We’d been over it a hundred times. I’d tried everything: the soothing lights, the temperature setting, the right mix of plants, even a weak version of oombole-safe sedative. We’d gotten as far as the fishbowl, and that’s where things stopped.

The ceremony was due to start in three minutes.

“What if I die…? Would they eat me? Would they cook my body?”

Sean stepped forward and pulled off his robe. “Look at me.”

Oond obediently stared at him.

Sean’s body blurred. An enormous alpha werewolf spilled out, seven feet tall and shaggy with dark fur. Golden eyes caught Oond in an unblinking predator stare. The oombole froze.

Please don’t faint again. Please don’t faint.

“Look at my teeth,” Sean said, his voice a deep snarl. He bared his fangs.

Oond stared at him, unable to look away.

“Someone trying to hurt you will have to get through me. I will kill anyone who tries to harm you. Anyone.”

Oond’s fins shivered a tiny bit, then finally moved. “You will stay with me? You will guard me the whole time?”

“The whole time,” Sean promised.

“I will go,” Oond said. “Let’s go fast.”

I opened the door and the entrance to the throne room rushed at me. I didn’t want to take any chances.

The throne room gleamed, awash in bright light. A swarm of Orata’s cameras spun and twisted through the air, capturing the scene from all angles. The final ceremony was broadcast live, and the video feed was already going out. The huge screens that ran along the perimeter of the high ceiling showed the city centers on the various planets of the Dominion. Crowds choked the streets. Beings of all the Dominion’s species stood, looking up, their faces tense.

Through the massive doorway, I could see the remaining delegates assembled in a semicircle, with a wide gap between the two center delegations leaving a direct path to the throne open. The Kai were on the far right, then Behoun, both delegations sectioned off by force fields. On the other side to the far left, the oomboles waited in a cluster of fishbowls. The Temple was still MIA, but they were moving toward the throne room at top speed.

Both Prysen Ol and Amphie were in front of their respective delegations, restrained in the high-tech medical-assist frames, held upright but unable to move.

The observers had already taken their place in the gallery, on their feet this time, with Caldenia in the center like a crown jewel in a midnight-blue gown that shimmered with tiny lights, as if she had bottled a nebula and poured it over her dress. The gown’s stiff high collar accentuated her neck, and large star sapphires of the deepest ultramarine shade decorated her carefully styled hair.