“You know nothing of its plan,” she says. “You are a fugitive, wanted by your own government for Interdiction breach and galactic terrorism.”
I smile, lopsided. “Sounds like a challenge to me.”
“You are charging toward your death. You are a fool.”
“Who’s the bigger fool? The fool himself, or the fool in love with him?”
Saedii scowls and turns away, and I step in front of her, press my hands to her cheeks. As I kiss her, I feel the thrill of it run through her whole body, fingertips to toes. She surges against me so hard she almost knocks me over.
I stumble back and we hit the wall, her body pressed tight into mine, fitting together like the strangest puzzle. Her curves are hard as steel and her lips are soft as clouds, and for a moment it’s all I can do to not lose myself in her again, to not close my eyes against the war around us and the shadow rising above us and just make her mine.
But then I realize she’s drawn that knife again.
Holding it just shy of my throat as she searches my eyes.
“I do not know which I hate more,” she whispers, the blade brushing my skin. “Pulling you close or pushing you away.”
“I know which one I prefer.”
She wavers then, just for a heartbeat. In the silence, I take hold of her hand, ease the weapon away from my throat and kiss her knuckles, searching her eyes for that warmth, that light.
“Help me, Saedii. We can do this together.”
But she looks over my shoulder, and at the sight of herself in the mirror, the iron curtain descends, that blazing fire inside her burns suddenly cold. Saedii clenches her jaw, pulls back, shaking her head.
“My first duty is to my people, Tyler Jones. Not my heart.”
I search her eyes, swallowing hard.
“Then you have to let me go.”
“To your death,” she snarls.
“Maybe.” I shrug. “But I can’t just sit here and do nothing.”
I see defiance flare in her then. Rage. The daughter of the Starslayer unveiled. I can sense the menace in her, like a shadow rising beneath her surface, just as dark as the fire that warmed me a few moments ago. One is cast by the other, I realize. Each a part of what makes her who she is: beautiful, fierce, brilliant, ruthless.
She lifts her hands between us, the bloodstained fingers of her left entwined with mine, the right still holding the knife as she searches my eyes.
I know she could force me to stay if she wanted.
Kill me if she wanted.
Saedii Gilwraeth is a girl who gets what she wants.
Have to is not a phrase to be spoken to Templars, Terran.
But in the end, she unwinds our fingers. Unstrapping the sheath from her thigh, she slides the knife home, presses it into my palm. Folding my grip around the graven handle, she kisses my knuckles, soft and warm.
“I will see you in the stars, Tyler Jones,” she says.
And she lets me go.
12
AURI
“When?” I repeat. “What do you mean, when?”
Caersan looks past me to Kal, raising the brow over his good eye. “Really, Kaliis? The entire universe before you, and this is what you chose?”
Kal steps forward, and I take his hand, curling my fingers through his.
“Bigger problems,” I remind him quietly, as if I’m not about a heartbeat away from lunging for his father myself. Then I speak to Caersan, not bothering to reach for politeness: “Indulge my tiny Terran brain and tell me what the hell you’re talking about.”
“I speak your vile language with the fluency of one born to it,” the Starslayer replies, his gaze brushing past our joined hands as he turns back to the projection of the stars. “So I will assume you fail to comprehend the concept rather than the word. Kaliis, the FoldGate to Taalos. Observations?”
“It is damaged,” Kal says slowly. “Neglected. Which makes little sense. It should have been attended to by tech crews on the Taalos colony.”
“Which is no longer there,” Caersan nods. “Just as the population of Terra is long gone.”
“It’s not long gone,” I begin. “It was there just—”
But it’s starting to sink in now. What he means.
When.
The sheer depth of the Ra’haam presence on Earth, the layers of it, coiling in and doubling back upon itself—it was just as dense as the growth on Octavia. The entire planet was thick with it.
But the Ra’haam hasn’t bloomed and burst yet. That was the point of the Weapon—to destroy it while it slept, before this could happen.
It would take years for the Ra’haam to populate Earth like that.
I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t sensed it myself.
But maybe … maybe it did take years.
“When,” I whisper.
“Aurora?” Kal asks softly.
“Ah,” says his father. “At last, the child comprehends.”
“Kal,” I say. “We’ve—I can’t believe I’m saying this out loud, but I think we’ve … jumped forward … in time.”
He’s silent a long moment, his eyes darting back and forth between his father and me. But then, slowly, he nods. “The Eshvaren did have a different relationship to time from we who came after them.”
He agrees so calmly that I’m almost bewildered. But I remind myself Kal’s people are the oldest race in the galaxy—that they’ve always told stories of the Eshvaren. Stories so old, their origins are lost to history. If anyone was going to buy what’s happening right now, it’s a couple of Syldrathi.
“The Echo,” his father agrees.
“Half a year passed in no time at all,” Kal nods. “And when you first came into your powers, be’shmai, the night you pointed us to the World Ship, you spoke backward, as if time around you was twisting in on itself.”
“Precognition,” Caersan adds. “Time dilation. They knew more than we. I do not believe this conjunction was intentional, however. The Eshvaren did not anticipate two Triggers aboard their weapon simultaneously.”
“No,” I agree. “Because they anticipated that the first one was going to do his damned job.”
“They anticipated total self-sacrifice,” he agrees, lip drawing back into a sneer. “For their Trigger to die on their knees.”
“As opposed to taking this thing they left behind, the culmination of their entire species’ efforts,” I snap, “and using it to wipe out whole suns in the name of conquering the galaxy. Your own people, billions of them, so you could do what? Rule for the next few years until the Ra’haam bloomed?”
“We were born to rule!” He throws the words back at me like a spear, but it veers off course—it’s Kal who takes half a step back, his breath uneven. “And my people were cowards and traitors!”
“You had a chance!” My voice echoes off the walls of the crystal chamber around us. “You had a chance to catch the Ra’haam while it was sleeping, and instead, you did this!” A wave of my hand takes in the floor around us, littered with the bodies of his people. They’re probably the lucky ones—they didn’t live to see the Ra’haam takeover that must have followed our disappearance.