Prologue

Evie

“You have to promise,” Evadne implored. We sat huddled together inside a cold, damp cell, surrounded by darkness, shivering bodies, and the stench of despair. It weighed on me like nothing I’d ever experienced before, dragging me down into its greedy jaws. We were going to die, and nothing Evadne said was going to change that. I couldn’t hold the same kind of hope that she did; I’d seen more than enough darkness in my short life to know that this was the end. Her guards knew it too.

Theronix lay on his side, hands bound behind his back, muscles bulging from the strained position. There was no luster or glow to the gold markings that swirled over his arms, and his eyes were dark and sunken. Mikalys sat shoulder to shoulder with Zandrios, both completely apathetic to what was going on around them. There wasn’t so much as a hint of fire or will to fight; lack of hope had done that.

“Promise me, Evie!” Evadne insisted more firmly. Her red eyes gleamed scarlet in her beautiful face. It made my stomach twist to think of my friend and boss as beautiful because it was almost like calling myself beautiful. I was her body double, her perfect lookalike in case of a threat to her life—not that it was helping her now, or would ever again.

The crimelord who had captured our stealth ship a week ago had known which one of us was the real one. My DNA said enough: I wasn’t Xurtal; I was human. And he’d proceeded to cruelly brand the real Princess Evadne on her cheek so there could be no mistake.

“What do you want me to promise?” I said to my friend, my eyes lingering on the barely healed mark that bisected her pretty, emerald skin. There was no getting out of this, no matter what she thought—not for either of us. Nobody knew we’d been captured because our mission had been top secret and of great national importance to the entire Xurtal nation. This crimelord had found us by sheer chance, and he was doing a “favor” for a friend on Ov’Korad to end the meddling ambassador.

“I’m not getting out of this,” Evadne said firmly, and it made what remained of her guard shift uneasily around us. Those words felt like failure resting on their shoulders. When our cell door opened in a little while, I knew they’d rise and fight, even though they knew it was pointless. “Hush,” she said to her guard, though they had not made a sound. “This is true. Batok will soon tire of seeing my fear and end me, but Evie might live long enough to escape; he does not care about her.”

I knew what it was she wanted me to promise now, and my stomach sank. There were a lot of conflicted emotions in my relationship with Evadne: loyalty, friendship, resentment. I couldn’t deny her my promise when her pretty ruby eyes filled with tears. “My people count on you. You’re our only hope.” Her words triggered a sudden, vivid memory of my childhood back on Earth, one I was barely old enough to remember—watching a movie with my father, in which a princess implored a hero to save her people. Well, I was certainly in a galaxy far, far away. Evadne even had her lush strands of moss-green hair twirled into buns on the sides of her head.

“I promise to carry out your mission if I manage to escape,” I said to her. All her guards went stiff, and several pairs of eyes shifted from their dark, emotionless looks to something that glinted with a hint of their former fire. They knew what Evadne had asked of me, and what I’d sworn to do: impersonate her, not just for her safety, but fully. To lie to the Ovters and the Xurtal people for the sake of securing the treaty her people so desperately sought. It was even closer to blasphemy than what I already represented, and I could feel that in the burning of their eyes—their dislike for me and the disrespect I represented to their princess.

Despite my promise to be their people’s salvation should I survive, they hated me. Nobody said anything, not even Theronix, the de facto leader of the guard after Platorix had been eaten by our captor. I curled into myself, huddling close to Evadne for warmth. Then the doors opened, and our numbers diminished.

I feared the swish of that door, feared the moment when she was taken, but there was nothing I could do to stop it. It didn’t feel fast, and yet it felt like the blink of an eye when there was nobody left but Theronix and me. I didn’t grieve for those we had lost, didn’t even grieve for Evadne, though I missed her warmth. There was only numbness. And then, my number was up.