It seemed to last forever and also be over in an instant. Before I knew it, we reached the foot of the mesa and the palanquin was lowering itself again. The whine of sky-cars roared overhead as Idris helped me disembark, heralding the king’s arrival. There was a stone in my chest. Idris and I would climb the mesa with guards and an escort of the makhzen. The rebels would fire on Mathis’s vessel as we climbed the mesa. I—we—only had to make it halfway up before the old regime was obliterated.

As we climbed, I tried to keep the smile—soft and distant—affixed to my features. My hand tightened around Idris’s the further up the mesa we climbed until at last we cleared the top, and there was King Mathis, alive and well and unharmed.

Something had gone wrong. Something terrible had gone wrong.

I maintained my pleasant expression, though my grip on Idris’s hand must have been agonizing as we crossed the mesa to meet the king. How had they failed? How had his shuttle evaded the rebels? How could he be here, now?

Mathis watched our approach, his eyes cold and hard, his mouth twisted into a small smile. I sank to my knees.

“Your Eminence,” I murmured. He watched me sink to my knees, and his smile became more pronounced. Idris knelt behind me, and then the whole escort, as if a wave had rippled through. Mathis’s hand slid under my chin.

“I wondered,” he said, soft enough that I was the only person who could hear, “whose child you were. Mine or hers. There’s some Vathek steel in you.” His grip tightened. “But no cleverness, it seems.”

I kept my face immobile as he drew me to my feet. I had no way to contact the alliance, to get in touch with Maram, to communicate to anyone the cataclysmic failure unfolding in this moment. When Mathis offered me his arm, I took it. Despite everything, he still couldn’t tell the difference between his daughter and her double. Perhaps, I thought, panicked, I could save Maram in all this. Perhaps I could absolve her, and she could live to fight another day.

“Smile for the galaxy,” he murmured as the rest stood and followed us toward the palace entrance. He laid a hand over mine and squeezed. “You have started a game for your life. And you will not be able to finish it.”

I opened my mouth to respond, though what I might have said I had no idea. Before I could speak, a bird’s cry tore through the air. My eyes jerked skyward and I watched in disbelief as the tesleet I’d seen so many weeks ago, its jewel-toned feathers refracting sunlight, streaked across the sky. Seconds later I heard the rapid-fire thud-thud-thud of a fighter’s canon. Just beyond the mesa, high in the sky, the Vathek fleet was engaged.