massive silver ring floating beyond the garden, just visible through the trees.

Nexus.

The monstrous satellite had become Nor’s new obsession in the wake of their takeover during the Ucatoria Ball. Engineers, scientists and workers had been laboring around the clock these past few weeks, perfecting every angle and plane of the device that would amplify Valen’s compulsion ability, sending his message to every corner of the galaxy.

The True Queen of Mirabel is Nor Solis. Protect her, honor her, worship her cause.

It was a massive undertaking, but Valen had every faith that his sister would see it done. Nor was a woman on a mission, and when she set her mind to something, she was unstoppable.

Her voice in his mind drew Valen’s focus back to the present. Avoiding is the same thing as hiding, brother. Shouldn’t you want to be here for this? It’ll be fun!

Define fun, Valen thought, sending the message through their mental doorway. A muscle at his temple twitched, the twinge of a headache coming on. Valen sighed and rubbed his forehead with paint-stained fingers.

Another headache? Nor asked. Even through their mental link, he could sense her concern. For ever since Nor took control, and the galaxy was swept up in Valen’s compulsion...he’d changed in so many ways.

He was more powerful than he’d ever been, but he was also tired. The kind of bone-weary exhaustion he couldn’t quite shake.

It’s just stress, Valen thought back to his sister. Probably brought on by the medical droid you’ve had following me for two days now. Which, if you haven’t noticed, has mysteriously disappeared.

Her silence told him that she knew she’d been caught. He sighed as Nor backed away from the door between their minds, sending him a final image of the scene before her. A makeup artist with deep blue eyebrows was dabbing something colorful onto her cheeks, helping her prepare for the speech she’d be making in a short while.

You look beautiful, sister, he thought. The people will fall in love with you all over again when they see you on the feeds today.

Valen felt Nor smile just before the link faded. He knew she was worried about him, but there were so many other things Nor needed to focus on right now.

Like the Unaffected attacks.

It was something Valen had feared from the beginning, after he’d learned that some wouldn’t be affected by his compulsion. Their numbers were slim, if Aclisia’s extensive testing of the Zenith virus was anything to judge by. For every hundred that fell to Valen’s compulsion, bowing to Nor despite their original feelings toward her, only one resisted. So despite his unease, he’d never truly thought they’d be able to fight back.

But barely a week into Nor’s reign, a group of Unaffecteds had banded together and destroyed the military barracks on Tenebris that housed many of the newest recruits to the cause. Valen had felt the moment those minds beneath his compulsion had died. As if they were matches snuffed out. There one moment, gone the next.

It happened again, mere days later, on Adhira. A small but organized group of Unaffecteds had emerged from the jungle sector of the terraformed planet and struck down the communication towers. Nor’s video feed, which was on a constant loop across the galaxy, had been cut off for half a day’s time.

Though news of more attacks continued to trickle back to Arcardius from every corner of Mirabel, it wasn’t enough to strike terror in Valen’s heart. No, it would take a lot more than that to break him. But he saw the way Nor’s hands were often curled into fists. How her lips, normally smooth and polished, had crusted over with small scabs, from biting at them in her sleep. The last thing she needed was to spend even a single moment worrying about him.

Valen needed to stay strong for her. The Unaffecteds would fall eventually, when they ran out of steam. When they realized that the galaxy was beyond saving. And sending Nexus into the sky was the best way to achieve that, to ensure that Valen’s compulsion would be sent out across the galaxy forevermore, even long after he was gone.

Sometimes, Valen could scarcely believe what they had already accomplished; how quickly the galaxy had fallen beneath their joined hands. Having a scientist of Aclisia’s caliber on their side had been vital to their success in that regard. It had been her idea to send out the orbs full of tainted rain as soon as they’d seized control of Arcardius.