Modulate your tone. Proceed with caution. No matter what, he had to ensure Aveline remained ignorant of Nola’s identity. “Where’s your excitement?” he asked with a sneer. Or not modulate his tone, apparently. “Your warrior survived.” Not hers, never hers.

“You’ll see my excitement when you win the war,” she retorted. “A lot has happened since you were frozen.”

“Such as?”

“The All War Alliance allowed another group of warriors to venture to Terra. When those warriors vanished, a third war kicked off. But they vanished, too.”

Rules forbade the High Council from interfering in a war. Of course, no clash had ever ended in a stalemate. “Who did you send?”

“Cayden and Mount. Cayden survived, Mount died.”

Aggression scraped at his insides, the urge to strike something, anything, almost irresistible. Cayden was ruthlessness to the core, with opponents and lovers alike. At least she hadn’t sent Micah, the most violent combatant on her payroll, the man who’d helped her murder Meredith.

“Were their orders the same as mine?” he asked.

“Yes, of course. Cayden thought he’d found Terra’s current princess just before he disappeared.”

Bane’s nail beds burned, his claws lengthening, preparing to strike. The other Adwaewethian warrior would make Nola’s death a priority—if he was found before the end of the All War.

The time for plotting had ended, and the time for action had arrived. He would execute his plan, winning a handful of weapons he desired, and ending the war at the assembly. Finally! Only three weeks to go. Twenty-one days. Anticipation seethed inside him.

After Nola’s Blood Rite, she would yearn to slay every threat to her rulership. With an army of hybrids at her beck and call, she could—and would—succeed.

How many hybrids lived on Terra now, their beasts in perpetual hibernation?

Since three full-blooded beasts had roamed the planet on and off—Bane, Cayden and Mount—the High Council would never learn Aveline’s crimes. In their minds, each warrior could have bedded and impregnated hundreds of women, thus explaining all the hybrids. No one knew Aveline used a mystical toxin to sterilize her warriors before sending them off to war. In exchange for victory, they received the antidote.

“There’s something else you need to know,” Aveline said. “A little over twenty years ago, I sent Micah to Terra in secret, with orders to slay every royal he came across, as well as search for you and Cayden.”

Bane saw red. Calm. Steady. If Micah lived, Bane would find and kill him. Another task to add to his ever-growing list. This one, he would enjoy. “You risked—”

“Quiet,” Aveline bellowed. “You are a soldier, nothing more. We share a past, yes, but it means nothing here in the present. You do not get to chastise me, or question my decisions.”

Furious, he popped his jaw, but he also obeyed, lest she suspect his connection to Nola.