“Fool,” my father says. “Shut them out. Do not listen!”
“Father, you are not helping!” I roar.
“… Even if you triumph in this battle, you cannot win, all that awaits …”
My heart twists as Aurora’s nose begins to bleed. As the tiny cracks in her skin tear a fraction wider. And I know it speaks truth.
“… All that awaits you is death. …”
Our defenses are crumbling. The enemy’s numbers are too great. Tyler’s ships weave through the black. Explosions light the night. I see my father’s face twisted in his fury, fingers curling. But purple blood is dripping from his nose now, dark light seeping through his cracks.
“Tyler, how long?” I demand.
“Ten minutes! Maybe less!”
“We cannot hold them!”
The closest Ra’haam ships unleash a barrage, spiraling, spinning, spitting. They ignore Sempiternity entirely, intent only on the Neridaa—on the Weapon built to kill it, the Triggers meant to fire it.
I look to my father, to Aurora, desperate. Their faces are slick with blood, eyes shrouded in shadow, but still they strike: a concussive wave, blasting the projectiles into ichor. But more ships come, an endless tide, and I feel my heart sinking in my chest.
“Tyler, what is happening!”
“Rift drive is online! But the ’Walkers still need to power up the crystals!”
“Kal … ,” Aurora whispers.
“Tyler, we cannot hold them off!” I roar.
“Kal!”
I meet Aurora’s eyes, see the starlight flaring within them. She sways beside me, her lips red and bright. Her eyes are alight, and I recognize the kaleidoscope of emotion within her—elation and delirium, fierce and joyful, the drunken rush of battle. She reaches out her hand toward Sempiternity, current crackling at her fingertips. The power of a tiny god within her.
“I can do this.”
I look to the World Ship, shaking my head. “No, be’shmai, you will h—”
She squeezes my hand. “I can do this, Kal.”
I look to the battle outside, the corrupted ships flooding toward us, blossoms of fire arcing across the stars. I pull her into my arms, press my lips to hers, tasting blood between us. “I am with you.”
My father slices his hands through the air, crushing the vessels around us. Aurora stretches her fingers toward Sempiternity, and the entire galaxy seems to tremble. I feel a pulse of power around us, tingling on my skin. The whole ship shakes, the walls around us humming with that strange, off-key tune as power flares in the World Ship’s heart, and the fragments of Eshvaren crystal within burst into blinding light.
“What the hells!” Tyler roars.
Aurora’s right iris burns with that same light, leaking through the cracks around her eye. I feel her tremble in my arms, and I turn to my father and roar over the rising pulse of that beautiful, awful song.
“Father, help her!”
The enemy swarms closer, ever closer. Hunger and want and death. The light within the World Ship flares again, a colorless tear opening in the universe’s skin. Blood spills over Aurora’s lips, and my heart twists as I see they are curled in a smile.
“Yes,” she whispers. “Oh yes.”
“That’s it!” Tyler shouts. “FoldGate is open! All units, retreat! Retreat!”
With one last vicious swipe of his hands, my father turns from the carnage outside and reaches to the ship around us. I hear the Neridaa’s tune change in pitch, feel the swell of vertigo as we begin to move, the black ablaze. I cling to Aurora, holding on to her as if to keep her from drowning as we drop through the shimmering FoldGate.
The rift hurls us across the vast gulf of space, screaming and blurring. I can taste ash in the air, feel my body stretching, the space around me folding, power singing at the tips of shaking, bloody fingers, rainbows running to black and white and then to full and glorious color again.
And then, in another flash of impossible light, it is over.
We are safe.
I hold Aurora in my arms, keeping her upright. Her eyelids are heavy, flickering as if she were dreaming. Her chin is sticky with blood.
“Aurora?” I ask. “Can you hear me?”
I press my hand to her cheek, pleading.
“Aurora!”
“Well done, Terran,” comes a hollow rasp. “I am almost impressed.”
I look over my shoulder, to the shadow at my back. My father sits upon his throne, cloak flowing down the stairs like a crimson waterfall. His eyes are bruised, chin smudged with faint violet where he is wiping away the blood. I can see the cracks in his face run a little deeper, his shoulders slumped—just the slightest signs of strain from his ordeal. But for him to show weakness at all tells me how badly this has hurt him.
How much it has cost them both.
“Are you well?” I ask.
He rubs his brow, wincing. “I did not think you cared, Kaliis.”
“Of course I care,” I growl. “Without you, we will never find our way home. We will never defeat the Ra’haam.”
“Victory at any cost.”
He looks at me, eyes glittering as he smiles.
“That’s my boy.”
“K-Kal?”
I turn as Aurora whispers, squeezing her tight. Her hair is draped over her face in curtains of black and white, soaked with sticky red. I smooth it back and press my lips to her brow, my breath catching at the blood smeared upon her lips, her chin, the shadowed hollows around her eyes.
“Aurora …”
“Are w-we … are we s-safe?”
“Yes.” I run my thumb across her lips, gently wiping away the blood. “We are safe, be’shmai. You did it. You did it.”
“Oh,” she sighs. “Good …”
Aurora blinks hard, looking to the glittering crystal around us.
A trickle of red spills from her ears.
And then she collapses in my arms.
21
TYLER
I admit this is a lot of trouble just to make a phone call.
It took me two days Folding without a break to reach the Aurora FoldGate in time for the Galactic Summit, and my brain is a little fried as a result. Not as bad as the members of Squad 303, who’ve spent the last forty-eight hours welded into a detention cell. But still, my headache isn’t playing around.
I tried to explain my side of things to Cohen and her squaddies as I slipped their rations through the tiny hatch in the door, but they weren’t really in the mood to listen. On the plus side, I’ve learned some choice new Syldrathi insults if I ever bump into Saedii’s lieutenant Erien again.
Security around the FoldGate into the Aurora system was just as heavy as I expected. With the galaxy on the brink of a dozen wars, and representatives from every sentient species in the milieu arriving for the summit, I honestly had no hope of sneaking in here undetected.
But now, thanks to Cohen, I don’t have to.
“Passcodes received, ident confirmed, 303,” comes the reply down comms. “You are cleared for landing in Bay Omega, Berth 7420.”
“Roger that, Aurora,” I reply. “7420. Out in the sticks, huh?”
“Yeah, apologies, 303. We’re slammed up here with the influx of civis. It’s gonna be a while before your ship gets a refit and refuel, too. Forty hours at least. Report to your deck commander for debrief.”