“No, no,” Kira protested, and at once, she felt like a child again, stomping her feet, pushing back against whatever she was being told to do. But she knew then, just as she knew now, that it was futile to resist. Still, she couldn’t stop herself. She couldn’t let go. “You’re coming with us. We have to leave, all of us.”
“My daughter, my life. I wish, more than anything in the galaxy, that there were another way. But they can’t know that I passed along this information. The only chance you have to stop your father is if he doesn’t know you’re coming.”
“I don’t care about Ebik. I don’t care about any of this,” Kira said, losing the battle to keep the tears from flowing down her face. “We lost each other once; I’m not going to lose you again. I can’t.”
Akima’s shoulders sank into herself, and she closed her eyes. She had to reestablish her own resolve, which was weakened by her daughter’s plea. When she opened her eyes again, her conviction had returned.
In that painfully brief yet infinite moment, Kira knew that she had lost her mother forever.
“He’s going to destroy Praxis,” Akima said. “The entire planet. They’ve kept the energy Ga Halle has taken from extinguishing stars all these years. Amassed it. And now they’ve harnessed it into a weapon that has the capacity to kill every man, woman, and child who calls this place home.”
Kira gasped and staggered backward. “No … no, he can’t.”
“He can and he will,” Akima said. “Ebik is capable of doing it, and worse, he’s willing. His insecurity and fear dominate everything he does, and this rebellion has threatened to take away the thing he cherishes most—his power. He’d rather see Praxis destroyed with everyone on it than lose what he thinks is his. I know how he thinks, Kira. He doesn’t need this planet, and neither does Ga Halle. They have the entire galaxy.”
“But, Mom, I—”
“You have to stop him, Kira. Everything you need to know is on that disk. Get to the Crucible, disarm the weapon. It’s the only way to stop your father.”
Behind her, though distantly, Kira heard the elevator faintly ding. Someone was coming.
Mig rushed out of the room. “I can short-circuit the car, but the backup generator will kick on quickly.”
“Leave,” Akima said, pushing Kira toward the door.
There was no time for sentiment, no time for anything other than fighting and surviving. Sometimes, Kira felt like those were the only two things she knew.
“I can buy you time, but you have to hurry,” Akima urged.
Kira shook her head, protesting the inevitable. She was torn apart by two sides of a conflict. One side compelled her to stay, to remain at her mother’s side and let someone else defeat evil this time. The other side compelled her to go, to be the obedient daughter and make the sensible, moral choice; to dig deep and rally her spirit in order to save millions of lives. Kira couldn’t decide which path to choose. “I can’t,” she whispered. “Mom, I can’t do this without you.”
Akima wiped away her tears and kissed her daughter’s forehead softly. She looked into her daughter’s eyes and smiled. “All these years, I’ve been right by your side, Kira. I’ve marveled at your bravery, I’ve felt your wonderful heart, and I’ve seen all of your tremendous accomplishments. I’m so very, very proud of you, and I know you can do this without me. You already have. Now go.”
Kira felt a strong yet gentle hand grasp her bicep. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Kobe; she felt him pulling her back. “They’re coming,” he said, and she knew she had to go. But her feet wouldn’t take her away—not until Kobe spun her around, tearing her gaze off Akima.
“Remember my sister,” he said firmly. “Remember the promise I made to her, the promise we share to never let Praxis commit genocide again. Remember, Kira.”
Kira looked into Kobe’s eyes. She saw the pain and the resolve that coursed deep within him, and she knew it was what the fight she’d involved herself in demanded: loss and hardship. They were part of war, and Kira had to accept them regardless of the pain they caused her. Her only choice was to keep moving forward, to keep fighting until the war was won. Until the pain that Praxis brought to innumerable lives was over.
She followed Kobe out of her mother’s room, allowing herself one last look at her mother. Akima waved and mouthed the words “I love you.”
And as 4-Qel raised her into the ventilation shaft and Mig reset the lock on the door, Kira knew she’d just seen her mother for the final time.
CHAPTER TEN
“Go back,” the voice whispered. “Go back.”
