“The Void? What are you even talking about?” Andi asked. She was sick of being confused, and she needed answers before she’d consider any kind of alliance with Klaren. “Cyprian killed you. The records say he got rid of you the day he destroyed Xen Ptera.”
Klaren’s eyes were somber as she nodded. “He tried. But we have little time to share tales.” She sighed, and then that robotic voice said, “There is another world out there, beyond this one, called Exonia. And if Nor and Valen succeed in completing Nexus, they will use it to access the nuclear arsenals across Mirabel. They’ll then use those weapons to blast open the Void, just beyond your home planet, and bring Exonia forth.”
Alfie’s words from earlier came back to Andi suddenly. If Valen and Nor weren’t from Mirabel, then of course their mother wasn’t, either.
It made sense. Yet still, Andi found Klaren’s tale hard to believe.
Klaren knelt before them, picked up a bit of charcoal and ran it across the floor, a deep black circle stark against the blue cave floor. “Exonia exists alongside Mirabel. It is a world that has watched ours for eons, waiting in vain for a savior to open the doorway. Exonia is my true home. Or it once was, anyway.”
“And that means your children...” Dex trailed off, mistrust in his eyes. “They’re from Exonia, too?”
“Their blood is half-Exonian, yes,” Klaren said. “That is how they inherited the compulsion ability I once had. But even at my full strength, my power was weaker than theirs. I require my tongue, my real voice, to compel the minds of others. Cyprian Cortas took that from me—and he took my children, so they would remain separated. They were less of a threat to him that way. But before he cast me out, I was able to pass a message to my daughter, Nor, through a mental bond we shared. I told her about her true lineage, and that she had a brother.”
Despair filled Klaren’s eyes as she added, “And I told her that Exonia was in need of a savior like her, to allow them entry.”
“Why do they need a savior?” Andi asked.
“Exonia is a dying world,” Klaren explained. Slowly, she began to shed her heavy red armor, unbuckling it piece by piece to reveal her small frame beneath. “I came here long ago, with one other, in hopes of becoming that savior. I wanted the glory for myself, and yet, when I came to Mirabel, I fell in love. This is a world of purest light, so different from the vast Exonian darkness I had always known.” She lifted her hands, which were scarred and yet somehow delicate. “In this world, you have bodies. You have freedom. The Exonians are not so blessed.”
“You don’t have...bodies?” Dex asked, wide-eyed. There were plenty of races in Mirabel, but nothing quite so unique as that.
“No,” Klaren said. “Instead, we have abilities, gifted from the Godstars themselves. A few of us, called the Yielded, were once the strongest of our kind. We were given bodies, ones that took centuries to create, so that we could make the journey to Mirabel and find a way for our people to someday join us here. There’s a small doorway in the Void, a tiny tear that allows us entrance, but our elders feared that if all the Exonian people tried to come through at once, the Mirabellians would see us as an invading force, and respond accordingly.”
“So you came over,” Andi said. She still didn’t fully trust the woman, but if there was any truth to her tale, they needed to know everything Klaren could tell them. “To be that person? To open the Void?”
Klaren nodded. Her little droid scuttled across her shoulder, concealed for a moment by the smoke from the fire. “We were supposed to come over as a group, the Yielded and I. But I have never been one to place my trust in any other.” She swallowed hard. “I killed them all, in one fell swoop. I should not have done it. But there is no changing the past. They live among the Godstars now.”
A dangerous woman, no doubt. And yet she was spilling the truths of her past as if she truly regretted them.
Klaren continued. “I arrived, with only my adviser, in hopes of using my compulsion to sway the system leaders of Mirabel, to persuade them to allow the Exonians peaceful migration into this galaxy.”
“But you’re supposedly working against your children?” Dex scoffed. “You said you need to stop them from finishing what you started, but if that was your life goal, if you started this in the first place... What changed? And how can we be sure you aren’t simply trying to help them now by destroying the Underground—the only people who are standing up against the Solis siblings?”
