THE OP COULD HAVE STARTED a month ago, if Stoan hadn’t considered Reina’s survival vital to the mission. All the pieces had been put in place in the Citadel, but the weekly reports he received from Sanna’s agents had insisted that Reina wasn’t ready. And if Sanna made the assessment, he knew to trust it. She’d been Nina’s head spy for years, long before Nina had risen to the heights of ruling half a planet.
But Sanna’s identity had been discovered, her face known to their enemies. So she’d taken a silent role, living quietly in the temple district and training up new operatives for specific missions. There was no one that Nina trusted more, and for this mission, Stoan trusted her just as much.
Something had changed within him since returning from his short jaunt to Beothea. Some of the w
