by Amie Kaufman
Crystal?
“Son of a biscuit, that’s it,” Auri whispers.
Fin blinks. “What?”
“That’s it,” she says, voice rising. “The Weapon! The Eshvaren Weapon!”
Silence rings out on the bridge, the shock sinking in slow. My thoughts are racing, my heart pounding, the impossibility of it soaking me through.
“Aurora is supposed to use the Weapon to destroy the Ra’haam seed worlds,” Zila says softly. “And the Starslayer somehow destroyed the Syldrathi sun.”
“That’s how he did it!” Aurora breathes. “He used the Weapon on his own world!”
“So, Caersan … ,” Fin whispers.
“He’s another Trigger?” I ask.
Kal’s eyes are wide with horror. “Sai’nuit,” he whispers, eyes on the screen.
“What’s that mean?” Fin asks.
“Starslayer,” I murmur in reply.
“This just in,” TerraNet reports. “We are receiving a transmission from the Unbroken fleet, across all bands. We now cut live to this breaking footage.”
The image of the Weapon disappears, replaced with the figure of a man.
The most stunning man I’ve ever laid eyes on.
He’s tall, wearing a black suit of ornate Syldrathi armor, a long dark cloak flowing over his broad shoulders. His face is pale and smooth, just die-for-me beautiful, razor cheekbones and a piercing violet eye. His silver hair is fashioned into ten braids, curving down over the right side of his face. His ears are tapered to perfect points, the Warbreed glyf etched between his silver brows. He’s bright and fey and terrible, gleaming with a dark light. At the simple sight of him, my skin prickles, my belly turns, my heart flutters.
This is the man who led the attack at Orion.
This is the man who killed my dad.
And then he speaks, and awful as it is, a part of me almost falls in love at the music of his voice.
“I am Caersan. Archon of the Unbroken. Slayer of Stars.”
Glancing around the bridge, I see we’re all rocked by the sight of him in some way. Auri bristling with power and rage and fear, Fin sinking down in his chair, Zila turning her head, chewing on a lock of hair. Kal is as pale as death, his hands knotted, a vein throbbing at his neck. Of all of us, he looks the worst—like someone has opened his wrists and bled every drop of him onto the floor. He’s clearly horrified, shaken to his core at the sight of the monster who destroyed his planet.
Caersan speaks again. Every word a lightning strike.
“My forces are now massed at the edge of Terran space. Against the Unbroken, there can be no victory. People of Earth, hear me now. I gift you one chance. One choice. One path by which you may spare your people, your world, your sun the annihilation that awaits it beneath my fists.”
The Starslayer glares at the camera, and I know it sounds crazy, but I swear I can feel his stare burning in my soul.
“One of my Templars was captured by Terran forces during an altercation in the Fold. I now give you twelve hours to release her.”
I glance at Kal and whisper, “Saedii …”
“If at the end of this time she is not returned to me, I will destroy your sun. I will consign your entire world to the oblivion of the Void. And should any harm have befallen her while in your keeping, know this: For every second of suffering she endured, I shall repay your species ten-thousand-fold. I will not content myself with the destruction of your planet. I will spend the remaining centuries of my life hunting your kind, until not one human remains alive in this galaxy.”
Caersan leans forward, glowering into the lens. And then he speaks five simple words that bring the whole galaxy down on our heads.
“Give me back my daughter.”
The feed drops into darkness.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t see.
I can’t speak.
The thought of it washes over me like black icy water. The weight of it hits me in the chest so hard I put my hand to my aching heart.
“Daughter … ,” I manage.
We all look to Kal, but Kal is staring at Auri, horror in his eyes. The same horror I can see reflected in hers, I feel in mine.
“I’na Sai’nuit,” she whispers, voice trembling. “Those Unbroken on the World Ship. That’s what they called you when Tyler used your name.”
“Be’shmai, please,” he begs. “Let me explain… .”
I’na Sai’nuit.
