My mind is a thousand splinters, a thousand moments, a thousand memories.
I am a mirror, and all of me is broken.
“Kal?”
… I am five years old. In our suites aboard the Andarael, my father’s old ship. This is my first memory, I realize. And it is of my parents fighting.
My mother told me they were once so close it was as if they were one spirit in two bodies. When first they met, Laeleth and Caersan were iron and lodestone, powder and flame. And she thought the adoration she bore for him would be enough to change the shape of his soul.
My mother is beautiful. Brave. But she is a shield, not a blade. They stand and shout at each other, and the tears well in my young eyes as I stare. My sister, Saedii, stands nearby, silent. Watching and learning. My parents’ roars grow louder, my mother’s face twists and my father’s hand rises into the sky and falls like thunder.
And then there is silence, save for my wails.
I do not understand, except that I fear, that I know, this is not the way it should be. My father turns from where my mother has fallen. My sister watches as he walks to where I sit. And he picks me up and I hold out my arms to clutch at his neck, seeking comfort from he who made me.
But he does not embrace me. Instead, he drags his thumb across my wet cheeks and stares, silent and glacial, until I stop crying.
“Good,” he says. “Tears are for the conquered, Kaliis.”
“Kal?” someone whispers.
… I am seven years old, and we have returned to Syldra.
The war is proceeding slowly, and my father and other Archons of the Warbreed have been recalled for a summit of the Inner Council, to shout down those among the Waywalker and Watcher Cabals who cry we should negotiate peace with Terra. A part of me hopes he crushes them. The rest of me longs for this war to end. Two halves within me, one born of my father’s rage, the other of my mother’s wisdom. I know not which is the stronger yet.
Saedii and I face each other beneath the lias trees, a sweet-scented wind blowing between us. Our stances are perfect, just as Father showed us. Our fists are clenched. She is older than me. Taller. Faster. But I am learning.
Mother sits nearby, speaking quietly with elders of her cabal. They hope that she, as the lifelove of Caersan, can persuade my father to at least consider the Terrans’ peace overture. But they are fools.
Peace is the way the cur cries, “Surrender.”
Saedii lunges, and with me distracted, her blow finds its mark. She sweeps my legs away, and I crash onto the purple grass, breathless. She sits atop me, eyes alight with triumph, fist raised.
“Yield, brother,” she smiles.
“No.”
We turn our heads at the word, and there he stands. Clad in black armor beneath the swaying boughs. The greatest warrior our people have ever known. The Waywalker elders bow their heads in fear. My mother sits silent, a shadow fallen over her. My father speaks, and his voice is steel.
“What did I teach you about mercy, daughter?”
“It is the province of cowards, Father,” Saedii replies.
“Then why ask your foe to yield?”
My sister pinches her lips and looks down at me. Mother is standing now, staring at my father and speaking as no one else dares to.
“Caersan, he is only a boy.”
He looks through her as though she is glass. “He is my son, Laeleth.”
Father’s eyes fall on Saedii. His command unspoken.
Her fist splits my lip and black stars burst in my eyes. Another blow lands, another, and I taste blood, feel pain, splintering, breaking.
“Enough.”
The beating stops. My sister’s weight upon my chest eases away. I open the eye that is not swelling shut and find my father standing above me. I can see him in my face when I look into the mirror at night. I can feel him behind me when I think I am alone. My mother watches, her expression one of anguish as I roll to my belly, push myself to my feet.
Father sinks to one knee before me so we are eye to eye. He reaches out and drags one thumb across my cheek. But where once he found tears, now there is only blood.
“Good boy, Kaliis,” he says.
I nod. “Tears are for the conquered, Father.”
“Kal, please wake up… .”
… I am in my room aboard the Andarael, and I am nine years old.
My fists are torn, my blood deep purple in the low, warm light. The engines thrum as I fish inside the deepest gash with tweezers, and wincing, I draw it out from my swollen knuckle—a pale sliver of broken tooth.
