Aurora's End (The Aurora Cycle #3)(32)

I shake my head, sighing. “Like we don’t have anything better to do, with the whole galaxy ending and all.”

Saedii leans back, lifting her boots and resting them across my thighs like she’s claiming a piece of territory. Her gaze roams slowly over my body, drifts back up to my eyes. That trace of amusement flickers between us again, tinged with a low, pulsing anger.

“You still do not understand where you are, do you?”

“I know exactly where I am. And who I’m with.”

“If that were so,” Saedii says, eyebrows descending, “you would not have called me an idiot in front of my crew.”

I wince. “Yeah look, I’m sorr—”

She raises a hand. “Do not compound your foolishness with cowardice. At least have the courage of your convictions, Terran.”

“I swear, you are the most …” I shake my throbbing head, teeth gritted. “Does everything have to be a fight with you?”

She smiles then, tongue to tooth. “If you wish.”

“Maker’s breath,” I growl. “Will you quit with the games?”

“I like games.”

“Well, I’m not in the mood to be your plaything.” My skull is pounding, my mouth dry as ashes. “What are you doing in here, Saedii?”

Her smile fades, black lips pursing as she looks me over.

“I reviewed footage of you brawling with Erien,” she finally says. “You had him bested in the fray, but you faltered at the final strike. Clutching your head as if it pained you. I had the med team scan you for brain trauma, perhaps caused by your Fold exposure. But you are suffering none.”

“I didn’t know you cared, Templar.”

I see a flicker in her eyes at that. Just a heartbeat, and it’s gone. This girl’s moods swing hot to cold and back again in the blink of an eye. But looking closer, behind the bravado and the sneer and the Unbroken princess thing, for a second I think I catch a glimpse of—

“I heard you,” she says, tapping her brow. “Crying out in my head when you fell. Not as if you were hurt. As if you were … horrified.”

I run my hand across my eyes, sighing. “I … saw something.”

“You mean a vision?”

I draw a deep breath, nodding. “I’ve been seeing things since I woke up here. It’s like … like I’m dreaming awake. I see a Syldrathi girl, covered in blood. But in the dream, I know it’s my blood, not hers. We’re in a massive chamber. Crystal walls. A throne. All carved out of rainbows.”

Her eyes narrow. “That sounds like the inside of the Neridaa.”

“It’s being destroyed in my dream. Cracking to pieces.” I swallow hard, my belly filling with ice at the memory. “And there’s a shadow beyond the walls. So big and dark I know it’ll consume everything if I let it.”

“Have you ever dreamed awake like this before?”

“Never.” I meet her eyes. “I can’t explain it, but I think … Saedii, I think something terrible is about to happen.”

She looks away from me, eyes focusing on some distant point past the walls. I can still feel the trace of her thoughts, the Waywalker blood she inherited from her mother speaking to the blood I got from mine. From a woman I’ll never know, because my father isn’t here to tell me who she is, how they met, how I came to be.

Despite Saedii’s ice-queen facade, the mind games, I can tell she’s uncertain. And as her eyes meet mine again, again I feel that flicker, beyond the aggression and the taunts, the scorn and the Unbroken warrior front, a flicker of …

Warmth?

“More news of strife is breaking across the feeds,” Saedii says. “A dozen more incidents like the ones you spotted. Old grudges dredged up. The fires of wars past reignited once more. The stars drip with blood.”

“It’s the Ra’haam, Saedii. You know it is.”

She sucks her lip, twirling that knife through her fingers. “Your brethren in the Aurora Legion are doing their best to douse the flames, at least. An emergency summit of the Galactic Caucus has been called to address the ‘growing tide of unrest among the sentient races of the Milky Way.’ It will be convened at your Aurora Academy in five days’ time.”

My heart surges, wounded stomach aching as I sit up on the cot. “At the academy? Why didn’t you say so?”

“I just did say so. Why is that of import?”

“My dream,” I breathe, heart racing. “The … vision. It was different this last time. I saw Aurora Academy, shining like a lighthouse in the dark. But I reached out toward it, and it … it exploded right in front of me.”

I see it again, a sudden flash of pain in my mind, that image of the academy blown apart, the galaxy’s last hope extinguished with it.

… fix this, Tyler …

I shake my head, my pulse pounding. “If the heads of the Galactic Caucus are all in the same place and the Ra’haam strikes it …”

“They are fools to gather so.” Saedii scowls, considering. “But if you believe the academy is under threat … perhaps I could allow you access to our communications array. You could send them warning.”

“You think that’s a transmission Legion comms is going to answer?” I scoff. “Let alone believe? The GIA framed me as a terrorist, Saedii. A mass murderer. A traitor to the Legion and his own people. And the transmission will be coming from an Unbroken ship.”