Son of the Starslayer.
“You’re his,” I whisper.
I stand slowly, my legs shaking, my face twisting as tears fall from my eyes.
I can’t believe it. We’ve all been so blind.
“You’re that bastard’s son.”
29
KAL
Tell her the truth.
That is what the note told me. A message handed to me through an improbable, inexplicable twist of time. The handwriting was not mine. It was not I who discovered it. But still, I knew in my heart that the message was for me. And, looking at the pain in her eyes, she who is my all, my everything, and now perhaps my nothing, I know I should have listened.
“He’s your father?” Aurora asks me, bewildered.
Why did I not give her the truth, when she gave me so very much?
Because you were afraid.
“Be’shmai … ,” I whisper.
“You told me he was dead,” she says, tears welling in her eyes. “You told me he died at Orion. You lied to me.”
“I did not lie,” I say, heat flushing my ears. “He is dead. He is dead to me.”
Finian shakes his head, aghast. “Maker’s breath, Kal—”
“He died the day he chose pride over loyalty,” I all but shout. “He died the day he threw honor aside for the sake of victory. He killed tens of thousands of soldiers at Orion under a flag of deceit, and he has remained forever dead in my heart. He is not my father.” I clench my fists. “And I am not his son.”
I feel fury in me. Whispering.
You abase yourself before these worms? You are a warrior born. We Syldrathi called the stars our home when these insects were still climbing down from their trees. You owe them nothing, Kaliis.
“Silence,” I hiss.
He does not listen. He speaks again, as he has always done.
With my father’s voice.
I’na Sai’nuit.
But Scarlett’s voice breaks in over his. “He killed my dad.” I look at Scarlett as she speaks, and I see betrayal. Her cheeks are wet with tears, her lower lip trembling. But her voice is hard as iron.
“He killed my dad and you knew. You knew what he did. What he took from us. And you looked us in the eyes and didn’t breathe a word of it. We had a right to know.” She shakes her head, disgusted. “But instead, you had the balls to pretend to be our friend.”
“Scarlett, I am your friend.”
“You put all of us in danger!” she shouts. “Saedii was hunting you for him! If not for her, if not for you, we’d never have been aboard the Andarael! Tyler would never have been captured by the TDF! And the Ra’haam wouldn’t have a way to goad your bastard father into a war that’s going to set the galaxy on fire!” She glowers at me, fists balled at her sides. “This is your fault, Kal!”
Zila clears her throat softly. “Scarlett, that is overstating somewh—”
“Is it?” Scarlett cries. “You think if he’d told us who he was, he ever would have been allowed to join this squad? That he’d have even been allowed to join Aurora Academy?” She whirls on me, eyes narrowed. “I bet you lied on your application, too, right? No way Adams and de Stoy would have accepted the son of the most infamous murderer in the galaxy into the Legion. No way.”
I meet her gaze, my lips pressed thin. I feel the anger swelling inside me at her challenge, push it down with all my strength.
“Well?” she demands.
“I took my mother’s name after Orion,” I confess. “I wanted nothing to do with Caersan, or the Unbroken. I joined
Aurora Academy because I wished to atone for what he had done! But I knew the commanders would never let me into the Legion if they knew who I truly was.”
“So you lied,” Scarlett says.
My temper flares, despite myself. “It was none of their business!”
“But it was ours! He killed our dad, Kal!” she spits, looking around to the others to register that the blow has landed. “Anything else you wanna confess while you’re at it? Your name is Kaliis, right? Or did you lie about that, too?”
They all look at me then. Even Aurora, and how my heart aches to see that. I watch as the thought crosses each of their minds—that perhaps everything about me is deceit. That they do not know me at all.
“I am Kaliis,” I say. “You know me, Scarlett.”
But she shakes her head, lost in righteous rage. “I don’t know anything about you, you pixieboy bastard. Other than that we can’t trust a single word coming out of your mouth.”
