“You’re not wrong,” Andi replied weakly, easing herself onto the mattress with Lon’s help. Dex clambered to his feet and made his way to her bedside while Lon peeled away the blood-soaked bandage on her chest. Andi glanced down and hissed at the sight of the angry-looking gash.

“Another scar to add to my collection, courtesy of that bastard Valen Cortas,” she said darkly.

“That description of him is truer than you might imagine,” Dex said, settling into a chair next to Andi’s bed as Lon hurried to fetch the supplies he needed to tend her wound. “Considering he’s not the son of Merella and Cyprian Cortas.”

Andi stared at him, certain she’d misunderstood. “Come again?”

“Well, Cyprian is—or rather, was—his father,” Dex clarified. “But his mother...his mother was Klaren Solis.”

Andi’s jaw dropped. “What?” she yelped. “But...that means...”

Dex nodded. “That he’s Queen Nor’s half brother, yes.”

Before she could fully process the horror of that thought, Lon returned with a needle, some surgical thread and bandages. He coaxed Andi back onto the pillows and began repairing the damage she’d done to her wound as Dex filled in the rest of the story, telling her what the general had revealed during his dying moments.

How Klaren had somehow bewitched him during the years she’d lived on the Cortas estate as his prisoner. How she’d become pregnant with his child—a son he’d always feared would someday inherit his mother’s strange abilities. A son he could never trust, could never name as his heir.

A son who was half–Xen Pterran—or perhaps something else entirely.

“So Valen and Nor have some kind of compulsion ability?” Andi asked as Lon finished smoothing the new bandage into place.

“Judging from what happened during the Ucatoria Ball, I’d say definitely,” Dex said, his expression darkening. “All those people who were shot... I thought they were dead. But they weren’t bleeding. The room should have been full of blood, but there was hardly a drop. And then...” He shuddered, as if he were reliving the memory in his mind. “They started to rise. And when Valen told them to bow to their queen, they just...did. Without question.”

“The girls, too?” Andi whispered.

Dex nodded jerkily, and Andi looked away, her eyes welling. She breathed in deep, once, twice, holding back the tears that threatened to fall.

Tears wouldn’t save her crew. Tears were a weakness she couldn’t afford.

“We have to go back,” she said. “We have to free them.”

“It’s not that simple,” Lon interjected, shaking his head. “We have no idea how Nor and Valen are controlling them. How they’re controlling everyone. We can’t just go flying back to Arcardius and hope for the best. We need more information. We need a plan.”