Aurora's End (The Aurora Cycle #3)(96)

—I’m in the Echo, and the clear water of the river has turned to blood, but I ignore what I see, and with a dip of my finger, I sketch it in the air from memory, from my thousand training sessions beside it, and



—I’m standing with Dacca as she fights against the swarm, and I’m thinking of my siblings, all of us sitting in the light of the hearthstone as our father tells us stories about the old heroes, and I’m wondering if I’ll ever grow up to be one and now realizing I am, I am, and

—I’m in the Echo, opening myself to the flood outside and throwing back my head as a million pieces of broken glass rise up from the ground and coalesce into a field of beautiful flowers, and



—I’m with Elin, the surly Betraskan from Tyler’s crew, and I’m fighting back to back with Toshh and I think about how stupid I was not to just ask her before now, to tell her how I feel, and our shoulders bump as we back toward each other and she catches my eye and smiles and suddenly I realize that she knows, she’s always known, and

—I’m building mountains in my mind, the grove where Kal and I slept, and every one of my warriors is helping me in some way, lending me some piece of themselves, some final touch or thought or memory that tells me I’m not alone, that all of us are together, their presence flowing through me like water. The Eshvaren tried to teach me to burn them all away, but love was always what I needed to fight for, but



—as I reach out toward them, the ones I know and need most and love best

—I can feel something wrong, I can feel



—Something is wrong… .


Kal

“Fall back!” Tyler roars.

One by one, Tyler’s people have been taken by the flood—the people on Sempiternity, those ships that saluted us farewell, and now Toshh and Elin and Dacca and the rest of the Vindicator’s crew.

A tiny piece of his heart has gone with each of them. But still, he fights. For what he has left.

Tyler, Lae, my father, and me.

Aurora, beyond the doors to the throne room.

And the one moment in our past that can change all of this.

The enemy are too many. My father cuts them down with wave after wave of power, and as I stand beside him, the part of me raised in his shadow is singing in adulation.

But the rest of me is mute with horror, that this will be not just our fate but the galaxy’s. More are coming, always more, not just humanoid now but other shapes—multi-armed behemoths from Manaria IV, stone-fisted hulks from the Tartallus Drift, moss-ridden and twisted and One.

I can see a glow pulsing through the crystal around us, warm and soothing. The cracks seem to be closing, and my heart surges as I think Aurora may be succeeding, but something is holding it back, stifling it, I …

I look to the tunnel behind us, the pulses of light from the throne room.

“Fall back!” Tyler shouts again.

My father grits his teeth, snarling, “Hold your ground, Terran!”

“We can bottleneck them!” Lae screams. “Buy a few more minutes!”

They appear out of the smoke, soaring through the Neridaa’s halls on wings encrusted in dull blue green. They were almost extinguished when my father destroyed Syldra. But still they come, three of them landing like thunder among the Ra’haam’s rotten legion. The impact sends Lae to her knees, Tyler and me stumbling as the cavern around us echoes with roars.

“Maker, not again,” Tyler growls.

“Drakkan,” Lae whispers.

The mighty creatures move swift as silver, big as houses. But the first of them still falls, split in half as my father’s fingers slice the air. The second staggers as I hurl the last of my pulse bombs into its mouth, and my father raises his hand and splinters its neck. But the third lunges with sinuous speed, striking at Lae, still on her knees.

Its claws are enough to cut steel, its teeth sharper than swords, and though she twists upright, she is not swift enough. The claws descend, eyes gleam like flowers.

But with a roar of denial, a figure leaps between drakkan and prey, power armor whining as those terrible claws strike home and send the pair sailing across the gore-washed floor.

“TYLER!”


Aurora

—a crack reopens in the sky above, and I feel the song of the wind change through the trees growing around me



—there’s a Syldrathi boy on his knees, a girl watching as his father kicks him in the ribs, and the boy silently, stubbornly refuses to fight back, and I start forward with his name on my lips.

“Kal!”

—the crystal city on the horizon is crumbling, and I am frantically, stubbornly drawing it back onto the map of my mind in all its glory, but I feel that shadow between them, and



—a Syldrathi boy and girl stand together as their parents scream at each other. And neither understands but each of them is watching and learning and my stomach sinks as I see a shadow take root in their hearts and I feel the tangle of pain and love from all four of them.

“Caersan, you have to fix it!” I cry.

He turns in my vision to gaze at me, unreadable.

“It is not broken,” he snarls, because he doesn’t even know how to see what’s wrong, and roaring “Weakling girl!” he throws me out of his mind, and

—I scream at him because I feel it now, the massive, cloying warmth of the Ra’haam, so close, so big, and I know I can’t stop it without all of them, without him I can’t fix this, and he won’t listen, he won’t help me, and I can feel it inside them, that shadow, like a cancer, blocking me, stopping me, and