Zila is chewing furiously on her hair, obviously distressed at the confrontation. Drawing down into herself, hunched small and silent.
Finian speaks, his voice soft. “Did you know your dad …” He shakes his head, clearly wounded as he looks at me. “Did you know the Starslayer was a Trigger? That he had the Weapon?”
“No,” I insist. “I had no idea. My mother and I left him years ago. I was eleven the last time I looked upon him in the flesh, and he was possessed of none of Aurora’s gifts then. He has wandered long years since Orion. Perhaps he discovered another probe in the Fold during his travels. Perhaps he stumbled across the gateway or—”
“Or perhaps you’re lying about this just like everything else,” Scarlett growls.
“I am not lying!” I snap.
Finian meets my eyes. “How can we know that, Kal? How can we trust anything you’re saying?”
My heart sinks in my chest. I can feel them turning against me, their hurt, their sense of betrayal, all of it blinding them to the person I have been. So I turn to the one who knows me best.
“Aurora …”
She looks at me like I have struck her. I remember the same look in my mother’s eyes as a child when she looked at my father. When she realized he was not at all the man she had thought him to be.
“Aurora, I am sorry,” I say. “Forgive me, please.”
“You lied to me, Kal,” she says. “That night in my room. The night we first …” She shakes her head, arms wrapped tight around herself. “When you told that story about your parents. You looked me in the eyes and you lied.”
“He is dead to me. My father died at Orion, be’shmai. He died again when he burned my world to cinders. When he took my mother from me. All that remained after that moment was what he’d become.” I spit the name, like acid on my tongue. “Sai’nuit. Starslayer.”
I take a step toward, and she takes one away, and my heart is bleeding, breaking inside my chest. I should have seen this coming. I have never felt so hopeless, so helpless, as I do right here and now. I can feel her slipping through my fingers with every breath.
“I tried to tell you,” I say. “In the Echo. That night in the meadow. I tried to speak it, no matter what it would cost me. But you told me I was not the thing I was raised to be. You told me tomorrow is worth a million yesterdays. Remember?”
“I remember,” she whispers. “And I remember you said our past makes us what we are. I remember you told me love is purpose.”
“It is,” I breathe.
“But how can you say you love me?” she asks, bewildered. “When you can just lie to my face like that? And how can I say I love you? When I …”
She shakes her head. Tears shining in her lashes.
“When I don’t even know who you are?”
“You know me,” I plead. “You are my moon and my sun, Aurora. You are my everything.”
Her tears do not fall. They crash, shaking the ship around me. I look to Finian, to Zila, to Scarlett, desperate for reprieve. For anything.
“I have fought beside you. Bled for you. I have known no home since the Starslayer took mine away, save here among all of you.” I thump my fist to my heart. “Squad 312. I know I can appear cold. I know I am hard to read, and harder to get along with.” I look to each of them. “But I know my friends, and they are few. And those few, I would die for.”
Silence rings across the bridge.
And into that silence, Scarlett spits.
“Tell that to Cat.”
I feel the words as a blow to my chest.
For a moment, I cannot even breathe.
“Scarlett … that is not fair.”
“Fair?”
Bristling with fury, she stalks across the deck toward me. Finian rises to his feet, wary, but he does not step closer. Zila hugs her shins, presses her face into her knees. But Scarlett is in my face now, shouting. She only reaches my chin, but her rage makes up for her lack of stature.
“You’re talking about fair?” she shouts. “My brother’s in the hands of the GIA because of you, you son of a bitch! How is that fair? What if they took him back to Octavia, huh? Have you even thought about that? What if they did to him what they did to C … to Ca …”
I murmur as her voice fails.
“If I could trade places with him, I would, Scarlett. I am so sorry.”
“Fuck your sorry,” she snaps, raising her hand. “And fuck you, Kal.”
She swings. Full of rage. Clumsy. The Enemy Within me flares, the violence I was born to, the violence in my blood rushing in my veins like thunder. I move, instinct and muscle memory, seizing Scarlett’s wrist so hard she cries out in pain.
