Aurora Burning (The Aurora Cycle #2)(106)

“We are here to see Elder Raliin Kendare Aminath.”

There’s a pause, and then the reply crackles back.

“For what purpose?”

Scarlett breathes deep and sighs. When you’ve got no other angle, it’s always best to run with the truth, she told me. So she presses the Transmit button and dials her earnestness up to eleven.

“We need his help saving the galaxy.”

· · · · ·

About half an hour later, I’m standing in one of the landing bays of Tiernan Station, carefully daubing Syldrathi glyfs down the side of an elderly shuttle. The Unbroken sigils are beautiful, elegant … but possessed of a savagery somehow. Some hint of the violence the Starslayer’s warriors adore so much. I’m following a visual guide Scar sent to my uniglass, watched by a number of very dubious Waywalkers.

Zila’s inside the shuttle, having a piloting lesson.

Auri has finally emerged from her quarters and is walking a slow lap of the landing bay. She moves with a kind of grace that I associate more with Kal, and she reminds me of a restless predator. She seems unaware of the rest of us. But the Waywalkers we rescued from their imprisonment on the Andarael are fascinated by her, tracking her progress back and forth. All Waywalkers have some kind of low-grade psychic ability. They’re empaths. Resonants. I’ve heard rumor some can even speak telepathically to each other. Maybe they’re sensing her new brain muscles.

Scar is talking to the elder, who looks deeply concerned about her life choices. Though his accent is terrible, he’s speaking in fractured Terran for Auri’s benefit.

“We cannot aid you in this,” he tells the girls. “Caersan—Void curse his name—has already destroyed our world. It has taken us many cycles to gather this enclave. We cannot risk his ire, young Terrans.”

“I understand,” Scarlett says.

Raliin smiles gently. “Your lie is appreciated. And we owe you a debt for our rescue aboard the Andarael, no doubt. But we Waywalkers were the smallest cabal among my people, even before our world was destroyed. And since Syldra’s fall, Caersan’s agents have been hunting us ceaselessly.”

Auri’s eyes narrow at that. She stops her pacing, looks Raliin in the eye.

“What were they hunting you for?”

Syldrathi nod instead of bowing, so when the elder pauses and nods for a long, slow moment before replying, I realize these people must have some small inkling of what she is. What she’s about to do.

“We do not pretend to know the designs of a madman,” he replies. “We know only that we few have gathered here carefully, secretly. We cannot call attention to ourselves.” He gestures to the ship I’m repainting. “But as I said, our rescue from among the Unbroken will not go unrewarded. This is the swiftest vessel we have that is capable of being crewed by four people. And the ident codes we have given you were taken very recently by the few intelligence operatives we still have in the field. With the grace of the Void, the sheer size of the Starslayer’s armada, and the thrill of the upcoming attack, the Unbroken may not detect you.”

“Thank you, Elder Raliin.” Scar nods deeply in respect. “If we haven’t contacted you within a day, the Zero is yours. No matter what safety you think you have here, I suggest you use her and the rest of your fleet to run. If we don’t pull this off, the Unbroken are going to be the least of the galaxy’s problems.”

To be honest, a day sounds kind of optimistic to me. It’s now two and a half hours until the Starslayer drops into the Terran system to rearrange the furniture. And given that we’re heading straight toward him to try and stop him, the odds are good it’s two and a half hours until Caersan rearranges us as well.

There are a lot of things I wish I’d done or said.

But the truth is, I can’t think of anywhere I’d want to be except right here.





31

TYLER

Ra’haam.

Saedii stares at me across the detention cell, her lips pursed. In the time it’s taken for me to lay it out for her—Aurora, the Eshvaren, the Ra’haam, Octavia III, Cat, the locker on Emerald City, the GIA, all of it—her blood has dried on her face, on the floor between us. She hasn’t thrown a single thought into my mind. Her expression only changed once—a quick flicker, eyes narrowing, when I mentioned the Weapon, which even now I hope the others have found without me.

Scarlett.

Auri.

Great Maker, I hope they’re all okay… .

Saedii sits there in the aftermath of my confession. I expect her to laugh. To call me a liar and a lunatic, to react the way any normal person might when you tell them that an ancient plant-being that lost a war against a race of ancient psychics is set to wake up after a million-year dirt-nap and nom down on the entire galaxy.

But when she does finally speak into my head, her thoughts are quiet.

This explains the girl you think of constantly.

I blink at that.

… What?

Cat, I think? She weighs heavy on your thoughts, Tyler Jones.

I swallow hard. Chest aching.

She was a … a friend of mine.

Saedii’s eyes narrow. More than a friend.

… Maybe.

And it took her. This Ra’haam. Turned her. Absorbed her.

I feel anger surge inside me. Welcome and warm.