Aurora Rising (The Aurora Cycle #1)(14)

And ew, by the way.

“How’s Jaime doing?” I ask.

“He’s good. Back on Terra with his mom.”

(Jaime Sanderson. Ex-boyfriend #37. Pros: good kisser. Cons: likes jazz.) “Tell him I said hi.”

“Shall do.”

“Um, so listen,” I say, glancing at my brother, the carnage around us. “None of this was Tyler’s fault. He was trying to break it up. Do you need to lock him down?”

“Standard procedure.” The lieutenant shrugs, back to business. “Security footage of the incident will be reviewed, and if what you say is true, Squad Leader Jones here will be out in time for dinner.”

I give Lieutenant Sanderson my best pout. “But, Lieutenant—”

“It’s okay, Scar,” Tyler groans, trying to hold back his vomit. “I’ll be fine.”

The SecOfficers pull everyone to their feet, careful to avoid getting puke on their uniforms. The cadet with the broken arm is whimpering with pain, the guy whose soft parts got stomped on isn’t even conscious. As Lieutenant Sanderson cuffs him, I see the Syldrathi’s pretty face is glistening with dark purple blood. Tyler’s blood is smudged on the Syldrathi’s knuckles, bright red.

“That was a cheap shot,” Tyler says to him.

The Syldrathi says nothing. His expression is ice-cold, and there’s not a hair out of place on his head.

I look between the pair, wondering if my smile looks as forced as it feels.

“Ummm … so this is awkward. …”

“Meaning what?” Tyler blinks.

I look pointedly at the Syldrathi. “Welllll …”

“No,” Tyler says.

“Afraid so, Bee-bro.”

“Nooooo.”

“Squad Leader Tyler Jones,” I say, glancing at my uniglass, “may I present your combat specialist, Legionnaire Kaliis Idraban Gilwraeth, first son of Laeleth Iriltari Idraban Gilwraeth, adept of the Warbreed Cabal.”

The Syldrathi glares at my brother with those amazing violet eyes.

Spits a mouthful of purple blood on the floor.

Speaks with a voice like melting chocolate.

“It is Kal for short.”





4


   Zila




Hmm.

   My current situation could be adequately described as …

   … suboptimal.





5


    Auri




Screaming.

Someone’s screaming right near me.

My eyes flash open and I lurch upright, pulling my bedsheets with me.

There’s a guy standing in the middle of my room. Glaring straight past me like he’s trying to burn a hole in the wall. He has long silver hair tied back in five braids and seems around my age, but he kind of looks like something straight out of Middle-Earth central casting. Pointy ears like a freaking elf, beautiful violet eyes, stupidly tall and stupidly graceful. There’s some kind of small tattoo on his forehead.

“Cho’taa,” he says. “It has nothing to do with my blood.”

“Uh, what?” I stammer, wincing inwardly as I stumble over just two syllables.

I hear a loud thump, the grinding screech of metal. A cold voice.

“I will see you in the Void, Warbreed.”

There’s a flash of energy, violet like his eyes. The boy cries out and falls. I feel something warm on my hands and look down to see they’re covered in blood.

Purple blood.

I can feel a scream of horror building in my throat, but a beat later it all starts to fade. Dissolving the way my visions have been. And past the surging of my heart, the ice in my stomach, I realize that’s exactly what he is—yet another vision of something I’ve never seen.

I stare at the spot where he stood, my pulse climbing down from the ceiling.

“What the hell …”

When are these visions going to stop?

Is my brain trying to recalibrate after what it went through?

I push my knuckles into my eyes to clear the image away, waiting for my heart to stop racing. Wondering if this is another symptom of being stuck so long in cryo.

Wondering if I’m losing it completely.

Looking around, I realize I’m in a different room than yesterday. My glass walls are gone. Now, I have four gray ones, which make a nice match for the gray carpet and the gray ceiling. My new room is small, dim light coming from hidden fixtures where the walls meet the ceiling.

My memory’s a patchwork of doctors coming and going, and somewhere in there is a meal that was surprisingly normal. Of course, that’s the only normal thing I can really point to today. Because it’s the future. And I’m two hundred years old. And I’m seeing things. And there are freaking aliens here, wherever here is.

I think I’d like to be unconscious again, please.

I’m lying in a bed, still tangled in soft, white sheets, and as I sit up, I find I feel a little better. My heart’s still pounding, but I’m not dizzy, or fuzzy. And score, there are clothes waiting for me at the bottom of the bed, folded in a neat gray pile.

I lean toward them, and with a soft patter, two drops of red land on my perfectly white sheets.

Blood.

I touch my nose, bring my fingers away smudged with red. There’s a mirror over a small sink in the corner, and I wobble over to it to clean up. There’s blood smeared across my upper lip in a gross mustache, and …