Chapter 19
Cody
I’ve never seen A’Vanti nervous before.
Correction: I’ve never seen A’Vanti admit to being nervous before.
The woman has nerves of titanium alloy. She’s faced down her ruined homeworld, confronted the ghosts of her past, handled a charging keth’ra with more composure than most people handle a parking ticket.
But right now, standing in the main hangar bay as we wait for the Ostium diplomatic ship to arrive, she is fidgeting.
A’Vanti does not fidget. It’s one of those immutable laws of the universe, like gravity and the speed of light and my inability to eat Cerastean food without suffering.
And yet here she is, adjusting the drape of her formal wrap for the fourth time, smoothing a crease that does not exist, reaching up to touch the gho'ba val’ari in her hair and then lowering her hand as if caught doing something she shouldn’t.
"You look incredible," I tell her. Because she does. She’s dressed in full traditional Cerastean formalwear.
A robe made of many layers of deep blue and gold fabric that catch the light with every movement.
Her scales shimmer beneath the hangar lights, and she stands with the regal bearing of someone who was born to command rooms. "Seriously. Stop fussing."
"I am not fussing."
"You’ve adjusted your collar six times."
She gives me a look that could curdle milk. I grin back, completely unfazed. Immunity to A’Vanti’s death glare is perhaps my greatest achievement as a mate.
Behind us, the hangar is filled with the rest of our team.
D’Rett has assembled an honor guard. The Cerastean warriors in crisp uniforms, standing in formation.
L’Zaen and Ally wait nearby, along with Chelsea, Dr. Petrova, Dr. Reyes and the rest of the human expedition members.
Even Healer L'Varen is here, having declared his patients stable enough to leave for an hour.
The mood is tense. Understandably so. The queen, who is about to arrive any minute, carries her mother's legacy whether she wants to or not.
But for A’Vanti, this isn’t about Queen Ameela. This is about a man who snuck her extra food when the guards weren’t looking. A man who sat on the cold floor of her cell and told her not to give up. A man who promised that his daughter would save them all.
"Incoming." D’Rett’s voice cuts through the murmur of the crowd. He’s looking at his tablet, tracking sensor data. "The Ostium vessel has entered the atmosphere. Estimated arrival in seven minutes."
I glance around the hangar. Chancellor L'Forn stands near the front, his golden scales gleaming, his expression carved from stone.
He arrived yesterday with General D'Annon, their mates, and a full diplomatic contingent.
The discovery of an enemy mining operation on Cerastean soil was enough to bring leadership rushing all the way from Earth.
My fellow pilot, and the Chancellor's mate, Zoe, catches my eye from across the hangar and gives me a short nod. I return it.
A’Vanti goes very still at D'Rett's announcement. The fidgeting stops. Every line of her body draws taut, like a bowstring about to release.
I reach for her hand. She takes it, and her grip is fierce enough to grind my knuckles together, but I don’t flinch. I just hold on.
"It's going to be okay," I murmur, low enough for only her. "You're doing great."
She doesn’t look at me. Her eyes are locked on the hangar entrance, on the slice of sky visible beyond it. But her thumb traces a small circle on the back of my hand.
The sound reaches us before the ship does, a low hum that builds in pitch and volume until a shadow falls across the entrance, and the Ostium vessel glides into view.
It’s sleek and pale, all smooth curves that reflect the Cerastean light. A queen's vessel, designed to impress. It is alien in a manner that’s distinct from Cerastean design. Cerastean ships feel practical and utilitarian in comparison.
It settles onto the landing pad with a whisper of displaced air and a gentle thud. The hum fades to silence, and a moment later, a ramp descends from the ship's underbelly.
Ostium soldiers come first. They are tall, slender figures in pale uniforms, their lavender-gray skin and silver eyes glowing. They move with crisp precision, forming a corridor on either side of the ramp. Their luxen pulse with muted shades of blue.
Then a woman appears at the top of the ramp, and the hangar seems to shift on its axis.
Queen Ameela is younger than I expected.
Not a girl – there’s nothing girlish about the way she carries herself – but young.
Maybe my age, maybe even a few years younger.
It’s hard to tell. She's tall and striking, with lavender-gray skin and long silver hair swept into an intricate arrangement of braids and coils.
Gossamer wings fold behind her, catching the light like a dragonfly's, delicate and faintly iridescent.
The luxen along her temples and jaw pulse with deep, steady indigo. Sorrow, if I'm reading it right.
She wears a simple circlet of dark metal. The restraint feels deliberate.
What strikes me most, though, are her eyes. Silver and sharp, they sweep the hangar with an intelligence that misses nothing and an authority that has nothing to do with the crown on her head. This is a woman carrying the weight of her mother's sins.
She descends the ramp, and the Cerastean honor guard inclines their heads in unison. Chancellor L'Forn and General D'Annon step forward to offer formal greetings. But my eyes have already moved past the queen, past the soldiers, to the figure emerging behind her.
Premier Sator.
I recognize him instantly, even though the last time I saw him, he was on his knees with his hands bound behind his back.
