Aurora Burning: The Aurora Cycle 2

by Amie Kaufman

  I know the man I’ve come to find at its center, and it’s in that direction that I walk. The pathways seem almost aimless, twisting upon one another, climbing and falling. But I’m patient as I walk them. I feel the way they channel the energy of this place, focus its power and mine, and I revel in the sensation of it flowing beneath my feet.

  I crouch to unlace my boots, peel off my socks, abandoning them behind me as I continue on, barefoot. I’m connected to the surface around me fully, utterly. The Eshvaren Weapon sings to me. In me. Through me. I am a part of this place. Like I was always meant to be here. I am the Trigger, and the Trigger is me.

  And so I’m not at all surprised when I find him standing ahead of me at a crossroads.

  Kal.

  He’s dressed in the black of the Unbroken, and he stands straight and tall, as beautiful and defiant as the first time I saw him. He was only a vision then, appearing in my room at Aurora Academy before I knew the Syldrathi even existed. Now, with the same arrogant lift of his chin, he greets me.

  “You should not have come,” he says quietly.

  “You knew I would.”

  “You do not understand what you face, Aurora.”

  “No, Kal,” I return. “You don’t understand. What I am. What I’ve become.”

  “What they have done to you.”

  “They were trying to save the galaxy, Kal. They were trying to do what’s right.”

  “You do not comprehend,” Kal says, his eyes haunted as he glances up the corridor. “But I fear you soon will. He will show you.”

  My lips curl. Those lips that weren’t so long ago pressed to his.

  “So you’re his disciple now, too?” I ask. “Just like the rest of them?”

  “I did not want this, Aurora. I did not want any of this to happen. I loved you.”

  “You can’t build love on a lie, Kal.”

  “Look into my heart, then. Tell me what you feel.”

  I reach out. Just a moment. Even here, even now, I can’t help myself. I feel a touch of familiar gold, a hint of who and what we were. I sever it with a wave of my hand.

  “Did you sense deception or devotion?” he asks.

  “… Both,” I realize.

  “Only one of them is for you, Aurora.”

  “Just …” I look him up and down, then shake my head. Taking all he meant to me, bundling it tight, and with a conscious effort burning it away once more. “If you’ve come to take me to him, then do it, Kal.”

  He scowls at me. Shoulders set, jaw clenched tight. I can feel it then. Inside him. The shadow he talked about. His Enemy Within.

  And I know, just up that corridor, he waits for me.

  “Follow,” Kal says.

  We walk down the beautiful crystal pathways, him in front and me behind. The power swells around me now, pressing in on my skin, my skull.

  The part of me that hurts, that wants, that wishes I could hold Kal’s hand as I walk toward the light, is silent. The part of me that regrets, that wishes this could have turned out another way, is gone. There’s only the power now, the thing they made me to be, this girl who’s going to save the galaxy, as she follows the boy she thought she loved down the shimmering path and finally, finally, out into the heart of the ship.

  It’s beautiful. Perfect. One massive, spherical chamber, its walls almost lost in shadow, curving up and out from the base and then in again to meet at its apex. Raised up from that lowest point, on spires of crystal, is a throne—huge and jagged, shining with every color of the rainbow.

  This is the center of the Weapon, the center of everything, and the whole room seems to strain toward it. Shards of crystal emerge from the chamber walls, all turned inward like grasping hands, as if to claim the one who sits atop that throne, or maybe to offer him homage.

  I see Kal in his face—the familiar cheekbones, the lift of the chin, the arrogant arch of a brow. He’s wearing high-collared black armor, and a blood-red cloak spills down the stairs that lead up to his throne. His silver braids cover one half of his face, and one side of his mouth is curled into the smallest of smiles.

  Archon Caersan.

  Starslayer.

  Father of the boy I loved.

  Trigger of the Eshvaren.

  Traitor to the Eshvaren.

  Kal backs up to stand against the curving wall as I search for words that will test his father, prod him just a little, to see what he does.

