… you still have a chance of fixing this …
I reach out toward it, fingers trembling. And as I touch it, the academy blows itself to pieces before my eyes. My belly turns cold with horror, fire blooms in the dark, and beyond it, darker still, I see the shadow.
The Ra’haam.
A moan slips from my lips at the sight—ten thousand ships, a hundred thousand shapes, rising up before me and blotting out the stars.
Too big.
Too much.
I turn my head, close my eyes tight so I don’t have to watch.
And so it is I don’t notice Erien rising up behind me.
I hear the ring of metal on metal and turn to see him standing there. His beautiful face twisted with rage. Blood dripping down his chin, dark gray in the light of the Fold, light gleaming on the kaat blade he slides off his back.
… you told me where it happens …
I grit my teeth, raising the gun.
… fix this, Tyler …
And I gasp as he buries his blade in my gut.
11
TYLER
“Do you know there is no Syldrathi word for goodbye?”
My eyes flutter open, light slipping through my lashes as I groan. Saedii is seated beside my bed, picking at her fingernails with a long, beautiful knife.
“Wh-what?” I whisper.
I force my eyes open again, head swimming. I’m surrounded by the soft hum of medical equipment, the light low and gloomy. Looking down, I realize I’m shirtless. Again. There’s a dull ache in my belly, a derm patch over the wound from Erien’s blade. But this is an Unbroken battle cruiser, and their med facilities are top-notch—the pain isn’t even that bad, to tell you the truth.
I mean, for a brutal stabbing and all.
“It is true. Syldrathi believe that people once united can never truly part.” Saedii waves the knife toward the derm patch. “Even were you to perish today, the atoms of your body would remain. Over eons, those particles would break apart and coalesce, become incorporated into other beings, other planetary bodies. Drawn into collapsing stars and scattered again by supernovae. And the last, when the great black hole at the heart of this galaxy draws everything back into its arms, all things shall be reunited. Thus, we do not say goodbye when we part. We say an’la téli saii.”
“What’s that mean?” I groan.
“I shall see you in the stars.”
She tilts her head, and her soft smile fades. “I tell you this because you seem to be in an extraordinary hurry to die, Tyler Jones.”
“A mere flesh wound, madam.” I press my hand to the patch, wincing. “Your lieutenant needs to work on his aim if he wants to kill me.”
Saedii scoffs. “Erien is a First Paladin of the Black Circle. Maker of a thousand orphans. If he wished you dead, you would be dead. I am talking about Antaelis, Erien’s betrothed. You made rather a mess of his beloved’s face. Antaelis wanted to challenge you to a duel for Erien’s honor.”
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.”