Nor screamed as another mind slammed into her consciousness like a searing blade, turning her vision black. She fell to her knees, hands clapped over her temples as she tried to claw out the pain.

“Enough,” Darai said. “Silence, Nor.”

Her scream faded, as if it had simply dried up in her throat.

I have always had to take matters into my own hands, Darai’s voice hissed inside Nor’s mind, an unwelcome, poisonous presence. Her legs shook, her body trembling with the effort to shove him out. Command the guards to seize you. Hand yourself over to me.

A terrible coldness had overtaken Nor. It spread, inch by inch, through her system, until she was encased in ice. “Guards,” Nor heard her own voice saying. She wanted to scream, wanted to take it back, but she was helpless. “Darai is now in command.”

She had no way to stop it as she heard her mother’s robotic voice cry out across the field. “Nor! Fight back! Fight against this! You have my blood in your veins. You can resist him!”

She tried, with all of her strength. But she’d never had compulsion like Valen, never had power even close to his, and now, Nor could tell that he had been taken, too. And if he had fallen to Darai, with all of that strength he possessed...then there was no hope, not even a shred of it, for her.

Her own guards seized her, pulling her away from Darai so that she stood beside Valen.

“Take him to the satellite,” Darai commanded. “You should be the one to upload him, Nor. Imagine how poetic that will be.” He looked at Androma. “You, too, my dear. We will need your access to destroy this world.”

Nor’s hand reached out and took Valen by the arm, her fingers wrapping around his thin frame.

No, her mind screamed. Stop this, Nor. Fight back!

But she had no fight left. Her legs moved as if they were someone else’s. She couldn’t even try to stop them. Slowly, Nor and Valen moved toward the satellite, and Nor knew, she knew, that Valen was gone. That he had been for a while now, that he’d never wanted to give himself over to the cause. She’d sensed something was wrong in her office, when he’d told her what he wanted to do, but something had told her to brush it off, to accept what Valen wanted, to put the mission and his sacrifice first.

It had been Darai all along. This wasn’t a willing sacrifice.

It was murder.

And if what Klaren said was true...then Exonia was going to destroy Mirabel. She’d been fighting for the wrong side all these years.