“Oh,” she said softly.

Xourix had been one of the four remaining sanctuaries Siege and her fleet had erected over the last six months. It’d been the largest and the most secure. For Messiers to go all the way to the edge of the kingdom . . .

Without Xourix, the captain was right: there wasn’t a hospital that would serve them. They’d almost gotten arrested at a bar in the slums of a city; there was no way they would be able to waltz into a medical facility.

In the silence Jax’s life support pinged again, and again.

A breath in, a breath out, keeping his heart beating, his blood flowing. There was a light sheen of sweat over his pale skin, as though it had lost its shimmer, accented only by the rush of bruises coming to the surface.

Someone coughed softly.

Everyone startled at the sound. It was Elara. Robb had forgotten she was there. She shifted her weight on her feet, Xu beside her. “I know I’m new here—but why not take him home?”

Home?

The word made his heart lurch.

It was the one place Jax never talked about, the one subject that was off-limits, that would make a cold look flicker into his eyes and bring a swift change of subject. Home was not a good place—that much Robb knew.

“This is his home,” he said.

Elara gave him a strange look, and then her eyes widened in surprise. “Oh. You . . . don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?”

The captain began to answer when the monotonous voice of Xu intervened. “If there is a place that can help the C’zar, it is his home. Zenteli.”

C’zar.

He—he knew that word.

It was always said in passing. How many times had he heard it whispered at the Academy, or tossed around in Wicked Luck rings? The missing C’zar, who ran off and died at the hands of mercenaries. The last of the Solani royalty, chosen by a council of elders to lead their people.

A C’zar.

A prince.

Jax.

Ana

Siege didn’t waste any time hailing Zenteli. It was as if she’d known this would happen eventually. She had a private line to the city’s port authority, which was odd because usually when the Dossier came calling, officers were sent to arrest them, not welcome them.

The communication line crackled, and a voice patched itself through. “Aven’ta za mar Dossier.”

It was the Old Language.

Siege responded in kind. Ana didn’t realize Siege knew the Old Language—at least, Ana had never heard her speak it before. She thought only Ironbloods and Solani knew it.

“We will have personnel on scene to take nan c’zar from you,” the man replied in the common tongue. “Be advised.”

“Da’thoren,” Siege said, and Ana at least knew that to be thank you.

Zenteli was on Iliad, which felt like a billion light-years away from where they were in Eros’s orbit, but was only about half a day’s flight by the calculation on the starshield. Siege brought a timer up in the corner of the shield, and it blinked in countdown to their destination. Ana quietly watched the counter from the communications console, her fingers digging into the plush armrest stuffing.