  “That,” I tell him, “is a very dramatic costume. Where do you buy a cloak like that? Or did you get it custom made?”

  He doesn’t reply. But he rises to his feet and slowly makes his way down the stairs toward me, cloak spreading out behind him. I have to admit, it is impressive. He doesn’t speak at all until he stands before me, towers over me, just a few meters away. He takes his time, looking me up and down as if he’s measuring me and finding me wanting.

  “I thought,” he says eventually, his voice beautiful, musical, utterly mesmerizing, “that you would be taller.”

  “Sorry to disappoint,” I reply, making no effort at all to stand up straighter. I am what I am, and that’s short, especially compared to a Syldrathi.

  “I have been waiting for you,” he continues. “I felt you awaken.”

  “And now I’m here. And I know what I have to do.”

  He lifts one silver brow. “Give yourself to the cause of the Eshvaren?”

  “Defeat the Ra’haam,” I correct him. “Save thousands of worlds.”

  “Protecting their playground,” he muses. “And the dolls they made to live in it.”

  I blink at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You do not know,” he says, “what you are.”

  “I know I’m the girl who’s going to do what you failed to.”

  “Failed?” he smiles. “All I failed to do was kneel as they wished me to.”

  “The Eshvaren made you what you are. They gave you this power to save the galaxy, and you used it to murder billions.”

  “Is that what you believe?” he asks, his smile thin. “That they wish to save the galaxy? That they actually care a drop for us?”

  He huffs a soft, derisive breath.

  “We are things to them, child. Mere tools. They created us.”

  “Of course they created us,” I repeat, flat. “They created us to defend th—”

  “Not us,” he hisses. “Not you and me. All of us.”

  He gestures toward the outside, to the battle I can feel raging even now.

  “Everything around you—every race, every individual, from the grayest elder to the youngest babe. We were all created by the Eshvaren in the hope that among those billions, they might find one to continue their fight against the Ra’haam. A vessel capable of wreaking revenge upon the race that bested them.” His lips curve into an almost conspiratorial smile. “The Eshvaren are not the noble paragons they’d have you believe. Not selfless martyrs who gave their lives for us. They are demons. Demons who would be gods.”

  I sneer. “I’m supposed to believe that?”

  He shakes his head a fraction, as though I’m a slightly dim student. “Have you never wondered why we all resemble one another? Think, child. Every race in the galaxy. We all stand on two feet. Breathe the same air. Speak languages the others can comprehend. The chance of hundreds of races evolving in such similar patterns across so vast a timeline and distance is nonexistent.” He folds his arms and scowls. “The Eshvaren seeded the galaxy in their own image. We are a virus in a petri dish to them. No better than insects.”

  The words reverberate in my mind, sending shudders through every part of me. I’ve heard Tyler and Fin talk about their United Faith. The religion that grew among the galactic races to explain these similarities.

  I glance at Kal, pressed against the chamber wall.

  “But … the Maker,” I say.

  The Starslayer shakes his head.

  “Not a Maker, child,” he says. “Makers.”

  The word shakes me, chi
lling my blood.

  “The Eshvaren are our puppeteers,” Caersan says, his violet eye flashing. “And we their puppets. Imagine the arrogance it took to seed life in their own image across hundreds of worlds. All for the sake of some petty revenge?” He gestures at the Weapon around us, the rainbows dancing on the crystal. “That is the jest of it, Aurora Jie-Lin O’Malley. That is all we are. There are no gods. There is no grand design. No purpose to any of it, beyond the last desperate stab of a fallen empire. A lottery of a million years and countless lives, for one last chance at vengeance.”

  The thought is almost too much for me to take in. But through the power that links us, binds us, I know Caersan isn’t lying. All the religions of all the worlds, all the creation stories, all the beliefs of how and why this began …

  And really, it was the Eshvaren who made us all?

  It’s a stone in my chest. A cold hand squeezing my insides. I wonder what Finian might think if he knew. What Tyler would say if I told him.

