“Maker, not again,” Tyler growls.
“Drakkan,” Lae whispers.
The mighty creatures move swift as silver, big as houses. But the first of them still falls, split in half as my father’s fingers slice the air. The second staggers as I hurl the last of my pulse bombs into its mouth, and my father raises his hand and splinters its neck. But the third lunges with sinuous speed, striking at Lae, still on her knees.
Its claws are enough to cut steel, its teeth sharper than swords, and though she twists upright, she is not swift enough. The claws descend, eyes gleam like flowers.
But with a roar of denial, a figure leaps between drakkan and prey, power armor whining as those terrible claws strike home and send the pair sailing across the gore-washed floor.
“TYLER!”
Aurora
—a crack reopens in the sky above, and I feel the song of the wind change through the trees growing around me
—there’s a Syldrathi boy on his knees, a girl watching as his father kicks him in the ribs, and the boy silently, stubbornly refuses to fight back, and I start forward with his name on my lips.
“Kal!”
—the crystal city on the horizon is crumbling, and I am frantically, stubbornly drawing it back onto the map of my mind in all its glory, but I feel that shadow between them, and
—a Syldrathi boy and girl stand together as their parents scream at each other. And neither understands but each of them is watching and learning and my stomach sinks as I see a shadow take root in their hearts and I feel the tangle of pain and love from all four of them.
“Caersan, you have to fix it!” I cry.
He turns in my vision to gaze at me, unreadable.
“It is not broken,” he snarls, because he doesn’t even know how to see what’s wrong, and roaring “Weakling girl!” he throws me out of his mind, and
—I scream at him because I feel it now, the massive, cloying warmth of the Ra’haam, so close, so big, and I know I can’t stop it without all of them, without him I can’t fix this, and he won’t listen, he won’t help me, and I can feel it inside them, that shadow, like a cancer, blocking me, stopping me, and
—If I can’t stop it now
—Can’t stop it now
—I know I can’t stop it then.
—I’m with Tyler, and he’s standing on the bridge of a ship with Saedii in the time before she was taken away, before he even really knew he loved her. And he’s still young and still bright and he reminds me of that time we danced back on Sempiternity, me in my beautiful red dress, and him in those ridiculous pants, so full of hope and daring, and I look up at his handsome face, and he doesn’t know what’s coming, and I think …
—you still have a chance of fixing this, Tyler Jones. You told me when it happens where it happens
—how it happens and
—in this place where time means nothing and a minute can last a lifetime, and I can do anything if I can imagine it, I pour myself into one moment, leaving everything behind, and I reach out across the gulf to scream a warning back in time to the boy he once was because I don’t know if we can make it here, but maybe he can fix it there, because if he doesn’t, there might be nothing, and
—There might be nothing
—There is nothing I—
“TYLER!”
Kal
“TYLER!”
I skid to my brother’s side as another pulse of bloodred power flares around us. Lae is still cradled in his arms, bruised and bewildered. But my heart twists as I see blood spilling from his mouth, his ruptured armor, his neck. My father lashes out again, a spherical flare of power smashing the last drakkan to pulp. But the damage is done… .
“I s-suppose killing two of those b-bastards in one lifetime was a b-bit much to expect,” Tyler winces.
“Get up,” I tell him, slinging his arm about my shoulder. “Quickly.”
“Forg-get it,” he coughs, chest rattling. “G-go.”
“No,” Lae breathes, looking at me. “We must—”
“We will.” I ignore Tyler’s bloody protest, hauling him upright. “Father!”
He glances at me, eyes ablaze, swimming in the blood as if born to it.
“Father, we must fall back!”
“Go, then!”
Gasping, desperate, Lae and I drag Tyler down through the tunnel leading to the throne room. The walls pulse in tune around us, the screams of the dying and the thrum of power washing over me like rain. Again I feel that warmth, but again I feel the wrongness between us, the shadow.
Aurora floats in the room’s heart, head back, eye burning with the light of a million suns. I grimace, lower Tyler gently, my hands covered in his blood.
Lae’s face is twisted, eyes filled with tears. “No …”
“Aurora!” I roar. “HURRY!”
My father has followed us into the throne room, backing away reluctantly, step by bloody step. The Ra’haam follows, and in final, bitter desperation, he roars, arms outstretched.
The crystal walls splinter, and the Neridaa seems to cry out in pain as the tunnel collapses, sealing us inside.
But they are already battering on the barrier, and I know for all it cost him, he has only bought us a few minutes.
“It is not broken,” my father growls.
“… Father?”
“Weakling girl!”
The walls around us shiver, Aurora’s cheeks shining with tears.
Tyler takes Lae’s hand and squeezes, his breath now swift and shallow.
“She was p-proud of you.”
The light in him fading.
“I am t-too… .”
Tears spill from Lae’s shattered eyes. And I see it then. Focusing on her face—the pride, the ferocity, those features so odd and yet so familiar. Her hair that curious alloy of silver and gold.
Tyler’s words ring in my skull over the sound of the approaching enemy.
“I actually teamed up with her and her old crew to fight the Ra’haam.”
“She was a hell of a woman, your sister.”
“I always thought Saedii hated our mother,” I say, looking between them. “But her name …”
“… was Laeleth,” Tyler whispers, smiling sadly.
“Brother … ?” I whisper.
The last of him fades. The light in him extinguished.
Lae bows her head, silver-gold braids drenched bloodred hanging over her face as she opens her mouth. Her scream rings on the walls, echoed by Aurora, by the Neridaa herself, the power crashing against the growing cracks like waves upon a stony shore. I reach out to my friend, tears in my eyes.
“Brother …”
“Get up,” a voice spits.
I turn toward him, as ever looming above me like a shadow.
“Get on your feet!” my father roars, glowering at the pair of us. “We are Syldrathi! Our ancestors walked the stars when his were slime in the ocean! There is a war to be won, and still you weep for this Terran cur?”
Lae turns, teeth bared in a snarl.
“Do not dare,” she spits. “Do not dare to name my father cur.”
The walls thunder again, the things in the collapsed tunnel digging closer, the ceiling shaking, broken crystal falling like rain.
“Father?” The Starslayer’s eyes flash, and he spits blood on the floor as the Neridaa shakes. “A Terran? Disgusting. What kind of honorless wretch would lie with the likes of him and still name herself Syldrathi?”