Andi gasped as Klaren lifted her body off her own, gulping down air. She watched as Klaren turned toward the queen and reached for her helmet. Steam spilled out from the sides as she removed it, and the soldiers paused as Nor lifted a hand and told them to hold their fire.

Her eyes widened as she took in Arachnid’s true identity, her lips parting as if she wasn’t sure whether to cry or to scream. Beside her, the adviser’s eyes turned to narrow slits.

“You wanted to know who I was,” Klaren Solis said, staring her children down. Her droid’s voice carried out across the grounds as Nor stood there, frozen in disbelief at the sight of her mother. “Well, here I am, Nor. Back from the dead. And it’s time you and I had a talk.”

CHAPTER 37

NOR

It was impossible.

“But you’re dead,” Darai sputtered. His face was a mask of disbelief.

Nor just stared in shock, feeling like she was absent from her own body as her mother stepped closer.

It wasn’t her, it couldn’t be her...and yet every fiber of Nor’s being screamed that it was.

The woman laughed. The sound was unlike the one from Nor’s memories, coming not from Klaren’s mouth, but from the spiderlike droid upon her shoulder. But the way her eyes crinkled and her face turned upward...it was like a ghostly replication of her mother’s laugh.

Nor had never forgotten that expression, in all the years they’d been apart. Yet it was somehow different, the look in her mother’s eyes not one of joy, but almost sorrow. Her face also wasn’t as Nor remembered it—not fully. Half of it was scarred, as if she’d lived through a great crash or been pulled from a bloody battle.

But those golden eyes, so like her own, so like Darai’s and Valen’s, were impossible to miss, even from twenty paces away.

“Cyprian tried to kill me, yes,” Klaren said, her dark hair swaying with the wind and falling across the scarred side of her face. “But I survived. You should know better than most, Darai, that Exonians are not so easy to kill.”

“What sort of trick is this?” Darai demanded, stepping up beside Nor. He took her hand in his, as if he wished to pull her away from Klaren’s gaze.

Klaren’s eyes, their Exonian color burning bright, swept past Darai, narrowing as they looked at his hand on Nor’s. She tilted her head slightly.

“Still up to your usual tricks, I see,” Klaren said.

“You’re a fool, Klaren,” Darai hissed. “An utter fool to have come here today.”

Klaren ignored him as her eyes flicked back to Nor’s face.

There was so much emotion in that gaze.