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Standing stiff, seemingly every muscle in her body contracted, she only felt the tears that tracked new wetness down her cheek. The pain in her chest was sharp at the first sight of her daughter but had eased to a dull ache. She pushed the nausea down, the headache away. Preventing the spread of the virus was her first priority, or so she had encouraged everyone to believe. In a moment, she would have traded places with Kiersten, taken her illness, her fear. As a mother, Derek and Kiersten meant everything to her, and as the Empress of Suma, the people of the planet were whom she would give her life for. All the planning and protecting of her children had been in vain. Kiersten had contracted the very illness that had instigated her departure from Suma to begin with, and if Charlotte l