Klaren’s face folded into a frown. “The tale is a long one, full of pain and regret.”
“We all have pain,” Andi said with a growl. “Why the hell should we care about yours?”
Dex placed a calming hand on her wrist. Andi almost yanked away from him, but he sent her a meaningful glance before looking back at Klaren with careful eyes, nodding slowly for her to carry on.
“When I first arrived in Mirabel, I managed to compel my way into the heart of the Xen Pterran king,” Klaren began. “Adonis was a good man. Kind. I couldn’t help falling in love with him, and because he loved his planet so deeply, I grew to love Xen Ptera, too. To love all of Mirabel. And then...” Her eyes softened, turned wistful. “I got pregnant with Nor, and I loved her above everything else. In my happiness, I began to forget my mission—I lost myself in the life I’d made here.”
She looked at the fire, eyes distant as the flames flickered back in them. “But as everyone now knows, the full might of Arcardius eventually came to Xen Ptera. The war was bloody, and brutal... Our people were dying by the thousands. So I gave myself over to Cyprian in order to save them, to save Nor. With the aid of my compulsion, he agreed to a cease-fire. But I never saw my husband or my daughter again. I left Nor in the care of Darai, so that she might someday learn the truth about herself and her abilities.”
“The adviser you came here with?” Dex asked.
Klaren nodded. “During my time on Arcardius, I compelled Cyprian to love me. To this day, I find myself wondering whether my control over him was ever real, or if he was always seething below the surface of my compulsion, desperate to break free and end my life. Still, I became pregnant with his child, during those years I spent on Arcardius.”
“Valen,” Andi said, as the realization hit her fully.
Klaren nodded, looking so much like Nor in that moment that it sent tendrils of unease crawling down Andi’s skin.
“Eventually, Cyprian discovered a way to overcome my compulsion. I still don’t know how he did it, but...he managed to trick me. I begged him to return me to Xen Ptera, knowing that my chances of opening the Void were gone, once he knew the truth about me. And I no longer wanted to—not really. I loved Mirabel too much.” Tears began to fill Klaren’s eyes. “But after we flew to Xen Ptera, as we hovered above the planet...he cut out my tongue. He destroyed Xen Ptera. And then he cast me out, ripping me away from Valen and Nor forever.”
Andi had heard the story, about the great explosion that rained down from the sky when Cyprian gave the order to destroy the Olen System’s capital planet for good. But she’d never known Klaren was aboard his ship that day. She couldn’t imagine how devastating it must have been to watch—even if Klaren hadn’t been born on Xen Ptera, it was clear that she had embraced it as her home.
“In that moment, I hated everything Cyprian stood for,” Klaren admitted, and Andi couldn’t find it within herself to blame the former Xen Pterran queen one bit. “I wanted to destroy him. I had hoped that if Nor heard my message, if she knew about the mission I’d failed to complete...then perhaps she could finish it for me. Perhaps she could do something good for Mirabel. Take over, with Valen at her side, and become the leader I was never able to be. She could rule both worlds together, as one.
“I haven’t been able to connect with her since,” Klaren explained. “When Cyprian cut me off from my compulsion, I lost my ability to create that mental link between us. And she was so young, and untrained... I didn�
�t know if she’d received the message. I didn’t even know if she would survive the attack. And I never knew...” She looked down, brushing away the tears that streaked down her cheeks. “I never knew what terror she would bring to Mirabel. That she would reign with an iron fist, so like Cyprian. Or that she would use Valen’s compulsion, far stronger than her own, to ensnare the minds of so many.”
“Well, her entire planet was virtually destroyed, and she was forced to grow up in the rubble,” Dex pointed out. “So perhaps it’s not that surprising.”
“Seriously, Dextro?” Andi snapped.
“I’m not saying what she’s done is right,” Dex said defensively. “It’s just that...revenge is a powerful motivator. It makes people do the wildest things, even give all of themselves, to see it through to the end.”
“Perhaps,” Klaren admitted, “but I fear that she may also have been unduly influenced by Darai all these years.”
