“We call it a rift drive,” Tyler says. “It’s an amalgam of Betraskan and Terran tech, using Syldrathi psychic energy to manipulate spacetime. I don’t really understand it, but we’ve discovered some of the unusual properties of Eshvaren crystal ourselves.” He nods to the golden-haired Syldrathi woman, still staring at Aurora, those cracks in her skin darkening as she scowls. “Each of our ships has a Waywalker aboard, and a chunk of crystal taken from recovered Eshvaren probes. The Waywalkers use the probes to open the gates, let us cut through the Fold. But it takes a toll every time they do it. And we don’t have many Waywalkers left.”
“What happened to the others?” Aurora asks softly.
Tyler frowns. “The other Waywalkers? They—”
“No, I mean the others,” she insists. “Scarlett. Fin. Zila. Are they … ?”
Tyler’s mood drops further, the scrape of wet gravel in his tone as he answers. “They died at the Battle of Terra, Auri.”
“And … Saedii?” I ask.
Tyler looks at me then. Dragging a hand through his graying hair, he drinks deeply from his flask again.
“We escaped the GIA together. I actually teamed up with her and her old crew to fight the Ra’haam.” He smiles, but behind it, I can see the pain of an old scar. “We fought like cats and dogs, but we did okay for a few years there. She was a hell of a woman, your sister.”
The other Syldrathi woman is staring at me now, eyes like knives.
“Where is she?” I hear myself ask.
“Saedii killed herself, Kal.”
“No,” I whisper. “She would never …”
“She was on a rescue run.” Tyler sighs. “Trying to recover a refugee fleet near Orion. They got hit by the Ra’haam. Her engines were disabled, her ship was dead in the black. She and her crew were surrounded. She detonated her core rather than be consumed into the collective.”
I murmur a prayer to the Void, press my fingers to my eyes, my lips, my aching heart. Aurora squeezes my hand, her eyes misting as she sees my grief. We were not close in the end, my elder sister and I. But Saedii and I once loved each other fiercely, as only siblings forged in the same furnace can.
Tyler guzzles the rest of his flask as the Syldrathi glowers at me.
“She died with honor,” Lae spits. “Unlike the rest of her family.”
Her tone shifts to bitter violence as she turns those cracked violet eyes to the air beside my head.
“You hear me, cho’taa?” she spits. “I feel you! Skulking in the dark like a thief! Show yourself, i’na destii! Ko’vash dei saam te naeli’dai!” She rises to her feet, spitting fury as she raises her null blade. “Aam sai toviir’netesh! Vaes santiir to sai’da baleinai!”
I am on my feet, standing between Aurora and that crackling psychic blade. The air beside me shimmers, shifts, a blood-red sheen slipping over the light in the room. Aurora rises, her eye glowing faintly as the figure of my father materializes in the room. Tall, dark, ten braids draped over the ruin of his face as he lowers his chin and scowls.
Tyler’s weapon is out in a blink, other crew members likewise drawing their arms. They open fire, even as I cry warning, the flash and burst of disruptors and blasters filling the room. But the image of my father only shimmers, like water with stones being thrown into it, and I realize this is merely a projection of consciousness—thrown from the Neridaa to eavesdrop on our conversation.
“Coward!” Lae spits. “De’saiie na vaelto’na!”
My father tilts his head, staring at the furious Waywalker.
“Name me shameless?” he says. “Name me cur? I, who walked the stars before you were born? I, who tore suns from the sky and won battles uncounted? You are not worthy to name yourself Syldrathi, whelp.”
“This is your fault!” she roars. “ALL OF IT!”
He glowers at the woman, a faint glow flickering in his irises. But I see his contempt and anger crack for a moment, a small shadow on his heart.
“Saedii … is …”
Tyler rises, lips peeling back from his teeth as he raises his disruptor. “Get the hells off my ship, motherfucker.”
“Father,” I say softly. “You should leave.”
His gaze shifts to me, then back to Lae, and at last returns to Tyler. The hint of grief I felt in him is swallowed whole, a contemptuous glance falling on the empty metal flask in my old friend’s hand.
“No wonder you fail. With a captain so worthless as this.”
“If I’m so worthless, Starslayer, how is it—”
But he is gone, vanished with a soundless ripple, withdrawing back to his throne aboard the Neridaa. Lae looks to Tyler, spittle on her lips as she hisses, “We should head over to that vessel and end him, Commander.”
“He would destroy you all,” I reply.
“So frightened of him, are you?” Lae scoffs.
“As frightened as I am hateful,” I reply sadly, meeting her narrowing eyes. “And if you had wisdom, you would be also.”
“It falls to those of Caersan’s bloodline to end his dishonor. He is your father. You should have killed him already to restore your family’s name.”
The ache of Saedii’s loss deepens then. My mother’s death ringing in the halls of my memory beside it, sharpening my tongue as I meet Lae’s eyes.
“Family is … complicated,” I growl. “Do not dare preach to me about mine. You have no idea what it is to be a part of it.”
“Why the hells are you working with that bastard, Aurora?” Tyler asks, his voice soft with wonder and loathing.
“We need him, Ty,” she replies. “I’m not used to wielding the Weapon yet. He’s had almost a decade to learn how to use it, and he knows the note to play on the Neridaa to return us to our own time.”
“How is that even possible?” Chief Toshh asks. Beside her, Dacca chatters and nods her head, whiskers twitching.
“I don’t know,” Aurora replies. “But I believe him. If we can get back there, we can undo all of this! We can destroy the Ra’haam before it hatches!”
“So why the hells are you still here?” Tyler demands. “If you can—”
“The Weapon is damaged, Brother. It needs repairs.”
Tyler’s second-in-command fixes me with black, gleaming eyes. “How you going to manage that?”
“I do not know.” I rub my chin. “Do you have a home base? Someplace—”
Dacca chatters, tail lashing as she watches me with gold, slitted eyes.
“Yeah, we got a home base, Pixieboy,” Toshh growls. “But Maker damn us all if we’re giving its location to the Starslayer.”
“Even if we did,” the Betraskan continues, “we have no tech capable of working on a device like that. Not many starports that specialize in Eshvaren crystal superweapons floating around anymore.”
“There is one, though … ,” Aurora murmurs, thoughtful.
I look to her in question, brow creased.
“The Eshvaren homeworld,” she says, meeting my eyes. “Remember? It was hidden inside that Fold anomaly. Maybe it’s still there.”
I nod slowly. “If there is one place we might repair the damage, it would be where the Ancients created the Weapon in the first place.”