He’s changed. He's filled out, the gaunt hollows of his face filled out by months of freedom.
The uniform he wears is clean and well-fitted, a far cry from the gray fabric that hung off his frame in the facility.
I watch as his eyes intently scan the crowd, and when they find A’Vanti, they stop.
His luxen flood gold.
A’Vanti makes a sound beside me. Small and strangled and so raw it hits me like a fist to the chest.
I release her hand.
She looks at me, startled, and I see the conflict in her face.
"Go," I say quietly.
She reaches for my hand instead. Her fingers lace through mine, and she pulls me with her.
I watch her as we cross the hangar floor, and I think about the first time I ever saw her. A skeletal figure on a sleeping pad, so wasted she could hardly stand on her own, throwing herself between a stranger’s weapon and the man she’s walking toward now.
Sator has already descended the ramp. While Ameela moves toward L'Forn and D'Annon, he stands motionless, his eyes fixed on A'Vanti, his luxen a steady, luminous gold.
We meet him at the base of the ramp. For a long moment, he and A'Vanti stare at each other.
"A'Vanti." His voice carries in the hangar, rough with emotion. Just her name. But the way he says it makes my eyes sting.
"Premier." Her voice is steady. Just barely.
"You look…" He pauses. His luxen ripple through a cascade of colors. "You look well."
"I am so much better than 'well'. Thanks to you," she says, and then she steps forward and puts her arms around him.
Sator’s composure dissolves. He wraps his arms around her and holds on, and his luxen are blazing gold so bright they cast actual light across his gray skin. His eyes are closed, and his jaw is clenched. He is clearly trying to maintain some semblance of dignity, but his shoulders are shaking.
A’Vanti speaks to him in Ostium, her face pressed to his shoulder, and I don’t need a translation. I can hear the emotion in the tremor of her voice.
I press my hand to the gho’ba carving in my breast pocket and breathe through the ache in my chest.
When they finally separate, Sator holds A’Vanti at arm’s length and studies her face.
"You were always so strong," he says, switching to English. "Just look at you." His voice catches. "I am so proud of you, A’Vanti."
She takes his hand in both of hers. "I am alive because of you. I am standing here because of your courage and strength. You told me to hang on because Ameela would find a way. You were right."
Sator’s gaze shifts past A’Vanti, and I realize he is looking at me. His silver eyes study me with an intensity that makes me stand a little straighter.
He says something to A’Vanti in Ostium, too soft for me to catch.
A'Vanti turns to me, and the look on her face – the love and the pride shining in her eyes – hits me so hard I forget anyone else is in this hangar.
"Cody." She extends her hand toward me. "Come. I would like you to meet someone."
I step forward and take her hand.
Sator is shorter than me, but not by much. Up close, I can see the lines of everything he’s endured etched into his face.
"Premier Sator, this is Cody Johnson," A'Vanti says, pressing herself against my side. "My mate."
"Premier Sator." I wrap my arm around A'Vanti and offer my other hand. "It’s an honor, sir."
He takes it, and his grip is surprisingly firm. His gaze moves to A'Vanti. He stares at the way she leans into me, relaxed and trusting in a way that I know she is not with most people. A smile transforms his weathered features into the most genuine expression of approval I have ever received.
"I think the honor is mine," he says simply. "I'm happy for you both."
I watch Queen Ameela from the periphery as the formal greetings conclude and the diplomatic machinations begin.
She moves through the room with a self-possession that’s striking in someone so young, greeting D’Rett and L’Zaen and the Cerastean commanders.
I'm not sure what I expected from an alien queen, maybe haughty or full of pomp.
But she doesn't seem to need ceremony and preening.
She's a ruler who has inherited a catastrophe and is facing it head-on.
When she reaches A’Vanti, the queen stops. The murmur of conversation around them fades.
Ameela studies A’Vanti with those silver eyes, and for a moment, I see something move behind the queen’s careful composure. Something that might be shame, or grief.
She does not apologize. She does not offer excuses or beg forgiveness or try to diminish the enormity of what was done.
Instead, she speaks in English, her accent precise, her voice carrying the authority of a woman who means every syllable.
"My mother took so much from your people. I cannot give it back." She holds A’Vanti’s gaze without flinching.
"But I can give you my word that every resource at my disposal will be spent ensuring this never happens again.
The mines will be dismantled. The surviving workers will be returned to their families.
The velith will remain in your ground, where it belongs. "
The hangar is silent. Every eye is on these two women.
"And the other civilizations?" A'Vanti's voice is steady. "The ones your mother was surveilling?"
"We will find them," Ameela says. "Every last one.
We need to know who they are, whether they pose a threat, or whether they might become allies.
" She looks at L'Forn, then at D'Rett, then back at A'Vanti.
"But not alone. My mother operated in secrecy and shadows.
I will not. Cerastean, human, Hisk, Ostium – we make contact together, as one alliance, or not at all.
" She pauses. "I cannot undo what my mother built.
But I can tear it down. And that is what I intend to do, for as long as I hold this crown. "