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I spin on my heel and walk rapidly toward the launch bays, the sound of her furious threats echoing off the concrete behind me.

I grin, the expression making my cheeks hurt. I came to Earth to eradicate the Ghorvek and avenge my fallen brethren. I did not expect to find my greatest challenge wrapped in a tailored suit, armed with red lipstick and a battered drone.

6

MAGGIE

I’m sitting at the small metal table in my private quarters, a space not much larger than a utility closet and sparsely furnished with a cot, a lamp, and a locking door. Across from me sits an alien spymaster eating a perfectly synthesized beef Wellington.

Orien appeared at my door twenty minutes ago, carrying two covered plates and a bottle of wine that did not come from my tightly rationed cellars. He offered no theatrical provocations. No sweeping, mocking bows. He simply held up the bottle and suggested we observe a temporary cessation of hostilities.

I accepted. Primarily because the alternative was eating a tin of cold sardines while reviewing casualty reports. And also because I was curious about the artificial food. But apparently it’s the same molecules and thus identical to anything a human would have cooked four years ago.

In fact, the synthesized meat is terrifyingly good. It flakes apart under the fork, tasting of rich butter and herbs that haven’t been cultivated in London for years. I chew slowly, maintaining my posture, while Orien watches me from across the narrow table.

In the dim light of my lamp, his amber eyes look less like a predator assessing a threat and more like a man enjoying a meal.

I set my fork down and pick up the wineglass.

“You’re staring, Maggie.” Orien doesn’t look up from his plate.

“I am observing,” I correct, taking a sip of the red wine.

“And what are your observations yielding?”

“That you possess an alarming capacity for domesticity when you aren’t attempting to undermine my entire command structure.”

He chuckles. “I’m nuanced.”

I trace the rim of the glass with my thumb. The quiet stretches between us again. The wine warms my blood, loosening the tight knot at the base of my spine. The exhaustion of the past days—the collapsed tunnels, the routed convoys, the endless, grinding logistics of survival—demands a toll.

I look at him, this near-immortal creature from another galaxy, and against every instinct I possess, I lower the drawbridge a fraction of an inch.

“Tell me about your world.”

Orien pauses, his knife hovering over the ceramic plate. He lifts his head, his eyes locking onto mine, searching for the trap in the question. Apparently finding none, the sharp corners of his usual smirk soften into something different. Something genuine.

“Avaris,” he murmurs, the name rolling off his tongue. “It is green and blue. The forests are massive, older than your recorded history, filled with bioluminescent fungi that light up the canopy at night. The royal palace is built of crystal spires. It catches the light from our sun, Vireon, and scatters it across the capital.”

I picture it. A world untouched by the gray, rotting ash that covers mine. “It sounds peaceful.”

“It was.” Orien leans back in the flimsy folding chair, resting one arm over the backrest. “Until the Ghorvek came.”

“They attacked you first.”

“Cycles ago. Centuries, in your measurement.” The warmth leaves his voice, replaced by a cold, flat absolute. “They don’t conquer, Maggie. They eradicate. They slaughtered thousands before our military could push them back into the stars. They killed Kairen’s father. The king.”

I process the intelligence, slotting it into my mental dossier. A murdered monarch. A prince driven by vengeance. It explains Kairen’s lethal efficiency.

“If they possess the capability to kill a king,” I say, choosing my words carefully, “why didn’t they finish the job? Why leave you alive to hunt them?”

Orien picks up his wineglass, swirling the dark liquid. “They left a parting gift. A biological weapon. It didn’t turn us into husks, but it rewrote our genetics. It rendered the Avaren nearly completely infertile.”

I freeze, the wineglass halfway to my mouth.

A dying species. An army of near-immortals fighting a war across the galaxies, knowing they are the last of their kind. The sheer, crushing bleakness of it shifts my entire understanding of the Avaren. They aren’t just liberators. They are ghosts trying to outrun their own extinction.

“I am sorry,” I offer, keeping my tone perfectly level.