“Your old adviser?” Andi asked, trying to keep track of all the new information the woman had revealed thus far.
Klaren nodded. “Yes. After Cyprian exiled me, I crash-landed on Solera.” She gestured to her face. “That’s how I wound up with these scars. For a time, I thought Darai might find a way to track me down, but he never came, and I didn’t have the resources to make the journey back to Xen Ptera myself.” Her expression darkened. “I sent him several messages, which he never responded to. Then I learned that Nor had survived, that she had assumed the throne after her father’s death, with the aid of a distant relative. An uncle, by the name of Darai.
“I never should have left her in his grasp.” The voice of Klaren’s droid was quiet, barely audible. “I trusted him once, but after having years to reflect on his behavior... I don’t believe that Darai ever really cared about me, but rather, my power alone. He was weak when I first met him back in Exonia. He was...something strange, a dark sort of being I came across. A Yielded who’d been stripped of his power for a reason he always claimed was unjust.”
“But you somehow found it within yourself to trust him anyway?” Andi asked incredulously. “Even knowing that?”
Klaren bowed her head. “I was young and careless, and I cared more for my own ambitions than the well-being of our people. And now I’m afraid that my children—and this entire galaxy—will pay the price for my youthful mistakes. Unless you help me find a way to stop all this, before it’s too late.”
“Would it be so terrible if the Exonians came here?” Dex asked tentatively. “There are plenty of habitable places in Mirabel that are only sparsely populated. Maybe there’s a way to negotiate with Valen and Nor. If we allowed the Exonians entry, perhaps they could lift the compulsion in exchange? Set the Mirabellians free?”
“It’s not that simple,” she said. “You remember what I told you—that the Exonians don’t have bodies of their own?”
Dread crept up Andi’s spine as she nodded. She had a feeling she wasn’t going to like where this was going.
“If the Exonians come through the Void, they will need to...occupy the bodies that are already here,” Klaren said, the droid’s voice slow and deliberate. “Our own world is very different from this one, more compatible to our natural forms. It is a place of water and darkness, but here, in the air and sunlight...we would require a host body in order to survive.”
“So you’re parasites,” Andi spit out.
Klaren flushed. “In a manner of speaking, yes. That’s why Valen and Nor require absolute control over the minds of this galaxy—they need the Mirabellians to serve as willing hosts for the Exonians when they cross over.”
The look of horror on Dex’s face mirrored exactly what Andi was feeling.
“Exactly what kind of monsters are your children?” she cried. “How could they want to do something like this? They’d essentially be wiping out an entire galaxy of people—their own people, no less—to make room for some parasites from another world?”
Klaren raised her hands in supplication. “I don’t think they truly understand what will happen when they open the Void,” she insisted. “From the information I’ve managed to gather over the years... I don’t believe Darai has told them the full truth about our people. Nor sees herself as a savior—she thinks that she’s fulfilling the destiny I failed long ago, and that she can save my people from death and ruination. And while that’s true, Darai has failed to tell her what the cost will be. And Valen...” Klaren looked away. “After the way Cyprian treated him all these years, I’m not surprised that he’s embraced the idea of having a real family at last—and of finally having some power of his own.”
“That still doesn’t give them the right to take over the minds of everyone in Mirabel,” Andi protested. She took a deep breath, trying to keep her emotions in check. She had no love for the capital planets of Mirabel, had only felt wanted by the people who wished to put her behind bars. Sometimes, she dreamed of the worst people in the galaxy—the people like her parents and Cyprian—getting what they deserved. Given a taste of a life on the run, a life always spent looking over one’s shoulder, for fear of their own darkness catching up to them.
But this? This was something else entirely. She felt physically sick just thinking of the news Klaren had shared. Thinking of Lira, and Breck, and Gilly, their bodies stolen along with their minds. Forever prisoner to something other from Exonia. If it was true...then she wouldn’t stand for it.
She wouldn’t even let Nor and Valen get close.
