Chapter 1Before The Stars Forgot Your Name

In my fifth year as a prisoner of war, my memories were little more than shattered glass, scrubbed and rewritten by enemy neuro-scramblers.

When the System finally rebooted in my head, I was squatting in the camp yard with a dozen other starving inmates, scraping gray slop from a rusted trough.

“Host! Gideon Cole’s corruption index has hit ninety-eight percent. He is on the verge of triggering the Fourth Interstellar War. You are the only one who can stop him!”

Gideon was my husband. Of course I wanted to go back.

But I looked down at my emaciated wrists, then reached up to touch the jagged, hollow scar at the base of my neck.

I gave a dry, inward shake of my head. “I don’t have a scent gland anymore. I can’t calm him down with pheromones. Besides, he’s moved on. He doesn’t love me anymore.”

The System wailed in absolute panic: “You can! You have to! You’re the only one!”

* * *

What was I supposed to do?

I scraped the last stringy bit of wild greens from the bottom of the tin bucket, sucked the grease from my dirty fingers, and lay back down on the cracked concrete floor.

Five years ago, Tessa Ward had been top-tier—a rare, radiant Omega with a future and a gentle scent of sweet clover.

Now, I was just Inmate 89757. A broken husk rotting in the mud.

Saving the galaxy was far beyond my pay grade.

In my mind, the System kept pitching desperate promises: “Host! If you just get close to him, if you wake up whatever conscience he has left, I can restore your appearance! I can even rebuild your scent gland!”

I stared into a stagnant puddle beside my shoulder. The reflection staring back was horrifying: hair like brittle straw caked with grime, hollow cheeks smeared with grease, collarbones protruding like dry branches. My teeth were loose from years of scurvy.

“Forget it,” I replied. I scooped a mouthful of murky water with my chipped tin bowl, swished it around my gums, and swallowed. “He’s the Supreme Marshal of the Coalition now. He’s surrounded by pristine, soft Omegas smelling like expensive perfume. What am I going to do, crawl up to him like a beggar just to be humiliated?”

“Only your pheromones ever worked on his mental instability!”

“I told you, the gland is gone. It was carved out. I don’t even remember what I used to smell like. Right now, I smell like sour mud and pig feed. If he caught a whiff of me, he’d vomit.”

“He is going to incinerate entire star systems!”

“Let him,” I muttered, tucking the tin bowl under my shirt against my bare ribs. It was my only worldly possession. If I fell asleep without guarding it, another inmate would bash my skull in to take it. “This universe has been rotten for a long time anyway.”

The System wouldn’t let it go: “Host, this is a galactic crisis! Tell me what cheat codes you want—invulnerability, physical enhancement—I’ll authorize anything!”

I let out a faint, dry scoff.

Eight years ago, when it forced me into Gideon’s bed with electric shocks, it hadn’t spoken to me with anywhere near this level of deference.