It was a small voice, but a convincing one. It called from the back of Cade’s mind, making his every step all the more hesitant. Soft, green light penetrated through cracks in the walls and the ceiling, though Cade could hardly venture to guess its source. Not natural, it couldn’t have been. But Cade had to rely on that light to guide him through the chamber’s darkness and past the thick union of roots that hung down to his waist, one cautious step at a time. The voice called within him again, urging him to retrace his steps all the way back to the chamber’s entrance. Cade knew, even with Ersia’s blessing, that he didn’t belong in this place, but that didn’t make him feel afraid. It made him feel reverent.
His path began to slope just slightly, and it continued to steadily descend until Cade arrived at a circular trench dug about three feet below the ground’s level. The trench had to be fifty feet in diameter, and tearing through its center was an enormous gnarled tree. Slowly, Cade stepped into the trench, his focus fixed on the tree the entire time. As he walked toward it, his eyes followed its twisting and turning body upward. Dried, blackened bark clung like scabs to its weathered exterior; branches sprouted and curved upward, stretching as if trying to grow toward the light of a star that would never come. All the tree managed to reach was darkness, and eventually, it was swallowed by the chamber’s swirling mists.
Cade circled the tree, eyeing it warily. He reached out but stopped short of running his fingers along its abrasive exterior; the dry and jagged bark looked sharp to the touch, and Cade had learned that in these kinds of situations, it was best to leave well enough alone. Whatever the tree was—a monument, maybe a grave marker—it felt sacred, like something that held great significance to someone. And that someone wasn’t Cade. In fact, like the tree that improbably stood before Cade’s eyes, the entire chamber was imbued with a similar sense of profundity. Cade didn’t have to think hard to remember where he’d experienced this type of feeling before.
The Quarrian spire, right before Tristan removed the Rokura from its stasis and was then murdered.
Whatever this mystical and mysterious presence was, it was as palpable to Cade as the fog that rolled over the gates on Tannhauser. The sense of awe that shrouded Cade like a well-worn cloak also made him feel distant from everything around him. Maybe it was his way of dealing with the enormity of what he knew he was there to do, or maybe it was just a feeling that naturally came to people when presented with the unknown. After all, the Chamber of Memories was a place where the people of Monaskis went to commune with loved ones whose deaths should have made their absence irrevocable. Yet if the power of this place held true, then death held no authority here. Cade only wished he could somehow draw on this gift; if he could, then his brother would only be a magical call away. Cade yearned for Tristan’s guidance, if only for one last time. For a single moment, Cade closed his eyes and thought of Tristan, and he sorely missed how much more the world made sense when his brother was in it. It wasn’t just because of what Cade’s life had become because of the Rokura, nor was it about the relentless pursuit levied on him by Ga Halle in her quest to take from Cade something that neither one of them should rightfully possess. It was simply about Cade having to adjust to a galaxy that was absent his brother; it was about how his entire grip on reality was shattered the moment his brother was killed. He rarely slept peacefully since acquiring the Rokura, but on those rare occasions when sleep came eas
ily, he’d dream of his brother, alive and well—but like all dreams, these visions came to an end, and the sutures that stitched together his grief were torn apart by his waking life. Sometimes, Cade wondered if he’d ever acclimate to a life that was so far removed from Tristan.
His eyes still closed, Cade’s mind wandered. To life, to death. It felt like the first time he’d had any real quiet since falling unconscious in the spire on Quarry, and the silence was so absolute that he could hear Tristan’s voice as if it were calling out to him from the dark.
“It’s remarkable, isn’t it?” The words came softly to Cade, almost like they were whispered on the wind. But they weren’t, Cade realized, and he popped his eyes open.
He spun around, leading with the Rokura.
No one was there.
As he searched the darkness, looking for a shadow to crawl across a patch of light, his mind remained fixed on the last time he was in a dark, mystical chamber and how an ambush led to a shido being thrust through his brother’s heart. Cade wasn’t about to let the same thing happen to him.
“You can sense how special it is. How … unique. There’s a certain energy that moves throughout—even through both of us as we stand here.”
