Anya didn’t know what to do or where to run. Her guards had abandoned her—she was alone, hiding behind a fallen and broken statue of her father where a royal guard had pushed her. Before he continued his flight, he told her the royal family was dead. There were no survivors. A tear seeped from beneath her clenched eyelids. When she and her attendants had heard the uproar outside, she’d left the pool, wrapped a small towel around her waist, and run to the balcony overlooking the courtyard. She’d witnessed the beams coming from the alien crafts vaporizing her family and the aliens who had landed in the courtyard brutally slaughtering the guests gathered there for her sister’s nuptials. Within such a short time, she’d lost her parents, her siblings, her friends. Only the Goddess knew who else was dead and how many more people the invaders would slaughter. She needed to flee, but debris fell around her, columns were broken, and she knew the roof would soon cave in and kill her if she didn’t make a run for it.
