I lowered the binoculars, my hands shaking. The jungle around us felt suddenly too close, too hot, the air thick and suffocating. My mind raced through the implications—what it meant that Riuondo was alive, what it meant that he was here, on this planet, hunting us.
Nothing good. Nothing good at all.
"We need to go," I said, my voice flat, emotionless. The tone I used when I was Prime, when I couldn't afford to feel. "Now."
"Serna—"
"That's Riuondo Barkaze." I turned to face Cullen, and I knew he could see the fear in my eyes because I couldn't hide it anymore. "He's supposed to be dead. And if he's here, if he's alive, then everything I thought I knew is wrong."
I grabbed his hand, pulling him away from the ridge, back into the cover of the jungle.
"We need to get out of here," I said. "The mountains. We move fast, we move quiet, and we don't stop until we're as far from that shuttle as we can get."
Because if Riuondo Barkaze had come all this way, if he'd orchestrated this attack, this crash, this hunt—then he wasn't here to talk.
He was here to finish what he'd started a century ago.
Chapter 8
Cullen
We ran.
Not the careful, measured pace we'd maintained through the jungle earlier—this was flight, pure and desperate. Serna moved ahead of me with a speed and grace that would have been impressive if it wasn't so terrifying. Because I'd never seen her like this. Never seen the Prime lose her composure, never seen her mask crack so completely that raw fear bled through.
And that scared me more than the frigate overhead or the armed mercenaries at the crash site.
Because if Serna was afraid, we were in serious trouble.
Branches whipped past my face. Roots tried to trip me. The humid air burned in my lungs as we pushed deeper into the jungle, away from the ridge, away from whoever—whatever—had just landed. Serna's hand gripped mine, pulling me forward when I stumbled—my only anchor in the chaos.
Finally, after what felt like hours, she slowed. We'd reached a small clearing where massive trees created a natural canopy overhead, their roots forming a kind of shelter. She pulled me behind one of the larger trunks, pressing her back against the bark, chest heaving.
I bent over, hands on my knees, trying to catch my breath. "Serna—"
"We need to keep moving," she said, but her voice was shaking. Actually shaking. "We can't stop for long. If they have trackers, if they—"
"Serna." I straightened, reaching for her shoulders. "Look at me."
She did, and the fear in her eyes hit me like a punch to the gut.
"Who is he?" I asked quietly. "Who is Riuondo Barkaze?"
She closed her eyes, and for a moment I thought she wouldn't answer. Then she took a deep breath, and when she opened her eyes again, some of that iron control had returned. Not all of it—the fear was still there, lurking beneath—but enough that she could speak.
"He's a Romvesian general," she said. "And he was supposed to be the Prime."
I waited, giving her space to continue.
"Becoming Prime isn't hereditary," she said, her voice steadier now. "It's earned. There are twenty families in the known universe—bloodlines that have produced leaders, warriors, diplomats. When it's time to select a new Prime, each family puts forward a candidate and those candidates go through a series of trials."
"What kind of trials?"
"Three categories. Physical—combat, endurance, survival skills. Mental—strategy, diplomacy, problem-solving under pressure. And emotional mastery—the ability to control your feelings, to remain calm under pressure, to make decisions without letting emotion cloud judgment." She paused. "It's brutal. Designed to break you. To find the one person who can lead the Alliance through anything."
I thought about what that must have been like—Serna, younger, fighting her way through trials designed to destroy her. "How many candidates were there?"
"Seven, to start." Her jaw tightened. "By the final round, it was down to two. Me and Riuondo Barkaze."
