Aurora's End (The Aurora Cycle #3)(20)

And slowly, slowly, they glow a little brighter.

And his fingers tighten around mine.

I can’t stop my eyes from flooding with tears, relief breaking something open inside me. Here he lies, dressed in black, a warrior of the Unbroken. But he was never one of them. He came here for us, even after we cast him out.

For me.

“There is … something.” Caersan’s voice cuts through my reverie, and I glance up. He’s frowning, almost uncertain—I mean, it’s just the tiniest twitch of his brow, but by his standards he looks completely freaked out. “That way.”

He’s pointing beyond the crystal walls of the Weapon, out toward the space beyond. Perhaps toward Sol, or Earth—I have no sense of direction left. I’m wary of him, and reluctant to make my mind vulnerable, but the truth is that he’s the Archon of a cabal of fanatical warriors. Though I put on a good show just now, if he wanted to break me in two, he could.

And now, Kal’s hand in mine, I have something to live for.

So I’m careful as I let myself feel, probing with my mind in the direction he points, ever at the ready to snap back to safety if he tries to strike. But he doesn’t. He simply watches me, head tilting at the moment my eyes widen in horror.

Because somewhere out there, just at the edges of my range, I can feel it. The world humanity came from. The cradle that birthed our entire civilization. The planet I was born on, and would have died to protect.

Earth.

It hangs in the darkness, a pale blue dot suspended in a sunbeam, and just for a second, it feels like home. But then I sense it, creeping, crawling, covering my entire world. Something silvery-green-blue-gray, something teeming-writhingcoiling-growing, something full of a sickening kind of life.

The Ra’haam.

Mothercustard …

The Ra’haam has taken Earth.





7



KAL





My mind is a thousand splinters, a thousand moments, a thousand memories.

I am a mirror, and all of me is broken.

“Kal?”

… I am five years old. In our suites aboard the Andarael, my father’s old ship. This is my first memory, I realize. And it is of my parents fighting.

My mother told me they were once so close it was as if they were one spirit in two bodies. When first they met, Laeleth and Caersan were iron and lodestone, powder and flame. And she thought the adoration she bore for him would be enough to change the shape of his soul.

My mother is beautiful. Brave. But she is a shield, not a blade. They stand and shout at each other, and the tears well in my young eyes as I stare. My sister, Saedii, stands nearby, silent. Watching and learning. My parents’ roars grow louder, my mother’s face twists and my father’s hand rises into the sky and falls like thunder.

And then there is silence, save for my wails.

I do not understand, except that I fear, that I know, this is not the way it should be. My father turns from where my mother has fallen. My sister watches as he walks to where I sit. And he picks me up and I hold out my arms to clutch at his neck, seeking comfort from he who made me.

But he does not embrace me. Instead, he drags his thumb across my wet cheeks and stares, silent and glacial, until I stop crying.

“Good,” he says. “Tears are for the conquered, Kaliis.”

“Kal?” someone whispers.

… I am seven years old, and we have returned to Syldra.

The war is proceeding slowly, and my father and other Archons of the Warbreed have been recalled for a summit of the Inner Council, to shout down those among the Waywalker and Watcher Cabals who cry we should negotiate peace with Terra. A part of me hopes he crushes them. The rest of me longs for this war to end. Two halves within me, one born of my father’s rage, the other of my mother’s wisdom. I know not which is the stronger yet.

Saedii and I face each other beneath the lias trees, a sweet-scented wind blowing between us. Our stances are perfect, just as Father showed us. Our fists are clenched. She is older than me. Taller. Faster. But I am learning.

Mother sits nearby, speaking quietly with elders of her cabal. They hope that she, as the lifelove of Caersan, can persuade my father to at least consider the Terrans’ peace overture. But they are fools.

Peace is the way the cur cries, “Surrender.”

Saedii lunges, and with me distracted, her blow finds its mark. She sweeps my legs away, and I crash onto the purple grass, breathless. She sits atop me, eyes alight with triumph, fist raised.

“Yield, brother,” she smiles.

“No.”

We turn our heads at the word, and there he stands. Clad in black armor beneath the swaying boughs. The greatest warrior our people have ever known. The Waywalker elders bow their heads in fear. My mother sits silent, a shadow fallen over her. My father speaks, and his voice is steel.

“What did I teach you about mercy, daughter?”

“It is the province of cowards, Father,” Saedii replies.

“Then why ask your foe to yield?”

My sister pinches her lips and looks down at me. Mother is standing now, staring at my father and speaking as no one else dares to.

“Caersan, he is only a boy.”

He looks through her as though she is glass. “He is my son, Laeleth.”

Father’s eyes fall on Saedii. His command unspoken.