Aurora Burning (The Aurora Cycle #2)(77)

“Finian reports that the damage to Magellan is not critical,” I tell her. “Touching the probe did indeed overload its circuits, but with time, he can repair it.”

Aurora simply nods, staring out the viewport. I suspect updates about broken electronic devices are not what she needs from me right now.

And so I step up behind her, and I wrap my arms around her. She pushes back against me, closes her eyes, and sighs, as if in my arms she is finally, finally, somewhere close to home.

I look at our reflection in the viewport, me behind, us together. I realize how well we fit. Like two pieces of the strangest puzzle. Like she is the piece that has been missing all my life. The Want in me is almost deafening, but I hold it still, breathing deep and bringing some calm to the tempest inside. Because beyond the adoration reflected in her eyes, I can see the words she wishes to say, long before she finally musters the courage to give them voice.

“I’m scared, Kal,” she whispers.

“I know,” I reply.

I caress her cheek, and she closes her eyes again, trembling.

“What did the Ancients tell you, to make you so?” I ask.

She sucks her lower lip, uncertain, and I know as she speaks that I am the only one in the galaxy she would admit this to.

“They have to train me,” she says. “How to use the Weapon. But they …”

She breathes, as if readying herself before a deep plunge.

“They said if I fail, it’ll kill me. ‘Like us, you must sacrifice all.’ ”

I feel a thrill of perfect rage at the thought. Before she was mine, I did not know what it was to be complete. Before I found this light, I did not fear the dark. But to have discovered this girl, this missing piece in the puzzle of my life, only to be confronted with the thought that I might lose her so swiftly …

“I don’t want to go,” she whispers. “I know it’s selfish. I know after everything we’ve fought for, everything people have given, Cat, Tyler, all the squad …” Tears glitter in her lashes as she shakes her head. “But I don’t want to risk this. Us.”

She sighs, sinks into my arms, tipping her head back against my chest.

“Tell me this is the right thing to do, Kal,” she says.

I smooth back her hair, caressing her cheek.

“You already know that, be’shmai,” I murmur.

She pulls my arms around her tighter. “Tell me anyway.”

I breathe deep, content for a moment to simply stand with Aurora in my arms. I know she is already aware of what she must do. That she knows it, with every atom in her body. She is nothing if not brave. But I know she is also asking me for strength, for certainty, for something she can hold on to as she walks into the fire.

And so I tell her something I have never told another soul.

“My earliest memories are of my parents fighting,” I say.

I feel her uncertainty about why I am telling her this. But she trusts me enough not to question and simply lets my words sink in, then holds me just a little tighter still.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “That’s sad.”

I nod, staring past our reflection to the Fold beyond.

“My mother and father were young when they met. She was a novice at the Temple of the Void. He a Paladin of the warrior cabal. When they first felt the Pull, their friends and families all tried to talk them out of becoming lifebound.”

“Why?” Aurora asks.

“Warbreed and Waywalkers rarely make good pairings. Those who seek answers and those who answer most questions with conflict seldom get along.” I shrug, and sigh. “But still, my parents did it anyway. They loved each other dearly in the beginning. So much that it hurt them both.”

She manages a small smile. “That sounds romantic. Two people wanting to be together, no matter what anyone else says.”

I nod. “Romantic, perhaps. Ill advised, most assuredly. I think my mother thought she might be able to guide my father’s love of conflict into love of family. But Syldra was at war with Terra in those years. And as the rift between my people and yours deepened, he lost himself inside it utterly. The cracks in their lifebond were showing by the time Saedii was born. And they grew deeper still once I arrived.”

I sigh again, realizing how bright a blessing it is to be able to speak like this. To simply have someone I trust enough to share with.

“My father was a cruel man. He ruled with a heavy hand, and he brooked no dissent. He commanded that my sister and I be inducted into the Warbreed Cabal, and he oversaw our training personally. When he tutored us in the Aen Suun, he did not hold back. Many were the nights Saedii and I retired to our bedchambers bruised and bloodied by his hand. But he said it would make us strong. Mercy, he told us, was the province of cowards.

“Saedii and I were close at first. When we were young, she was the star in my heavens. But as we grew older, Father began to show me more favor than her, and she became jealous. Saedii loved our father, you see. Loved him with a fierceness that eclipsed my own. Though I was raised Warbreed, in truth I always felt more kinship with my mother. She taught me the value of life, Aurora. The joy of understanding, the justice of an even hand. I loved her dearly, even as my father pressed me to embrace the war within, that I might better fight the war without. Mother would come to me at night, once Father was asleep. The bruises he would lay on her skin were the same shade as my own.