Andi didn’t know if she believed that was true. But for this moment, for today... She wanted to believe it.

For she and Dex were now a crew of two. Alone in a frozen land that cared little for its inhabitants, and even less for its visitors. They had no idea where to find safety, other than a fragmented instruction to find the Underground, somewhere in the Briog Sector. In an ice pub.

That was practically nothing to go on.

“Klarisa was a good soldier,” Dex choked out. “A Guardian with a lot of marks upon her skin. But she had no one. She died alone.”

“That’s not true,” Andi protested. “She had you.”

Both Dex and Andi had been responsible for countless deaths over the years. Her victims had always haunted Andi in her dreams, ghostly bodies that she danced with until her guilt eddied and she woke in the morning, finally able to face up to what she’d done. Able to scratch their tallies into her swords.

But those deaths had always been at her hands. And yet somehow, even though Andi hadn’t brought about these recent ones, the faces of those rebels from the Underground tugged at her in the same way. They had been so eager and excited as they shared the hope that there were more Unaffecteds out there, their minds still free of Nor’s power.

Now they’d never see the galaxy freed from the queen’s clutches.

“We’ll make it to the Underground,” Dex said, determination filling his voice. “We’ll make sure their deaths weren’t in vain. And then we’ll make a plan. Figure out what the hell is going on across Mirabel, how we can get back to the girls. We still have a mission, Andi. We need to focus on that.”

He sounded like he was saying it as much for himself as he was for her.

On the dash before them was a screen, its glow barely visible beneath thick layers of dust and grime. Dex wiped it with his gloved hand, revealing a map of the planet’s surface.

A small red dot showed where they were headed—Craatia, the capital domed city of Solera. It was a straight shot from here, three hundred clicks away.

The Soleran landscape was known for being one of the harshest in Mirabel, but it was beautiful all the same. As they journeyed on, their transport hovering a few yards above the snow, Andi took in the view, willing it to overcome her mind. To make it as numb as her body was from the cold. But all she could think about was that damned ice dragon. How it had erupted from the earth out of nowhere, overtaking them in an instant.

It only made her think of Nor’s power, and the might of her threat to Mirabel.