“What do you mean the Unaffecteds are winning?” Nor hissed at Darai as he stood in front of her in his gray robes. He winced at the venom in her voice. “There’s no war for them to win. Their numbers are few and scattered. Their attacks on us have been pathetic at best.”

Still, the mere mention of the Unaffecteds had her bristling, an unwelcome blight on her morning. No reign was meant to be perfect, if history was told true. But Nor could still imagine it: a galaxy that did not dare, not even a single person, to defy her.

“Look left, please, Majesty,” the makeup artist whispered. Nor tilted her head slightly, and the man brushed a shimmering dust across her cheekbones. “Lovely,” he said, smiling as he dabbed his brush back into the palette. The effect, she knew, looked heavenly, but it did nothing to ease her frustrations.

Nor tried to reach Valen again, but the doorway between their minds was empty, as if he’d backed away from it. He had likely withdrawn to his mind castle, where even she could not travel, exhausted as she was from the past several days.

Valen’s compulsion abilities were far more powerful than Nor’s. She’d known it from the moment she met him in Lunamere. But the constant strain of compelling so many minds at once was taking its toll on him. She saw it in his thinning arms and his emaciated frame, as if he hadn’t eaten in weeks. Dark circles bruised the skin beneath his eyes, and though he smiled often in her presence, it wasn’t quite the same as it had been before.

He’s strong, she reminded herself. He will continue to be strong, because he knows what’s at stake.

And because Nor couldn’t do what Valen did. It was why she’d needed him for this mission of theirs. Nor’s compulsion worked in small, subtle ways. She could get someone to lend her an ear longer than they would have liked. She could ease the tension in a room. But when it came to controlling, to truly holding someone’s mind hostage...only Valen had inherited that strength from their mother’s bloodline. Somehow, Nor had been passed over in that sense.

It had given her a reason to hate her mother for many years—until she’d discovered that Valen existed. Until that moment, in his cell in Lunamere, after so many years of anticipation and training with Darai, when Nor was able to compel Valen not to fear her. To listen to her, and eventually, to understand the truth of his lineage.

She prodded at the mental doorway again, seeking his presence. But she knew he was likely working, as he always was, on continuing their reign. So much for listening to her speech.