But tonight, the taste was stale on her tongue.

Nor sat down beside Zahn, sighing as she looked at the holoscreen he held in his other hand. Androma Racella stared up at her, a wicked half smile on her lips. It was a photograph of the girl from her days as a Spectre here on Averia, guarding Cyprian’s daughter, Kalee. When Nor closed her eyes, she felt as if she could still sense the girl’s presence here in this office, where she’d once attended meetings with the general.

“We’ll never find her,” Nor said, looking down at the amber liquid in her glass. She set the drink aside on the table in front of the couch.

“We will,” Zahn said, reaching for her hand. Nor gently pulled away, entwining her fingers around her golden prosthetic instead. “You’re not one to give up, Nhatilya. Don’t change that now.”

“Of all people, why her?” Nor said, looking at Androma’s pale skin, the metallic implants across her cheekbones, her winter-gray eyes. The girl looked like she carried a thousand secrets—and as if she would kill anyone who dared try to pull them from her. “Why the most renowned criminal in the galaxy?”

She knew the story of the Bloody Baroness. The girl who’d inadvertently slain Cyprian Cortas’s daughter, the very charge she’d sworn her life to protect. As vengeance, he’d trapped Androma into the task of retrieving Valen from Lunamere, an assignment that would have likely been a death mission if Nor hadn’t already planned for Valen to be rescued—a ploy to get him back here to Arcardius without the general suspecting he was an ally of Xen Ptera.

It was clear that Cyprian hated Androma Racella.

So it didn’t make any sense that he would choose her, of everyone in Mirabel, to take his place as General of Arcardius.

“She’s not beneath Valen’s compulsion,” Nor said. “And her ship has left no trace that anyone can find since she fled.”

Again, Nor looked down at the screen. The damned girl had been in her clutches only weeks ago, walking these very halls. Valen had nearly killed her at the Ucatoria Ball. She’d thought the girl would never pose a problem...but now?

With every corner Nor turned, it was as if she saw the ghost of the Bloody Baroness.

“We will find her,” Zahn said again, turning the screen away. “We’ll do whatever it takes to root her out, and make sure you have full command again.”

“And until then?” Nor asked.

Zahn wrapped an arm around her shoulder, pulling her close. “There’s plenty to occupy your time. The completion of Nexus, the running of your new empire...and I can think of a few other things.”