I did not mean to hit him so hard. I do not remember most of what happened after my first punch landed. But I remember the words he spoke about my father—the words that smelled like cowardice. The Warbreed denounced the Inner Council’s treaty with the Terrans, attacked Earth’s shipyards, crushed their navy. And now we will turn our attention to those among our own people who cry for peace when there can be only war. Because war is what I was born for.
Isn’t it?
The door opens with a whisper, and my mother enters the room, clad in a long, flowing gown, a string of Void crystals glittering about her neck. I stand as is proper, head bowed, voice soft.
“Mother.”
She glides to the viewport, staring to the dark beyond. I can still see the echoes of the battle out there in my mind’s eye—those vast ships burning away in the light of Orion. All those lives snuffed out by my father’s hand.
I see the faint bruise at the corner of my mother’s mouth, a dark smudge in the starlight that kisses her skin. An ember of rage flares inside me. I love my mother with all I have. And though I love my father also, I hate this thing within him, this thing that makes him hurt her.
I would tear it out of him with my bare hands if I could.
“Valeth is in the infirmary with a broken jaw and nine broken ribs.”
“That is unfortunate,” I reply carefully.
“He says he fell down the auxiliary stairwell.”
“They can be treacherous.”
My mother looks to me, eyes shining. “What happened to your hand?”
I keep my gaze on the floor, speaking soft. “I injured it training.”
I hear quiet footsteps, feel her touch, cool on my cheek. “Even were I not Waywalker born, even were the locks upon your heart not open doors to me, still I am your mother, Kaliis. You cannot lie to me.”
“Then do not ask me to. Honor demands I—”
“Honor,” she sighs.
Her fingertips brush the new glyf on my forehead, the three blades branded there on my ascension day. I know she and Father fought about which cabal I would become part of. And I know he won.
He always wins.
“How do you think that boy will feel when he lies to his father about the beating you gave him?” she asks.
“He made himself my enemy,” I reply. “I do not care how he feels.”
“Yes, you do. That is the difference between Caersan and you.”
She lifts my chin, gently forcing me to meet her eyes. I see the pain in them. I see the strength. And I see myself.
“I know you are his son, Kaliis. But you are my son also. And you need not become the thing he is teaching you to be.”
She leans forward, presses her lips to my burning brow.
“There is no love in violence, Kaliis.”
I see light behind her. A halo of midnight blue flecked with silver.
I hear a voice, familiar but strange.
“Kal?”
“There is no love in violence.”
“Kal, can you hear me? Oh, please, please, wake up.”
… My mother’s touch rouses me from sleep. My heart thumps as my eyes flash wide and her hand covers my lips. I am twelve years old.
“Get up, my love,” she whispers. “We must go.”
“Go? Go where?”
“We are leaving,” she tells me. “We are leaving him.”
I see a bruise, faint upon her wrist. The split in her lip is new. But I know it is not for her that she is running from him at last.
She draws me up off my bed, hands me my uniform. Wordlessly I dress, wondering if she truly means it. My father will never allow this. I have heard him threaten to kill her if she leaves. There is nowhere she can run.
“Where will we go?” I ask.
“I have friends on Syldra.”
“Mother, we are at war with Syldra.”
“No, he is at war,” she hisses. “With everyone and everything. I will not let you become him, Kaliis. I will allow him to poison my children no longer.”
My mind is racing as we slip through the dark to Saedii’s quarters. Mother steals inside while I keep watch, my heart hammering, my mind whirling. He will never forget this. He will never forgive.
“Saedii,” Mother whispers. “Saedii, wake up.”
My sister seethes upright, blade drawn from beneath her pillow, teeth bared. When she sees our mother, she relaxes only a fraction. And when she sees me, she tenses once again.
Her face is still bruised from the beating I gave her. The rift between us wider than it has ever been. She broke the siif that Mother gave me after I defeated her at spar. She can no longer best me in the circle, so she sought to punish me another way. And I punished her in kind. I can still picture her blood on my fingers. The pain in her eyes as I hit her with the siif she broke. I feel shame even now that I laid hands upon her so. Mind echoing with the memory of Father’s words when he learned what I had done.
