Aurora Burning (The Aurora Cycle #2)(116)

The words reverberate in my mind, sending shudders through every part of me. I’ve heard Tyler and Fin talk about their United Faith. The religion that grew among the galactic races to explain these similarities.

I glance at Kal, pressed against the chamber wall.

“But … the Maker,” I say.

The Starslayer shakes his head.

“Not a Maker, child,” he says. “Makers.”

The word shakes me, chilling my blood.

“The Eshvaren are our puppeteers,” Caersan says, his violet eye flashing. “And we their puppets. Imagine the arrogance it took to seed life in their own image across hundreds of worlds. All for the sake of some petty revenge?” He gestures at the Weapon around us, the rainbows dancing on the crystal. “That is the jest of it, Aurora Jie-Lin O’Malley. That is all we are. There are no gods. There is no grand design. No purpose to any of it, beyond the last desperate stab of a fallen empire. A lottery of a million years and countless lives, for one last chance at vengeance.”

The thought is almost too much for me to take in. But through the power that links us, binds us, I know Caersan isn’t lying. All the religions of all the worlds, all the creation stories, all the beliefs of how and why this began …

And really, it was the Eshvaren who made us all?

It’s a stone in my chest. A cold hand squeezing my insides. I wonder what Finian might think if he knew. What Tyler would say if I told him.

Makers …

But then I push the thought, the weight of it and them, aside. I force my attention back to Caersan as he looks me up and down and sneers.

“You are nothing to the Eshvaren. And still, you would die for them?”

“Of course I would,” I say. “No matter what you say, the Ra’haam still wants to consume the entire galaxy and every living thing in it. Asking for just one more life to stop it seems like a small enough price to me.”

I look him over, taking my time.

“It’s a pity you were too cowardly to pay it.”

Just for a millisecond, I see anger in his gaze.

Interesting.

“I was strong enough to forge my own destiny,” he replies coolly. “To step off the path my would-be masters laid down for me.”

I snort. “And your idea of strength was to destroy your own homeworld? To kill billions of your people?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Kal shift his weight.

His father simply shrugs. “You speak as though the effort cost me something. But all my ties were long since burned away. Just as they taught us.”

Burn it all away.

It makes sense, I suppose. If Caersan cut away all his ties—family, love, honor, loyalty—but didn’t replace them with devotion to destroying the Ra’haam, what would be left? Just an empty shell, with all the powers of the Trigger.

But somehow, I’m not sure that’s right. There’s something in his gaze—that flicker of temper that flashed to the surface like a silvery fish, then disappeared—that tells me that whatever he burned away has begun to slowly creep back in.

That maybe I’m stronger.

I lash out at him with a wave of pure power, quick as a whipcrack. He stumbles back a step, then straightens, radiating disdain.

“What was that, child?”

“Just a hello,” I reply, as sweetly as I know how.

Caersan strikes back, but instantly, instinctively, I throw up my hands. My energy is midnight blue, shot through with silver wisps, like nebulas, like starlight. His is a dark, dusty red, like drying blood, threaded with antique gold. There’s a depth to it, a richness and a power I’d find frightening if I were still me.

But I’m not. The Eshvaren saw to that, and now I know why.

He comes at me again, unleashing his power like a striking snake, and I meet him, holding the line. Midnight blue and deep russet entwine between us, each trying to choke the other. I lean into my power, impassive, knowing his passion will compromise him. Knowing my purpose will carry me.

I lash out at him again, hard as I can, a crack of psychic force like a slap to his face. Caersan’s head whips to one side, a tiny cut opening up on that flawless cheek. The silver braids he keeps draped over one side of his face are thrown aside, showing me the eye that was hidden from the rest of the galaxy.

And of course, like mine, it glows pure white.

But around that glowing eye, I can see scars carved down Caersan’s features, like cracks in an old riverbed. The right side of his face is withered, old, as if all the life has been sucked right out of it. The glow from his eye spills out through the cracks in his cheek as he glowers at me, dragging his braids back down over his face as if ashamed. He glances at the Weapon around us, the spears of crystal pointed toward the throne at its heart.

“So now you see. What it cost me to use it. And what it will cost you.” His pointed teeth are bared as he snarls. “They bestowed this power upon us, intending for this thing to tear it out of us again. To dismantle us piece by piece. No beautiful death. No ultimate sacrifice. They intended us to die in fragments. Twenty-two planets for us to destroy, twenty-two slivers of our souls to be ripped out of us one by one and fed to their vengeance machine.”

Even the thought is enough to make me recoil. I can feel the memory inside him, reverberating along the bond between us. I can sense just a hint of the pain he felt as he fired the Weapon, and even that is nearly overwhelming. But given what he used it to do, I know he deserved it, too.