Aurora's End (The Aurora Cycle #3)(88)

“But that will mean you’re locked in when the core blows,” Scarlett says. “You have to get out, Nari, or all this is for nothing.”

This is unacceptable. We cannot be in a no-win scenario, or we would not have come from a reality in which Nari founds the Aurora Legion.

There must be a way for her to survive.

There must be.

There must—

And then the numbers suddenly stop scrolling. The endless fractal of possibilities stops unfolding. And I see the answer.

I open my eyes to find Scarlett studying me intently. Even now, exhausted, worn thin by grief and fear and relentless pursuit, she cannot hide the gentleness in her gaze. Despite her carefully cultivated outer shell, she has a limitless heart. I am glad she has discovered the same is true of Finian.

“You figured it out?” she asks quietly.

“Yes.”

She simply stares. Part of her already understanding. And I begin to see the genius in her ability to do that. Here at the last. At the end.

I am sorry I shouted at her.

I am sorry for many things.

TICK.

TICK.

TICK.

“Nari,” I say. “The hallabongs your cousin brings to your halmoni’s house. They’re good?”

“Delicious.” She’s startled. “But what … ?”

I look into her eyes. And when I do, I know… .

I am not feeling nothing.

“I would like to taste one,” I tell her.

I would like to be in a home like that. With a large family coming and going. With traditions, and family jokes and stories, and fruit so juicy it runs from your wrists and drips off your elbows.

“I wish you could,” she frowns. “But—”

Finian finally begins to understand what Scarlett already knows.

“Zila, no. No.”

“What?” Nari protests, looking between us. “What’s happening?”

Scarlett shakes her head. “Zila, there must be another way… .”

“It cannot be done alone,” I say simply.

Finian’s voice joins Scarlett’s in protest. “No, Z, we’ll figure it out. We still have time, we—”

“With the current force arrayed against her, Nari cannot survive to eject the core. She must survive if she is to found the academy, or we will never come here, never plant the seed for Aurora’s victory against the Ra’haam. Eliminate the impossible, and what remains, no matter how improbable …”

I look to Fin

“… or painful …”

then to Scarlett

“… or sad …”

and last to Nari

“… is the truth. Someone must stay behind and help you.”

I let their voices drown each other out.

“—left Cat behind, left my brother behind, and if you think—”

“—just have to think again about the way we’re using the—”

“—this time I can—”

I stand. I stare. And eventually they are silent. They have argued themselves out. They see the simple truth, plain as I have. And they know in their heart of hearts, each of them, that we do not have the minutes to waste.

So I speak again. “Many years ago, I watched from my hiding place as raiders threatened my parents and friends. If I revealed myself, they would be shot, and I would be taken. So I remained hidden, hoping a solution would reveal itself. Eventually, our captors tired of waiting, and killed my family anyway, and left. Never again will I allow those I love to die through my inaction. This time, there is something I can do.” “You were a child, Zila,” Scarlett whispers. “You don’t have to make that right.”

“I cannot,” I reply. “And I know it does not rest on me to do so. But I have lived this story before, Scarlett, and this time I will change the ending.”

“We can’t just leave you here.” Finian’s pain is in every line of his face. In the catch in his voice. “We can’t just leave you alone.”

I look to Nari again. “I will not be alone.”

“But you’ll be two centuries in the past!” he cries.

“Someone must be,” I say. “Someone was always going to be. Both of you must return to our time to fight the Ra’haam. You may be all that remains of Squad 312. You must not fail in our duty.”

“And you?” Scarlett whispers.

“I will set everything in motion,” I say. “We cannot expect Nari to do it all. Someone must leave briefings for the heads of the Aurora Legion. Everything from Bj?rkman’s snoring to the gifts in the vault. There is only one way Magellan can know all that he knows.”

“You’re going to write his program,” Finian says softly. His eyes are wet. “Leave it for Scarlett to find on that shopping node.”

“Her weakness for handbags is easily exploited.”

Scarlett smiles, although she is already beginning to cry.

“This is why we are here,” I tell them, plucking the tiny fragment of crystal from Pinkerton’s trove and holding it up in front of Scarlett. “Why this was left in the vault for us to find. To drag us back here to this place and time so that I could remain. Magellan told us that his knowledge of events extended only to a certain point in the future. The point where I left.”