“Never have I been more proud that you are my son.”
“What do you want, Mother?” she whispers, lowering her blade.
“We are leaving, Saedii. We are leaving him.”
Her eyes narrow. Her lip curls. “Are you crazed?”
“I am crazed to have allowed this to continue as long as I have. Caersan is a cancer, and I will allow it to spread no further. Come now.”
Saedii snatches her hand away from Mother’s grip. “Faithless coward. He is your lifelove, Laeleth. You owe him your heart and soul.”
“I have given him both!” Mother hisses, pointing to the bruises on her skin. “And this is how I have been repaid! And were it only I to bear the burden, perhaps even now I would keep my troth. But I will not stand by and watch my children fall into the same darkness that consumes him!”
Saedii looks to me, face bruised, teeth bared. “You allow this, brother?”
I meet her eyes, pleading. “I am sorry, sister. But you know the truth. He is no good for us. He is not what I wish to become.”
“Coward!” she spits, rising. “Both of you, faithless cowards!” Midnight-blue light flares behind her, and I squint, blinded. The warmth of it bathes my skin, tingling through every part of me.
“Kal?”
“Saedii, come with us!”
“I would die before I betrayed him.”
“Kal!”
“Coward! Shame! De’sai!”
“KAL!”
… I open my eyes.
I see her above me, a halo of light playing around her head. My heart surges so painfully I press one hand to my ribs to stop the ache. My sight is blurred, mind aching, but still, one thought burns bright enough to pierce the fog of my broken thoughts.
She is alive.
My Aurora is alive.
The walls around us are glittering crystal, and I realize I am floating a meter above the floor. As I shift my weight, try to rise, the air about me hums gently, rainbow-colored—the same as the energies of the Echo, where Aurora and I lived half a year, a lifetime, in the memories of the Eshvaren homeworld. But they feel different now. The song of energy hanging in the air is—
“No, don’t try to sit up,” she whispers, one hand on my shoulder. “Just rest, okay? I thought I lost you for a minute there, I—I thought I …”
Her voice breaks and she closes her eyes, tears in her lashes as she hangs her head. I raise one hand to cup her cheek, soft as feathers.
“I am here,” I tell her. “I will never leave you. Unless you wish me to.”
“No,” she breathes. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry I sent you away, Kal.”
“I am sorry I lied to you, be’shmai. I was a coward to do so.”
“You came here alone to finish him. To save the damn galaxy.” She presses my knuckles to her lips. “You’re the bravest boy I ever met.”
Him.
A shadow falls over me as the memories seep into the wreckage of my mind—the battle in the throne room, the war raging outside, Terrans and Betraskans and Syldrathi cutting each other to pieces as the Weapon pulsed and the Waywalkers screamed and my father …
“My father,” I whisper. “Did you … ?”
Aurora shakes her head. My vision is clearing, and I see now there are cracks running through her skin, radiating about her right eye. Her iris is still glowing, and the light shines through the cracks, coming from somewhere within her.
She is wounded, I realize. Weak. The Weapon has …
It has taken something from her… .
And yet, I can feel her inside my mind, a warmth spreading out from her and mending the tears my father ripped through me. I can picture him, holding me still with the power of his will alone, the knife I’d tried to plunge into his heart falling from my fingers as he tore my psyche apart.
He tried to kill me.
Just as I tried to kill him.
“What … happened?” I whisper.
“The Weapon fired,” Aurora replies. “I tried to stop it, tried to turn it inward on myself, but … I couldn’t hold on. The Waywalkers are all dead.”
“The fleets? The battle?” My heart quickens, and I rise to one elbow despite the pain. “What happened to Terra? Your sun?”
“The sun is fine.” She swallows thickly, trembling. “But Earth …”
She meets my eyes, her own brimming with tears.
“Earth is gone, Kal.”
My heart sinks, my hand finds hers. “The Weapon struck it?”
