by Amie Kaufman
Aurora is pacing back and forth, wearing the darkest scowl I’ve ever seen. Kal stands to one side, brow creased in thought. Fin sits opposite me at the central station, trawling the news feeds, Zila atop the console, chewing a lock of dark hair.
“How could it be gone?” I ask. “How is that possible?”
“I don’t know,” Auri replies, voice trembling.
Finian shakes his head. “Crossing into the anomaly would’ve destroyed any normal ship. And to even know where it was…they’d had to have found a probe.”
“Or been told of the location by the Ancients,” Kal replies.
The answer is obvious.
“Another Trigger,” Zila says.
Auri purses her lips. “The Eshvaren said there might have been others before me. The Echo resets when someone leaves it, and this plan has been in place for a million years. But they also said that whoever came before me must have failed, because the Ra’haam is still alive.”
She shakes her head, the air about her rippling with her frustration.
“I don’t get it.”
Finian starts spitballing. “Maybe this other Trigger completed their training, claimed the Weapon, then…I dunno, fell down the stairs or choked on a creshcake or something?”
“Perhaps they completed their training,” Kal says, looking at Aurora, “then balked at the price they would pay to defeat the Ra’haam.”
Auri looks at Kal, her voice soft. “Let’s not talk about that, okay?”
Zila’s eyebrow rises two millimeters, which is practically a scream of alarm as far as she goes. “What price?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Auri says, temper flaring. “It doesn’t matter, because the damn Weapon isn’t even there!” The air crackles around her, a pale light flaring in her iris. “After all that! After everything we’ve gone through, and someone’s stolen it right out from under us! Son of a biscuit, I want to just…scream.”
I glance at Kal, but, good lad, he’s already on the job, folding Auri in those covetable arms of his. He kisses her brow tenderly, smooths back her hair.
“All will be well, be’shmai,” he vows. “Trust in this. In us. The sun will rise.”
She sinks against him, sighing. I watch the two of them, realizing how deep they’re into each other now. I can feel the bond that’s grown between them in the time they shared in the Echo, those hours to us that were months to them. The love. And, heartbreaker that I am, slayer of suitors with over fifty confirmed kills in my little black book, I wonder for a moment if I’ll ever have anyone who means as much to me as they do to each other.
“Um,” Finian says.
I glance at our Gearhead, his big black eyes fixed on his screens.
I do my best Tyler impression, eyebrow raised. “Do you have something you’d like to share with the class, Legionnaire de Seel?”
Wordlessly, he flicks a metal-clad finger, his exosuit humming as he transfers his feed to the holo display above the main console. It’s a news feed from TerraNet, the most reliable Earth news source, the words LATEST UPDATE scrolling across the bottom of the screen. It shows footage of a massive Syldrathi armada, thousands upon thousands of ships, all floating like sharks in the Fold.
It’s the biggest fleet I’ve ever seen.
“Amna diir,” Kal breathes.
Fin presses another button, arcing the volume of the feed.
“…Unbroken armada is currently amassing in the Fold near the gateway to Terran space. Terran forces have yet to engage, instead mustering inside the Sol system in defensive posture. This statement was issued from the head of the Terran Defense Force, Admiral Emi Hotep, one hour ago.”
The feed shifts to a severe, bronze-skinned woman with short dark hair, in a sharp TDF officer’s uniform.
“I am sending this message on all channels, addressing the Unbroken fleet: Though we have had differences in our past, the Syldrathi are friends to Earth. We consider you an honorable people, warriors born, and we have no wish to engage in hostilities with Unbroken forces. However, should Syldrathi vessels invade Terran space, they will be met with deadly force.”
The feed shifts to a Betraskan man in officer’s dress. The label under him reads GREATER CLAN BATTLE LEADER ANALI DE TREN.
“The Betraskan people strive always for peace, in our hearts, in our dens, and in our skies. But should any world or force engage in unwarranted hostilities, Trask will stand with our Terran allies.”
My heart sinks in my chest as I look around the bridge. I can see the same despair in the faces of my squad. The galaxy is on the verge of war.
The feed continues.
“Disturbingly, an unknown vessel has been detected within the Unbroken fleet. TDF Command has dismissed claims of a ‘superweapon,’ but the fate of the Syldrathi homeworld at the hands of Unbroken leader Archon Caersan, aka the Starslayer—an attack in which ten billion Syldrathi lost their lives—cannot be ignored. Moments ago, before our drone was destroyed, TerraNet managed to shoot exclusive footage of this unknown Syldrathi ship.”
The feed cuts back to an image of the armada, cruising through the Fold. Again, I’m struck by the size of it—the sheer firepower the Starslayer has brought to bear in retaliation for the attack on Andarael.
“This Caersan guy seems to be taking this real personal,” Finian mutters.
“Yeah,” I nod. “I wonder wh—”
“Mothercustard,” Auri whispers, eyes widening.
Kal’s face is pale and drawn as he watches the feed, a sliver of fear and sorrow appearing in the cracks of his normally ice-cool Syldrathi demeanor. But at the note in Auri’s voice, he turns to her.
“Be’shmai?”
I look back at the screen. The footage is blurred, a few frames snatched in the second or two before the TerraNet drone was killed. It shows a glimpse of a vessel between the silhouettes of two Unbroken dreadnoughts. It’s absolutely massive—easily the biggest ship I’ve ever seen. Kilometers across, as long as a city. In contrast to the smooth black metal profiles of the Syldrathi ships, it’s an odd, conical shape, kinda like an oboe or a clarinet. And it’s made of what looks like…
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 hear
t 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.”
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.
