Aurora Burning (The Aurora Cycle #2)(76)

“Did you … ?”

Call you pathetic? Yes. Fantasizing about a dead lover at a time like this?

I blink again. Realizing that Saedii is talking to me without moving her lips.

That somehow, she’s …

Are you … in my mind?

She huffs softly in contempt.

If it can be called such.

What … how are you doing that?

So very weak.

I frown deeper, trying to figure out what in the Maker’s name is going on here. Whether I’m hallucinating or have a concussion or maybe just dreaming this whole thing. But finally, I recall talking with Kal on Emerald City. Remember his warning that Saedii would be able to track him … because she could feel him.

I look at Saedii. Realization crystalizing in my mind.

Your mother was a Waywalker… .

I feel a spark of fury, dark and twisted, crackling like live current between us.

Do not speak of my mother ever again, Terran.

I shake my head. Thoughts racing.

Kal said you inherited some of her … some of the Waywalker gifts. I knew Waywalkers were empathic. That they could read moods. Maybe even surface thoughts. But I never knew they could talk to people telepathically?

She looks me over, cool and contemptuous.

There is apparently much you do not know, Tyler Jones.

… What’s that supposed to mean?

She sneers. That you are indeed your father’s son.

I feel a flash of rage at that, as dark and deep as her own. My hand creeps involuntarily to the chain about my neck, the ring at the end of it.

How about we take mothers and fathers off the table for discussion?

Laughter, echoing in my skull. You are a fool.

If you stuck your head into mine just to insult me, you can get out again.

I “stuck my head in,” as you so eloquently put it, because I could feel your aphrodisia splashing all over the walls, and I wished to discern the source. She looks pointedly down at her bare legs and briefs. If I was the focus of your fantasies, I was going to cut your thumbs off.

I scoff. Don’t flatter yourself.

I flatter no one. That is what I do to males who seek to woo me, Tyler Jones. Her fingers drift to the cord of severed, desiccated thumbs still strung around her neck. They are given the opportunity to best me in combat. And if they fail …

I look her over, softly shaking my head.

Great Maker, you really are a psychopath, aren’t you?

All the more reason to keep thoughts of me out of your head, little Terran.

I’ll try to contain myself.

She places her hands on her knees, bending forward. Her braids tumble around her cheeks as she stretches, languid, running her black fingernails all the way down over her shins to the tips of her toes. Her movements are sensual, almost seductive, but she’s obviously just doing it to goad me. As she looks up into my eyes, I can feel the malice in her.

You had best do more than try, boy.

Listen, how about you just—

My thought is cut off by the cell door hissing open. I sit up again, wincing, as half a dozen TDF troopers in light tactical armor march into the cell. Saedii glowers, her hands balling into fists. But the troopers have their eyes on me. I see the ship ident KUSANAGI on their uniforms and realize I must be on the same ship as . . .

The lieutenant leading the posse waves a disruptor in my face.

“Princeps wants to talk to you, Legionnaire Jones.”





20

KAL

She is afraid.

I can feel it, like a shadow behind her, looming cold and dark. Like a damp black coat around her shoulders, making her shiver with its chill. I can feel her disappointment in herself.

She knows that the fate of the entire galaxy is at stake.

She knows what will happen if she fails.

And still, she fears.

She is in her quarters, every color around her a shade of gray. She stands at a small viewport, staring out at the colorless tides of the Fold. The space beyond is an infinity, awash with light. A cosmic ballet, billions of years in the making. A beauty as indescribable as any in creation.

And all of it dims to a candle flame beside her.

“Be’shmai?”

She looks over her shoulder at me, the white of her iris catching the light and making my heart stutter. I stand at the doorway, and I watch her wrap her arms around herself as if she were cold. And I know then, deep in my bones, I would do anything to take this burden from her.

“Come in,” she says, soft.

The door whispers shut behind me as I step inside. Glancing around, I can see there is very little in this room to mark it as Aurora’s own. Finian’s cabin is equipped to deal with his condition. My own is complete with a small lias flower in a silver urn, and even a siif that I could play if the mood took me. But Aurora’s room is bare of adornment, save for a single candle scribed with what I recognize as her father’s language. I only know it because the Chinese calligraphy bears no small resemblance to Syldrathi script. I remember the first time I saw it at the academy. It surprised me that humans could produce something approaching the beauty of my own culture.

It does not surprise me now.

The candle sits alone in the room, apart from the girl who must have lit it. It is almost as if Adams and de Stoy knew this place would not be her home for long. And it saddens me to see how adrift she is.