“No.” She shakes her head again, and I feel the kaleidoscope of her thoughts in mine—confusion, fear, rage. “The Ra’haam. It’s taken the whole planet. Consumed it. Absorbed it. Every living thing on it.”
“How long was I unconscious for?” I whisper, bewildered.
“A few hours maybe.”
“Hours?” I shake my head. “Then … how is that possible?”
“I don’t know. I reached out when I woke up, and I couldn’t feel anything around us. The fleets, the pilots, the soldiers, they were all gone, as if they’d never been. The only thing I sensed was … it. Like … oil and mold in my mind. So much of it. Covering Earth the same way it covered Octavia.” She drags a hand through her hair, the skin around her right eye cracked like drought-struck clay. “It felt me too, Kal. I know it did.”
The crystal hums around me, a shift in tone and hue. It ripples warm upon my skin, but again, I am struck by the notion that all is not well.
“The song of this place.” I look at the glittering beauty around us, frowning. “It feels different than it used to. Almost … off-key?”
Aurora nods. “I know. Something feels wrong.”
“… We are moving,” I realize.
Aurora glances to the glittering hallway, jaw clenched. “He’s doing it. I needed to take care of you. So he’s moving us through the Fold. We’re headed … I don’t know where. Away from Earth. Away from it.”
“I must speak with him,” I say.
“Kal, no,” she pleads, trying to stop me as I rise. “You need to rest. He almost killed you, do you understand? He shattered your mind into a thousand pieces. And if he tries again, I don’t know if I’m strong enough to stop him.”
“I am not frightened of him, Aurora.”
“But I’m frightened for you. I can’t lose you again, I can’t!”
I gather her into my arms, and she hugs me fiercely, and for a moment, all of the hurt, the pain, the grief fades away. With her in my embrace, I am complete again. With her beside me, there is nothing I cannot do.
“You will not lose me,” I vow. “I am yours forever. When the fire of the last sun fails, my love for you will still burn.”
I kiss her brow.
“But I must speak with him, Aurora. Help me. Please.”
She stares at me a moment longer, uncertain. Fighting with the fear of what he may do to me. My heart aches to see the hurt that has been done to her. The strength she has given to fight this far. But at last, she squares her jaw, and putting my arm around her shoulder, she helps me stand.
I still feel fragile—as if I am a tapestry of a million threads held together by a single knot of will and warmth. But she is beside me again, and that is all that matters. Holding on to each other, Aurora and I limp through the glittering corridors, crystal singing rainbows all around us, discordant and grating.
My father named this vessel Neridaa—a Syldrathi concept that describes the process of simultaneously destroying and creating. Making and unmaking. But I know the lie of it. This is the weapon he used to destroy Syldra’s sun. Our world. Ten billion lives extinguished by his hand, my mother among them. And I know my father creates nothing but death.
Sai’nuit.
Starslayer.
My heart stills as I lay eyes upon him. He sits atop the crystal spire in the chamber’s heart, like an emperor upon his bloody throne. The floor is scattered with corpses, shattered fragments; the air reeks of death. He is still clad in armor—black, high-collared, a long cloak of crimson spilling over the steps below. Ten silver braids draped over the scarred side of his face. But I see his eye aglow behind them, burning with the same pale luminance as Aurora’s when they fought for the fate of her world.
Before him, I see a vast projection—a stretch of black dotted by tiny stars. We are in the Fold, I realize, approaching a gate. I wonder why the colorscape inside the Weapon is not muted to black and white, as would normally happen in the Fold. I wonder what other properties this vessel possesses. Is it the crystal? The Eshvaren? Him?
“Father,” I say.
He does not hear me. Does not look up. The Neridaa is drawing closer to the gate—tear-shaped, crystalline, Syldrathi in design.
“Father!” I roar.
He glances at me, then away just as swift, eye burning like a tiny sun.
“Kaliis. You live.”
“Disappointed?”
“Impressed.” That burning gaze flickers to Aurora, then back to the black before him. “But then, you always were your father’s son.”