  Makers …

  But then I push the thought, the weight of it and them, aside. I force my attention back to Caersan as he looks me up and down and sneers.

  “You are nothing to the Eshvaren. And still, you would die for them?”

  “Of course I would,” I say. “No matter what you say, the Ra’haam still wants to consume the entire galaxy and every living thing in it. Asking for just one more life to stop it seems like a small enough price to me.”

  I look him over, taking my time.

  “It’s a pity you were too cowardly to pay it.”

  Just for a millisecond, I see anger in his gaze.

  Interesting.

  “I was strong enough to forge my own destiny,” he replies coolly. “To step off the path my would-be masters laid down for me.”

  I snort. “And your idea of strength was to destroy your own homeworld? To kill billions of your people?”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Kal shift his weight.

  His father simply shrugs. “You speak as though the effort cost me something. But all my ties were long since burned away. Just as they taught us.”

  Burn it all away.

  It makes sense, I suppose. If Caersan cut away all his ties—family, love, honor, loyalty—but didn’t replace them with devotion to destroying the Ra’haam, what would be left? Just an empty shell, with all the powers of the Trigger.

  But somehow, I’m not sure that’s right. There’s something in his gaze—that flicker of temper that flashed to the surface like a silvery fish, then disappeared—that tells me that whatever he burned away has begun to slowly creep back in.

  That maybe I’m stronger.

  I lash out at him with a wave of pure power, quick as a whipcrack. He stumbles back a step, then straightens, radiating disdain.

  “What was that, child?”

  “Just a hello,” I reply, as sweetly as I know how.

  Caersan strikes back, but instantly, instinctively, I throw up my hands. My energy is midnight blue, shot through with silver wisps, like nebulas, like starlight. His is a dark, dusty red, like drying blood, threaded with antique gold. There’s a depth to it, a richness and a power I’d find frightening if I were still me.

  But I’m not. The Eshvaren saw to that, and now I know why.

  He comes at me again, unleashing his power like a striking snake, and I meet him, holding the line. Midnight blue and deep russet entwine between us, each trying to choke the other. I lean into my power, impassive, knowing his passion will compromise him. Knowing my purpose will carry me.

  I lash out at him again, hard as I can, a crack of psychic force like a slap to his face. Caersan’s head whips to one side, a tiny cut opening up on that flawless cheek. The silver braids he keeps draped over one side of his face are thrown aside, showing me the eye that was hidden from the rest of the galaxy.

  And of course, like mine, it glows pure white.

  But around that glowing eye, I can see scars carved down Caersan’s features, like cracks in an old riverbed. The right side of his face is withered, old, as if all the life has been sucked right out of it. The glow from his eye spills out through the cracks in his cheek as he glowers at me, dragging his braids back down over his face as if ashamed. He glances at the Weapon around us, the spears of crystal pointed toward the throne at its heart.

  “So now you see. What it cost me to use it. And what it will cost you.” His pointed teeth are bared as he snarls. “They bestowed this power upon us, intending for this thing to tear it out of us again. To dismantle us piece by piece. No beautiful death. No ultimate sacrifice. They intended us to die in fragments. Twenty-two planets for us to destroy, twenty-two slivers of our souls to be ripped out of us one by one and fed to their vengeance machine.”

  Even the thought is enough to make me recoil. I can feel the memory inside him, reverberating along the bond between us. I can sense just a hint of the pain he felt as he fired the Weapon, and even that is nearly overwhelming. But given what he used it to do, I know he deserved it, too.

  He throws up his hands, his power rolling in the space between us. The Weapon trembles as I force him back, his boots skidding across the crystal. As the power rages around us again, cascading over us in waves of blue and red, the beautiful, powerful man before me takes an unwilling step back. I push outward, crashing into him with everything I have, and he staggers with a grunt of effort. His elegance is crumbling, his poise is fading, and he leans forward like a man battling the wind, those silver braids whipping out behind him. Midnight blue swirls around me in a growing storm, thundering as I harden my voice.

