I’m half in one world, half in another, images overlaying each other so that the Echo and reality meld together.
There are tears on Lae’s cheeks, and filthy, muddy rain is falling from the Echo sky, and tiny cracks are spiderwebbing through the Neridaa all at once.
I reach within myself for the power to turn the black rain sweet and crystal clear, and Kal lifts one hand to brush a tear from Lae’s cheek, and a moment’s sweetness holds in his world and mine amid this carnage.
“We will fight to our last breath to honor your father,” he says, gentle, and Lae squares her jaw and nods.
“Yes, Uncle.”
But the collapsed crystal rubble that Caersan brought down to block the doorway won’t keep the Ra’haam out much longer, and his wounds run across the landscape of the Echo like a black blight, and as quick as it came, that moment of respite is gone from the Echo and the Neridaa both.
The cry of warning I sent back to Tyler still rings in my mind, a discordant shriek that won’t fade away.
He told me himself.
When it happens.
How it happens.
Every planetary head gathered together in one place.
A Ra’haam agent with a bomb.
The death and disorder that paralyzed them until the Ra’haam could bloom and burst and turn everything blue and green and deathless.
Did he hear me back then? Did he stop it?
Would we still be here if he had?
Another jagged canyon opens up across the Echo, the pain of it like broken glass dragged across my insides, and I reach out one more time to where Caersan stands like a blood-soaked statue in black.
“Caersan, I can’t do it alone. You have to fix this, please.”
And his hands make fists, and he turns toward me with wildness in his eyes, and he raises his voice to a roar.
“I. AM. NOT. BROKEN.”
—and the barrier in the doorway gives way in a spray of crystal shards, and Kal and Lae turn to face their foe for the last time. New bonds of love flow between them now, her rainbow glory tangling with his violet and gold, because Kal is not his father, and he knows how to offer love, and Tyler taught her to accept it, and
—a Syldrathi boy is thrown against a wall, his father looming over him as he falls to the ground.
I cry out for Kal, but the boy turns his head to stare straight at me, and
the
boy
is
not
Kal
—and the crystal city of the Echo is shattering and falling
—and I can hear my own voice begging Caersan to help me as I frantically repair the Neridaa as she unmakes herself over and over
—and the waves of death outside pour through the door, and Kal’s blades are a blur, and Ra’haam tendrils lash out to wrap around Lae’s legs, dragging her down and swarming all over her thrashing body
—and Caersan is hacking and slashing at the growths around him, and the pressure is building, hammering against my temples, cracks running down my face as the light pulses through them, and I think I’m screaming
—and Lae’s mind is bright, and in it I can see Saedii’s tae-sai gaming table, and I understand her mother loved to play against Tyler, and she taught her daughter, and I see the regret and defiance in Lae’s mind as she wrenches one arm free of the Ra’haam
—and Kal and Caersan shout, but in all our minds she tips her wooden Templar piece to signal the game is over, and with her free arm she gets her pistol up, and like her mother, she denies the Ra’haam its quarry
—and as she pulls the trigger and the rainbow brilliance of her mind is gone, Kal falls to one knee, and I wrap my mind in his, and I can hear myself screaming as he shows me one last time how much he loves me, because if we can go back, Tyler will still live, Toshh and Dacca and Elin will still live, one day Lae will be born, but if Kal dies here and now, I lose him forever.
With a roar, Caersan attacks the Ra’haam as it brings down his son, but for every vine he hacks away, another takes its place. He knows no victory lies this way. I can feel it.
“Fight!” he screams, and I don’t know who he’s talking to anymore. He swings his blade again, unable to surrender, refusing to let go.
“Caersan!” I cry. “This is not the fight! Heal the Neridaa with me!”
And he looks up, his face splintered and cracked, the light almost blinding …
—and then he stands in the Echo with me in a field of crystal flowers, and once more I’m in two worlds, three worlds, four worlds, so many times and places …
—a boy tries to understand why his father is angry
—the boy’s son tries to understand why his father is angry
—“Imagine what we could have made, if only you had loved us.”
—“My son, I …”
—the flowers shatter one by one … and then they are still …
… and everything is still …
And in both worlds—beside me in the Echo and beside Kal on the floor—he raises his voice to roar his defiance to the Ra’haam:
“YOU WILL NEVER WIN!”
and the Starslayer shatters into a million pieces, spending every piece of himself in his defiance, in his absolute refusal to surrender
and all around him the Ra’haam burns black and red, shriveling and curling in on itself
and within the Echo, he is everywhere, infusing the place with his energy as it knits back together and becomes beautiful
and he infuses me with his energy, and I am powerful, I am infinite
and for a moment I know him completely, and then he is gone, but in the roaring silence the instant after his departure
I know he killed billions.
And I know he can never be forgiven.
And I know that he has spent the last of his life force in a tangled, furious stab made up of defiance, a refusal to concede defeat, an act of anger and iron-willed resolve …
… and yes, of love.
Kal lies gasping on the floor, surrounded by the burned and blackened remains of the Ra’haam, and I stagger to him, dropping to my knees, and he closes his eyes against the glow from my face, but he reaches up to throw his arms around me and I wrap my mind around Kal’s to brace him, and I say
I love you
I love you
I love you
and I’m not completely sure who’s speaking in that moment, and I harness the power of Caersan’s that still runs through me, and feel Kal’s warmth inside me, and
light
shines
from
me
as
I—