“Do not touch me,” I warn her.
“Hey!” Finian shouts, stepping forward. “Get off her!”
“Finian—” Zila begins.
“Let her go!” he shouts.
Our Gearhead plants both hands on my chest and shoves, his exosuit whirring. My whole body bristles, my every instinct aflame with threat.
Break him, Kaliis.
BREAK HIM.
I step aside, smooth as water. Scarlett twists in my grip and I let her go, momentum sending her crashing into Finian and both of them to the deck. Fin cries out, leg twisted, and as I raise my hands, I feel another shove to my chest—iron-hard, midnight-blue power crackling in the air around me.
I look up and see Aurora’s hand raised. Aimed at me. Her eye burns like a dying sun, hair whipping around her brow in the breeze of a long-lost world.
“Don’t,” she says.
“I would never …”
And I see it. What everyone who has learned the truth about me has always seen. I was born of a monster, a murderer of billions. And that is what they see when they look at me now. That shadow I will never step out from, no matter how hard I try.
Aurora looks at me, tears glittering like diamonds on her skin. I know what she will say before she says it.
“You need to go, Kal.”
“Aurora, no,” I plead. “No.”
She nods. “Go.”
I am torn. Desperate. Searching for anything that might sway her.
“You do not know him, be’shmai,” I say, glancing at the screen where the man who made me spoke. “You cannot begin to imagine what he is like. He was a monster even before Syldra’s fall. If he has somehow become as you are, imbued with the power of the Ancients …”
“Are you going to tell me I’ll have no chance when I face him?”
My eyes grow hard, my voice like steel. “You do not know him, Aurora.”
“I know one thing, Kal,” she says softly, wiping the tears from her cheek with the back of one hand. “I know I’m ready now. Truly ready, like the Eshvaren said. I am the Trigger. The Trigger is me. And when I strike at the Great Enemy, there’ll be nothing to hold me back anymore. No hurt. No rage. No fear.”
She shakes her head.
“No love.”
I hear the Eshvaren’s words in my head then. That fateful warning it spoke on our last day in the Echo.
Remember what is at stake here. This is more than you. More than us.
Burn.
Burn it all away.
Aurora lowers her hand and breaks my heart.
“Goodbye, Kal.”
30
FINIAN
About four hundred light-years from Trask, there’s a star called Meridia. The star’s core is a diamond the size of Trask’s moon, estimated to be about ten decillion carats. My people built a spaceport there—a massive transit hub that’s one of the busiest in the galaxy. You can get a ride anywhere in the ’Way out of Meridia. Says a lot about Betraskans that we built a bus station around the galaxy’s biggest diamond.
Anyway, that’s where we dump Kal.
We’re still wanted terrorists and all, so we don’t waste time on farewells. Zila brings the Zero into one of the tertiary docks, only stopping long enough to let Kal out. Nobody’s there to say goodbye. I watch him through the bay cams, stepping out onto the station deck with a rucksack on his back. He’s wearing civi clothes—long dark coat, those ridiculous PVC pants Scarlett bought him in Emerald City, pockets stuffed with his share of the credits Adams and de Stoy left for us in the vault.
I think he left his Legion uniform in his room.
Bristling with anger, he squares his shoulders and stalks away.
Nobody speaks for a while after we put Meridia behind us, tearing out of the system and back into the Fold. For my part, I just don’t know what to say. I’m scrounging for something—I know I’m meant to be the one who somehow breaks this thick, heavy, hurting silence, but I don’t know where to begin.
Everything Betraskans do, everything we believe, everything we are is about family. And between losing Cat, leaving Tyler behind, and now Kal’s betrayal, it’s getting harder and harder to keep my gaze focused on the future. It feels like I’ve been shot, but I’m still moving. I’m on automatic, but now that the dust has settled, I just don’t know what to do next.