Aurora's End (The Aurora Cycle #3)(126)

“What are you and Kal doing here?” Scarlett demands, grabbing Aurora’s hand as we all take our seats. “I thought you were on the other side of the galaxy!”

The two of them have been working with the Syldrathi rebuilding effort—now that a peace accord has been signed between the Unbroken and the rest of Syldrathi society, it’s time to do the messy stuff like settling a new planet. Usually Syldrathi don’t like outsiders much, but Auri says her history as a psychic superpower and her connection to the Eshvaren win her enough respect to get by. Probably doesn’t hurt to have a Templar as part of the family, either.

“Are you kidding?” Auri says. “We wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

“Have you seen the design?” Scar asks.

“Tyler sent it to us,” Kal says, nodding to our Alpha. “Beautiful work, Brother.”

“Still think you should’ve put a disruptor pistol in her ha— OW!” I yelp as Scar kicks me under the table, glowering at me, then smiling at her twin.

“It is beautiful, Ty. Seriously. Zila would be very proud.”

“Zila would be very uncomfortable is what Zila would be.” I grin and rub my bruised shin, looking around the room. “Come on. You think Zila Madran ever imagined herself sculpted a hundred meters high out of solid gold? Maker, I wish she was here so I could see the look on her face when we unveil it.”

“Welllll … ,” Tyler says.

All eyes in the room turn to our Alpha.

“Well what?” Kal says, suspicious.

“… Ty?” Scar asks.

“Well, there’s a reason I called you all here a day early,” he says, nodding to the woman at the head of the table. “And there she is.”

All eyes turn to the stranger now. She’s Terran, maybe mid-twenties, neatly dressed in gray attire. She has a serious face, but she doesn’t scream “military” to me, so I don’t think she’s Legion. She looks around the room at each of us, dark eyes finally settling on Aurora.

“Who are you?” Auri asks.

“A messenger,” she says simply, bringing up a projection from her wrist unit and letting it speak for itself.

Aurora’s face lights up, Scarlett gasps, and I feel my own lips curling in wonder at the projection before us.

It’s Zila.

She’s an old lady, hair completely silver, smile lines at the corners of her eyes. She’s gazing straight down the camera, and it feels like she’s gazing straight at each of us.

“Greetings, my friends,” she says, and though some of the edge has come off her voice over the course of her lifetime, it’s still unmistakably Zila Madran. “This message is due to be delivered one year after the events for which I spent my life preparing. I hope with all my heart that you are all present to receive it. I have accepted that while I know many things, this will forever remain a mystery to me. I was once told by my Alpha that some moments require faith. Know that I have faith in you.

“Aurora, I hope you are well. This message is for you, in particular. It took me some years to realize that in my new timeline, your mother and your sister would still be very much alive and well, and mourning your loss. I know this has been a source of great sadness to you, and so I considered the options available, remembering always that the avoidance of paradox in the timeline was of the utmost importance.”

Auri lifts her hands to cover her mouth, her eyes bright, and Kal shifts his chair so he can quietly slip his arm around her. Scar squeezes her hand.

The footage of Zila continues.

“I spoke to your mother shortly before she died, and told her you were safe. I am sorry I could not do so sooner, but I judged the risk of paradox too great. Please know our conversation brought her great peace. I studied your sister, Callie, for some time before deciding she was capable of the levels of secrecy required, and eventually I confided the truth of your fate in her.”

Aurora is crying properly now, though I think it’s a happy cry, and the woman who brought the recording lifts her wrist unit again. With a flick, she sends a picture up to sit alongside Zila—it’s a woman who looks so, so like Aurora, though older, and she has a toddler sitting on her hip.

“This is your sister, with your niece, Jie-Lin,” Zila says.

The woman brings up another picture—now the woman who must be Callie is older, and beside her stands another woman who might be Jie-Lin, and there’s a new toddler.

“And here is her daughter,” Zila continues. “I have arranged for further pictures to be added to the collection as new generations are born, and it is my hope that this file will now be delivered by—”

The recording pauses, and we all look toward the woman with the projector. Even Saedii looks like someone whose favorite series just ended on a cliff-hanger.

“It is my hope,” says the woman, whose eyes appear a little bright, “that this message will be delivered by one of Callie’s descendants.”

“Are …” Auri chokes out the word, but she can’t get past it.

“Your great-great-great-great-great-niece,” she says softly. “My name’s Jie-Lin. It’s a family tradition.”

A noise comes out of Aurora, half sob, half laugh, and every Betraskan instinct in me knows it’s the sound of someone finding a part of their family, and she’s out of her chair like she’s teleported, and into Jie-Lin’s arms, and the two of them silently embrace as the recording begins again. I’m startled back to attention when I hear my own name.