The empty seats, the absence of Breck and Gilly’s laughter, the untouched stack of Casino cards that Lira used to love betting on. It could be a trap, but if they didn’t make some kind of move, the girls wouldn’t ever fill these empty spaces again.
“Then are you boys ready to be on the opposite side of the law again?” Andi asked.
“If we’re going to infiltrate Arcardius, we do need to take some risks,” Lon reasoned.
Dex’s eyes twinkled with mischief. “Risk and reward.”
“I’m beginning to see what my sister enjoyed about this life,” Lon said with a grin, setting Havoc down. The creature yowled before scurrying away, almost as if it were in agreement with the plan.
Andi smirked. “Okay, boys. Let’s go get our girls.”
LIRA
Lock. Load. Aim.
Fire.
Lirana Mette stood with her arms crossed over her chest, listening to the sound of organized destruction. A beautiful melody, really, for Lira had always loved chaos.
A firing squad stood around her, their synchronized motions a cadence in perfect time.
Lock.
Fifty soldiers slammed their mags into place.
Load.
Fifty rounds, swiftly chambered.
Aim.
Each soldier steadied their breath, squared their shoulders.
Fire.
Lira had never been particularly adept with a gun, always inclined to raise her fists above anything else. But when Queen Nor’s reign began, she’d quickly discovered that her accuracy as a pilot served her well when aiming for a target. A deep breath, a rush of air from her lungs, and she imagined her hands were not holding a rifle, but delicately aiming a ship toward its destination as she squeezed the trigger. Her bullet shot straight through the center of the target across the warehouse in a single, glorious explosion.
Their mission was simple: keep the planet under control while recruiting new followers to Queen Nor’s rule. Any Unaffecteds they rooted out—their presence like a choking weed that dared to defy Mirabel’s rightful monarch—were to be shot with the silver bullets supplied by Aclisia, the queen’s head scientist.
“Again!” the soldier in charge commanded.
Lira chambered another practice bullet, remembering when she herself had been shot with the real thing. It was terrifying, at first. A moment of pain, then darkness as absolute as anything she’d ever felt before. She hadn’t wanted to go there, to be surrounded by nothingness. But in that dark place, she’d felt herself calming as another presence washed over her, almost ancient in its power. Otherworldly.
It commanded her to understand the truth. To believe it, with every fiber of her being.
Nor Solis is the one true queen.
Lira had spent her entire life running from truths. In Adhira, she’d run from the truth that her mother had abandoned her. She’d run from the reality that her brother, Lon, and her aunt Alara wanted her to stay and rule from a cold, spiraling mountain that hardly saw the light. And when she’d joined a starship full of lady pirates...she’d run even then, flying the Marauder as far and as fast as she could away from Adhira.
But in that moment after she was shot, when she heard that command and was cast back out into the land of the living again...
Lira rose to her feet in the ballroom on Averia and looked up at the brightest light she’d ever seen. Queen Nor stood upon the stage, a pile of dead Mirabellian leaders at her feet, their blood drying in colorful rivers down the ballroom steps.
She’d smiled at Lira, at all the people standing around her.
And in that moment, Lira knew that she worshipped the queen. That the silver bullet had been not a curse, but a blessing meant to save her, to show her that when she followed Queen Nor, all would be as it should. For the first time in her life, she was at peace.
“You alright, Lir?” A voice drew Lira from her thoughts. She looked to her right, where one of her oldest friends stood, rifle clutched in her large hands.
“Fine,” Lira said, a small smile on her lips as she thought of the queen. “Perfectly fine.”
Breck was a giantess from New Veda, a natural warrior who’d spent her entire life behind the sights of a gun. She was the perfect soldier for Nor’s army, one who would give her life to serve the queen if she was asked.
“Again!” the commanding officer barked out, and Breck winked at Lira as she lifted her rifle and shot. A perfect bull’s-eye in the target.
The other soldiers scrambled to follow Breck’s lead. Lock. Load. Aim. Fire.
Lira’s next shot hit close to her intended mark, but she couldn’t yet match Breck’s accuracy. Shooting was still so new to her. She’d always preferred to use her own body as a weapon, but there were a lot of old preferences she’d once had that had melted away beneath the weight of Lira’s desire to please her new queen.
She’d spent the past two years of her life aboard the Marauder, a glass starship where her piloting skills were used to gallivant across the skies, following the lead of the Bloody Baroness, a space pirate notorious for raising hell.
Lira could see Androma’s face now—those metal cheekbones, the bloodlust in her eyes. What waste Lira had once laid to Queen Nor’s precious planets at the Baroness’s command.
Sometimes, when she thought of her past life, Lira still felt the ghostly heat of her scales warming on the surface of her skin. A lifelong struggle she’d tried to harness, her emotions getting the better of her far more often than they should. Those out-of-control emotions had hurt people, ruined her relationships, left her feeling like a weapon always on the brink of a misfire. But now, with a deep breath, a mere thought of Queen Nor...
Lira felt nothing. As if she were a hollow shell, blessedly free of the stresses she’d spent so many years trapped beneath.
A soldier groaned suddenly as the butt of his rifle smacked him in the eye. Horrific form.
“Not good enough, Krisson!” their commanding officer shouted, stomping closer to the line of soldiers clad in black, the Solis crest stamped on their backs and chests. Lira wore it on her own chest now, and it was displayed all across the city, waving from flags, brightly flickering on holoscreens across the glass towers that made up much of Arcardius. “Tighten up your grip. Deep in the shoulder. Fix your form, or I’ll tell the entire barracks that bruise on your eye is from Gilly!”
A small redheaded girl turned around from the line, a wicked grin on her youthful face. “Who’s to say I didn’t beat the