“Look, I get it, they’re your children. You want to believe the best about them,” Andi said. “But my crew is back on Arcardius, trapped under your son’s compulsion, doing your daughter’s bidding, and now you’re telling me that soon their bodies are going to be stolen, too?” The very thought filled her with rage. “I don’t care what Nor and Valen do or don’t know. I’m going to kill them myself, before it’s too late. With or without your help.”
Andi spun on a heel, heading for the tunnel back to the undercity, yanking Dex along behind her.
“Killing them won’t do anyone any good,” Klaren called after her. When Andi hesitated, she added, “Only the one who starts the compulsion can end it—and only by their choice.”
The news of that nearly brought Andi to her knees.
“Then there’s no hope?” she whispered. “No hope of saving anyone?”
She saw her crew’s faces in her mind. Lira’s soft smile, Breck’s laughing face, Gilly’s bright and mischievous eyes. But she also saw others. Countless others, who would never taste freedom again. Innocent lives, people spread all across the galaxy who were simply doing their best to thrive day in and day out.
“There is a way,” Klaren said. “And strangely enough, we have Cyprian to thank for it.”
Dex crossed his arms, brows rising into his hairline. “What way?”
“Nor and Valen cannot open the Void without access to all of Mirabel’s nuclear arsenals,” Klaren said. “Each planet has one, created during the Cataclysm. Cyprian spearheaded the effort during the years I lived on Averia with him. When we were together, I was constantly at his side, in meetings, at meals, where the leaders whispered of their plans behind the scenes. The weapons network can only be accessed by each planet’s leader. But because they are all dead...only their successor has that power now.”
“So Nor has the power,” Andi said. “How does that help us? You said that as soon as Nexus is complete, she’ll use those weapons to blast open the Void.”
“Not quite,” Klaren corrected. “Only a rightful heir, chosen by at least one of the previous system leaders, can gain control of the weapons network. There were countless fail-safes built into the system to ensure this.”
Beside Andi, Dex began to shift uneasily on his feet. Andi shot him a quick glance, and he stilled, but kept his eyes averted from hers.
“So Cyprian’s successor has power now,” Klaren explained. “If Nor is able t
o get her hands on his successor, and bring them over to her side...then Exonia will be unleashed.” Her expression turned pleading once more. “I am fighting to undo what I began long ago, Androma,” Klaren said, her droid’s voice soft now behind the light of the dying fire. “Because it isn’t always about power. Sometimes it’s about preserving the things that make living truly worth it.”
Her words hung in the air between them like a promise—one Andi wasn’t sure she wanted to believe.
And yet...a part of her did believe it.
“You said you wanted my help,” Andi said. “Why me?”
“Andi,” Dex started, reaching for her hand. His voice was almost pained—as if he already knew what Klaren was going to say. But how could he?
Klaren met Andi’s gaze with those eyes, so much like her daughter’s, rimmed in gold. “We’ve uncovered the identity of Cyprian’s heir, just as Nor likely has, too.”
“Who?” Andi asked, dumbfounded. “And what does that have to do with me?”
“You don’t know? Isn’t it obvious by now?” Klaren asked, holding out her hands. They, too, had scars across the palms. Burn scars that reminded Andi of the ones held together beneath her cuffs. “You are the General of Arcardius, Androma. Before his death, Cyprian chose you.”
Andi almost laughed. This was a joke—all of it some sick, ridiculous joke.
But the look in Klaren’s eyes wasn’t teasing. And Dex...
“Andi,” he whispered, turning to face her, his voice pleading. “Andi, you have to understand. I didn’t want to tell you before, when you were still recovering... There was never really a good time to bring it up—”
“You knew?” Andi blurted out, betrayal coursing through her. “But how—”
Footsteps sounded out from the tunnel, racing toward them as Soyina ran into the cavernous room. “Apologies, Arachnid,” she said, panting from the exertion. “I have news of the attack on Arcardius. Everything went according to plan—our message was sent to Nor, loud and clear. The Academy grounds are now a pile of rubble.”
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