Dex closed his eyes, remembering that fateful night. Remembering the desperate words of Cyprian Cortas, the former General of Arcardius, as he lay dying in this very med bay.
The fate of the galaxy is at stake. The leaders are dead, and I’m sure their successors soon will be, as well... Androma is the only Arcardian on this ship once I die. If she survives... Androma Racella will be the rightful General of Arcardius.
General of Arcardius. Leader of the planet that had once wanted her dead. Godstars, how she would hate the very idea of it.
Dex sighed heavily and shifted his chair closer to Andi, tentatively grazing a hand against hers. The warmth of her skin was soothing, that small sign of life the only thing that made the knot of tension inside him loosen in the slightest. He studied the thick white bandage on her chest, just below her collarbone. Hidden beneath were the dark stitches that held her skin together. Mending the flesh that Valen’s knife had torn apart. Dex had seen and inflicted plenty of wounds, some far more gruesome than this. But seeing Andi in such a state brought back a wave of memories that sent his head spinning out of control.
Valen Cortas stood before Andi at the Ucatoria Ball, blood dripping from the knife that he’d just plunged into her chest. Andi fell to her knees, grasping for the hilt with shaking hands, wrenching the blade free. Then she swayed, and the knife tumbled to the ground as Andi collapsed, surrounded by a growing pool of her own blood.
He was too late. For a heartbeat, Dex thought she was dead. All around him, the room was growing quieter, the screams dying down. A few more shots here. A few more there. The thump of a body hitting the floor. The click of another silver bullet sliding into a rifle’s chamber.
Dex finally reached the stage. The system leaders were huddled together in their chairs, bodies of Patrolmen littering the ground around them. But Andi was the only person he had eyes for.
“Hang on,” Dex said to Andi. His fingers found her throat. A tiny heartbeat beneath her skin. “You just hang on.”
Dex blinked at the sound of Andi’s sudden groan.
He realized he’d been squeezing her hand too hard. The ends of his fingernails, ragged from chewing the past few sleepless nights, were biting into her palm. He let go at once, but leaned forward all the same, unable to look away from her face.
“Andi?”
Her eyelids fluttered.
For a moment, Dex feared she was dying. That her stitches had become infected, or the blood that Lon had donated in the few precious moments after their escape had mixed wrongly with hers, universal donor or not. Perhaps even the godstar of death, still so hauntingly present in this room, was laughing as he raised a shadowy scythe and readied himself to bring Andi to the other side.
But then her eyes opened.
Gray as a storming sea.
Dex let out a whooshing breath that he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding.
“Hey,” he said, feeling the tightness flood from him, gone in an instant. “How are you feeling?”
“Dex?” For a moment, Andi simply looked around, as if trying to make sense of her surroundings. She seemed calm, just a person waking from a sound night of sleep.
Then her eyes slowly moved to lock onto Dex’s, and confusion seemed to sweep through her as her forehead wrinkled.
“What...happened?” Andi asked. Her voice was raw from disuse, a whisper trying to break free into something more.
“You’re alive,” Dex said, unable to stop a smile of relief from spreading across his face. “You’re safe.”
“Safe?” Andi asked. She tried to sit up and groaned, a hand flying up toward the white bandages covering the knife wound in her chest.
This was the most awake she’d been in days. Dex took a deep breath, reaching for her hand, still unsure of how to explain it all to her. She may have been gravely injured, but she wasn’t a child. She wasn’t weak in her heart or her soul. She could handle this, though it might come close to breaking her.
“There was an attack on Arcardius,” Dex said. “During Ucatoria. Do you remember?”
Andi’s eyes hardened.
“Nor Solis...she came, and...” Dex’s words trailed off. How could he explain what had happened? How could he tell her that an entire ballroom of people he’d thought dead had suddenly risen and pledged allegiance to the very woman who’d attacked them? The very woman they’d all feared, hated, for nearly ten years?
Worst of all, how could he tell Andi that her crew was among the dead-then-risen who had joined Nor’s side?
“Where is Lira?” Andi asked suddenly. “Breck and Gilly?”
Dex’s heart nearly stopped beating. He opened his mouth, but no words came out.
And then he saw Andi’s expression change as she remembered, the memories slamming into her, making her recoil away from him.
“My crew,” Andi croaked out, voice still raw. He handed her a cup of water. She gulped it down greedily.
“Androma,” Dex pleaded. “I tried. I tried to get to them, but...there was so much chaos. So many enemies. And you were dying.”
Her eyes were wide with fear and rage. Her entire body had begun to shake. “Where. Is. My. Crew?”
She sat up so suddenly he couldn’t stop her, the lurching movement so rough that she cried out in pain. The cup clattered to the floor. Her hand became a vise over Dex’s, his fingers crushed beneath hers. She gritted her teeth and swung her legs over the edge of the bed, facing him head-on, and pain flared in her eyes as red began to blossom against the white of her bandages.
“Where are they?” Andi asked. “Please, Dex. Tell me where they are.”
“They’re...” How could he be the one to break her with such news? He’d only just earned back her forgiveness mere days ago, after years spent hoping to find a place in her heart once more, and now he’d betrayed her again. He was a coward. A failure, for not being able to save her crew before Nor had overtaken them. “Godstars, Andi. I’m so sorry. We left them behind.”
He hated the words the second they fell from his lips, but what was he to do? He couldn’t hide a damned thing from her. She’d already seen the answer in his traitorous eyes, and that the moment she left this med bay, she’d find the ship cold and empty, Lon the only other soul aboard.
“No,” Andi mouthed. So silent, Dex could hardly hear the word. She shook her head, disbelief flooding her features, darkening the half circles beneath her eyes. “No.”
“There was no way for me to get to them in the aftermath of the attack,” Dex said, his voice choked. “The last I saw, they were alive. But they were... Andi, they joined with Nor.”
Everyone in that Arcardian ballroom had. Everyone but Dex and Andi and a few others, but Xen Pterran soldiers had slaughtered those other people at once.
He’d never forget the way that Andi’s fierce crew had fallen. How they’d risen again, and hailed Nor as their queen. Leaving them behind had pained him, still haunted him.
He would relive that day forever in his heart and in his mind.
“We have to go to them,” she insisted. Before he could open his mouth to respond, Andi was on her feet, the loose gray pants she wore swishing as she whirled and stumbled for the door.
“Andi!” Dex lunged toward her. “Stop!”
She