  “You’ve corrupted the gift we’ve been given, Caersan. You’ve chosen years of power for yourself, trapped in a dying galaxy, over millennia of life for hundreds of species.”

  My power crashes into him as I summon everything I have. The force of me, the power inside me, pure and unhindered, hits him like a tidal wave. He flails, torn off his feet, and sails back into the wall, smashing into the crystal with a thunderous crack. I strike him again, again, again, as a tiny line of purple blood spills from his nose and down over his lip. My midnight blue begins to consume the old blood it battles, surrounding it, silver twisting over gold. And finally, he collapses to the deck.

  “One life isn’t too much to pay,” I tell him.

  I take another step toward him, bathed in glittering midnight.

  “Nor are two, Starslayer.”

  He looks up at me then, braids draped around his face, and I see the pride and hatred crackling in his gaze. I feel his power swell, and I force myself to focus, to keep my hold on him firm. Kal steps forward in the storm, shouting over the roar.

  “Aurora!”

  But I ignore him, my eyes fixed on his father.

  “I can feel it,” I tell him. “What you lost when you fired it.”

  Caersan closes his fists, the air crackling. “What they took from me.”

  “And once it’s gone, it’s gone for good.”

  “Yes.”

  I smile at that. “Which means you’re less than you were, Starslayer.”

  I reach deep inside myself, ready to finish it.

  “Less than me.”

  “Perhaps,” he whispers. “But you are failing to account for one thing.”

  There’s a sudden flicker in his presence that I don’t like, that makes me wary.

  “And what’s that?”

  “That I am not alone.”

  His power flares, like a sun rising over the horizon, and the crystal in the walls around us responds, lighting up from within.

  That’s when I see them, no longer hidden in the shadows, but lit from behind by blood-red light. Row upon row of Syldrathi, hundreds of them, are pinned against the walls of the chamber above me by some invisible force. Their eyes stare at nothing, their hands stretched out to either side.

  “Mothercustard,” I breathe.

  The glyfs at their brows tell me they’re Waywalkers. All of them. And a shudder goes through me
as I suddenly realize why the Unbroken have been hunting them across the galaxy.

  Every Waywalker cries out, fingers flexing, face contorted. The sudden flow of their power into Caersan is like being caught by a wave, tumbled end over end until there’s nothing to do but hold your breath, lungs bursting, fighting to last a second longer, praying to whoever’s listening for air.

  His eyes—so like his son’s—lock onto mine as he speaks again.

  “I am a warrior born. I carved my name in blood among the stars while you slumbered in your crib. I am Warbreed. I am Unbroken. I am an eater of worlds and slayer of suns. I am not less than I was before, child. I am more.”

  He stands slowly, arms outstretched. The power around him doubles, triples, a psychic tempest of blood-red and glittering gold. The chamber around us, the whole Weapon, trembles, the screams of those Waywalkers filling my mind.

  And I realize with creeping horror that he’s been holding himself back.

  “You have given me your best, little Terran,” he says.

  Slowly, the Starslayer curls his hands into fists.

  “Now I will give you mine.”

  36

  TYLER

  It’s called a gremlin.

  In the Terran war-propaganda posters I studied for conflict history in fourth year, gremlins were depicted as tiny, malicious humanoids with pointed ears and claws. But they were basically a way for pilots to keep up morale. Equipment failures got blamed on gremlins, so pilots got to avoid pointing the finger at the flight crews they depended on to keep them alive, and the war got won.

  Nowadays, gremlin is a nickname for any number of portable counter-electronic devices—signal killers, network jammers, or, in the case of the miracle I’ve just discovered in my boot heel, electromagnetic-pulse generators.

  How could they know?

  I glance up at Saedii, who appears to be ignoring me for the benefit of the camera above our cell door. But she’s caught a glimpse of the gremlin in my heel, and sharp as she is, she knows exactly what it can do for our predicament.