Refusing to rise to his bait, I step forward with Aurora beside me. “What is happening? Where is the Unbroken fleet? The Terrans and Betraskans? How is it Earth was consumed by the enemy so swiftly?”
He licks at his lip, curled almost into a snarl. “The enemy,” he repeats.
“The enemy you were supposed to stop!” Aurora growls beside me.
His gaze flickers her way. The snarl grows a fraction wider. “You are a fool, girl. I can see why my fool son dotes upon you.”
She steps forward, fingers curling to fists. “You sonofabit—”
“Wait …” I take her hand, squeeze as I watch the projection floating before my father. We are crossing through the FoldGate now, into realspace. But this close, I see the gate looks … wrong. Old. Scored by quantum lightning strikes. Half the guidance lights are nonfunctional. It appears as if it has not seen maintenance in decades.
“… Where are we?” Aurora asks.
My father scoffs, brushing a stray braid back over his shoulder. “Ever and always, you seek answers to the wrong questions, girl.”
Looking to the system, I recognize the star from my childhood—brilliant blue, like a sapphire shining in an ocean of darkness. “That is Taalos, be’shmai. There is a Syldrathi colony on Taalos IV, a starport, claimed by the Unbroken after they withdrew from the Inner Council of Syldra.”
“He … came here for reinforcements?”
“I came here for confirmation, girl.”
Aurora grits her teeth, her right eye flaring like a lightning strike. The light pulses beneath her skin, leaking out through the cracks in her cheek. For a moment, the air around us feels greasy and charged with current. Her lips part in a snarl. “Listen, I don’t care how hurt I am, and I don’t care what it costs me. You call me girl again, and you and I are gonna finish that—”
“Silence,” he says.
Aurora blinks. “Okay, maybe I’m being unclear here, but you don’t talk to me that way. You don’t call me girl, you don’t demand silence, you don’t treat me like something you stepped in by mistake. I am a Trigger of the Eshvaren, and unlike you, I was brave enough to step up and—”
“No.”
My father rises, a small scowl on his brow, and he looks at the star system projected before him.
“Listen,” he nods. “Out there.”
I look to Aurora, and she meets my eyes, pressing her lips thin. I feel her mind swell and stretch at the edges of my own. She lifts her hand, as if reaching toward that distant star. That pale glow illuminates her iris, seeps through the splits in her skin.
“I can’t … I can’t hear anything.”
He nods. “Silence.”
My father looks out on the Taalos star, his face a cold mask.
“A colony of almost half a million people orbited this sun. Unbroken all. Loyal unto death.” He laces his fingers together and breathes deep. “The death that has now claimed them. Each and every one.”
“How?” I breathe.
“The Ra’haam,” Aurora whispers. “I can … I can feel it.”
She looks at me with tears in her eyes.
“It’s taken over the colony, Kal. It’s taken over their entire world.”
“But how?” I demand, my frustration rising. “How is this possible? The Ra’haam has not even bloomed yet! Its intent was to drive the galaxy into war while it slumbered on its nursery worlds, waiting to hatch! But now it has taken Earth? Taalos? How can this be?”
“This is your fault,” Aurora says, stepping forward. “All of this. The Eshvaren entrusted you to defeat the Ra’haam, Caersan, and you used their Weapon to fight your own petty war! And where did it get you?”
He looks at her then, and the imperious mask he wears begins to slip. It starts small, just a glimmer of amusement in his eye, a faint curl of his lip. But soon he is smiling, and that smile stretches and splits to his eyeteeth, and of all things, he begins laughing. Laughing, as if my beloved has said the most amusing thing he has ever heard.
All this death. All this darkness. And he finds it amusing. And I see it then, sure as I see this girl beside me, sure as I saw the wreckage of our world, the ruin he has made of our people.
My father is insane.
“What the hell is so funny?” Aurora shouts.
“As I said,” he finally replies, wiping a tear from his eye, “always you seek answers to the wrong questions.”
“What should we ask, then?” I demand.
“It is not a matter of where my ambition has gotten me, my son.”
My father breathes deep, looking out into that silent void.
“It is when.”