“Where will we go?” I ask.
“I have friends on Syldra.”
“Mother, we are at war with Syldra.”
“No, he is at war,” she hisses. “With everyone and everything. I will not let you become him, Kaliis. I will allow him to poison my children no longer.”
My mind is racing as we slip through the dark to Saedii’s quarters. Mother steals inside while I keep watch, my heart hammering, my mind whirling. He will never forget this. He will never forgive.
“Saedii,” Mother whispers. “Saedii, wake up.”
My sister seethes upright, blade drawn from beneath her pillow, teeth bared. When she sees our mother, she relaxes only a fraction. And when she sees me, she tenses once again.
Her face is still bruised from the beating I gave her. The rift between us wider than it has ever been. She broke the siif that Mother gave me after I defeated her at spar. She can no longer best me in the circle, so she sought to punish me another way. And I punished her in kind. I can still picture her blood on my fingers. The pain in her eyes as I hit her with the siif she broke. I feel shame even now that I laid hands upon her so. Mind echoing with the memory of Father’s words when he learned what I had done.
“Never have I been more proud that you are my son.”
“What do you want, Mother?” she whispers, lowering her blade.
“We are leaving, Saedii. We are leaving him.”
Her eyes narrow. Her lip curls. “Are you crazed?”
“I am crazed to have allowed this to continue as long as I have. Caersan is a cancer, and I will allow it to spread no further. Come now.”
Saedii snatches her hand away from Mother’s grip. “Faithless coward. He is your lifelove, Laeleth. You owe him your heart and soul.”
“I have given him both!” Mother hisses, pointing to the bruises on her skin. “And this is how I have been repaid! And were it only I to bear the burden, perhaps even now I would keep my troth. But I will not stand by and watch my children fall into the same darkness that consumes him!”
Saedii looks to me, face bruised, teeth bared. “You allow this, brother?”
I meet her eyes, pleading. “I am sorry, sister. But you know the truth. He is no good for us. He is not what I wish to become.”
“Coward!” she spits, rising. “Both of you, faithless cowards!” Midnight-blue light flares behind her, and I squint, blinded. The warmth of it bathes my skin, tingling through every part of me.
“Kal?”
“Saedii, come with us!”
“I would die before I betrayed him.”
“Kal!”
“Coward! Shame! De’sai!”
“KAL!”
… I open my eyes.
I see her above me, a halo of light playing around her head. My heart surges so painfully I press one hand to my ribs to stop the ache. My sight is blurred, mind aching, but still, one thought burns bright enough to pierce the fog of my broken thoughts.
She is alive.
My Aurora is alive.
The walls around us are glittering crystal, and I realize I am floating a meter above the floor. As I shift my weight, try to rise, the air about me hums gently, rainbow-colored—the same as the energies of the Echo, where Aurora and I lived half a year, a lifetime, in the memories of the Eshvaren homeworld. But they feel different now. The song of energy hanging in the air is—
“No, don’t try to sit up,” she whispers, one hand on my shoulder. “Just rest, okay? I thought I lost you for a minute there, I—I thought I …”
Her voice breaks and she closes her eyes, tears in her lashes as she hangs her head. I raise one hand to cup her cheek, soft as feathers.
“I am here,” I tell her. “I will never leave you. Unless you wish me to.”
“No,” she breathes. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry I sent you away, Kal.”
“I am sorry I lied to you, be’shmai. I was a coward to do so.”
“You came here alone to finish him. To save the damn galaxy.” She presses my knuckles to her lips. “You’re the bravest boy I ever met.”
Him.
A shadow falls over me as the memories seep into the wreckage of my mind—the battle in the throne room, the war raging outside, Terrans and Betraskans and Syldrathi cutting each other to pieces as the Weapon pulsed and the Waywalkers screamed and my father …
“My father,” I whisper. “Did you … ?”
Aurora shakes her head. My vision is clearing, and I see now there are cracks running through her skin, radiating about her right eye. Her iris is still glowing, and the light shines through the cracks, coming from somewhere within her.
She is wounded, I realize. Weak. The Weapon has …
It has taken something from her… .
And yet, I can feel her inside my mind, a warmth spreading out from her and mending the tears my father ripped through me. I can picture him, holding me still with the power of his will alone, the knife I’d tried to plunge into his heart falling from my fingers as he tore my psyche apart.
He tried to kill me.
Just as I tried to kill him.
“What … happened?” I whisper.
“The Weapon fired,” Aurora replies. “I tried to stop it, tried to turn it inward on myself, but … I couldn’t hold on. The Waywalkers are all dead.”
“The fleets? The battle?” My heart quickens, and I rise to one elbow despite the pain. “What happened to Terra? Your sun?”
“The sun is fine.” She swallows thickly, trembling. “But Earth …”
She meets my eyes, her own brimming with tears.
“Earth is gone, Kal.”
My heart sinks, my hand finds hers. “The Weapon struck it?”
“No.” She shakes her head again, and I feel the kaleidoscope of her thoughts in mine—confusion, fear, rage. “The Ra’haam. It’s taken the whole planet. Consumed it. Absorbed it. Every living thing on it.”
“How long was I unconscious for?” I whisper, bewildered.
“A few hours maybe.”
“Hours?” I shake my head. “Then … how is that possible?”
“I don’t know. I reached out when I woke up, and I couldn’t feel anything around us. The fleets, the pilots, the soldiers, they were all gone, as if they’d never been. The only thing I sensed was … it. Like … oil and mold in my mind. So much of it. Covering Earth the same way it covered Octavia.” She drags a hand through her hair, the skin around her right eye cracked like drought-struck clay. “It felt me too, Kal. I know it did.”
The crystal hums around me, a shift in tone and hue. It ripples warm upon my skin, but again, I am struck by the notion that all is not well.
“The song of this place.” I look at the glittering beauty around us, frowning. “It feels different than it used to. Almost … off-key?”
Aurora nods. “I know. Something feels wrong.”
“… We are moving,” I realize.
Aurora glances to the glittering hallway, jaw clenched. “He’s doing it. I needed to take care of you. So he’s moving us through the Fold. We’re headed … I don’t know where. Away from Earth. Away from it.”
“I must speak with him,” I say.