Emptying a bag of popcorn into a big bowl, Della looked up to peek through the French blinds over her kitchen window. With summer drawing to a close, the days were getting shorter. The trees behind her property were dark shadows under a deep-blue sky.
Standing over the kitchen sink in track pants and a tank-top, Della peered into the darkness. She gave her head a shake. “Melissa will be fine,” she told herself for the thousandth time. “Stop worrying about things you can"t control.”
The news reports about what was happening on the edge of Leyrian territory were sketchy. It was hard to get reliable information when your people didn"t have spaceships of their own, and the Leyrians weren"t exactly forthcoming. She knew that her daughter had survived the battle on Alios; she knew that Melissa