The voice was behind Cade again, inexplicably. Cade turned, and this time, light caught the corner of his eyes. He stopped short of a full rotation, and just off to his right, Cade saw a man standing among the roots that hung outside the trench. The man was bathed in the same green light that illuminated the bleary space. He began to walk toward Cade, passing through the vines. Not around them—the man passed through them like they weren’t even there. Or like he wasn’t there.
“You—” Cade began, dismayed, even though he was looking right at—or through, depending on the angle—who he’d come to the chamber to find. “You’re Wu-Xia.”
“And you,” Wu-Xia said, bringing his eyes to Cade’s, “are Cade Sura.”
Wu-Xia walked toward Cade, though his footfalls didn’t make a sound. He was dressed in a simple gray cloak that clasped tightly from his neck to his waist and billowed out down his legs. Though his chest was wide and strong, his body was otherwise lithe and nimble. In the light that drizzled down into the trench, Wu-Xia moved with so much grace it seemed as if he could bob and weave around the dust motes that fluttered through the air.
“How do you know who I am?”
Wu-Xia’s thin lips smiled at Cade, and almost imperceptibly, he nodded. He was just a hair taller than Cade, though Cade still felt dwarfed by his presence. Wu-Xia studied Cade with deep gray eyes that were both soulful and kind, but there was a harder edge to his glance, a steeliness behind his pupils that was as sharp as a dagger.
“If we spend our time discussing how I know what I know, we’ll have time for little else,” Wu-Xia said. “You have work to do.”
Cade took a deep breath. He had plenty of questions about how the chamber worked, how Wu-Xia could possibly be standing in front of him, and why he’d chosen to reveal himself to Cade and no one else, but he didn’t have the luxury to pursue any of that. Time was running out; the galaxy was waiting.
“Then you know why I’m here,” Cade said.
Wu-Xia nodded and turned away from Cade. He approached the tree and inspected it just as Cade had moments before.
“This isn’t the only one,” Wu-Xia said. “There are other places in the galaxy—other beings, even—that feel the way this chamber does. That are … different. Some are good; some are not.”
Wu-Xia continued to study the tree, and Cade studied Wu-Xia. There was mournfulness in his eyes, and Cade feared he was to blame. Wu-Xia looked like a doctor mustering the willpower to deliver a tragic diagnosis. He remained silent, and Cade considered what Wu-Xia had said, about other places in the galaxy being special. Cade knew what Wu-Xia was getting at.
“The spire on Quarry—that’s another one of these places, right?”
“And now you’re here, and you want me to tell you what happened in that spire. You want to know how I made the Rokura so long ago.”
“If it’ll help me, yeah. That’s exactly what I came here for.”
“You wish me to train you?” Wu-Xia said absently as he looked up the tree.
Cade shrugged. “I don’t know. Is that what it takes?”
Wu-Xia looked at Cade with his mournful eyes and beckoned him to his side. “What do you think this is?” he asked once Cade was standing next to him.
Cade cocked an eyebrow. “I’m pretty sure it’s a tree.”
“It’s more than a tree, Cade Sura. Its existence is impossible; it shouldn’t be able to grow without water and starlight, and yet here it stands. This tree is life, and sometimes life doesn’t need a reason. Sometimes life simply is.”
“I … I’m sorry,” Cade said, bowing his head. He felt like he should know what Wu-Xia was trying to tell him—that a Paragon would be able to decode his wisdom. “I don’t understand what you mean.”
Wu-Xia turned away from the tree and focused his attention on Cade instead. “First, it was your parents. Then your brother. Then Jorken. Percival. And now me,” Wu-Xia said. “You, Cade Sura, are always looking for someone to tell you what to do. You never allow yourself the opportunity to be.”
“It’s not like that,” Cade said. His words came out low and hard.
“No? Then tell me again why you’re here.”
Typically, Cade would have been more than happy to offer a sardonic response in order to evade conversations that made him uncomfortable. Humor, even self-deprecation, was his shield. But as he stood feeling oppressed by the utter silence of the chamber, Cade couldn’t think of anything to say. His life had veered into a direction it should have never gone the moment he’d left Kyysring for the Well. Jorken himself confirmed this deep-seated truth that festered within Cade for years, an itch he couldn’t scratch. He didn’t belong at the Well; he was only there because of his brother, which meant he wasn’t even a real Rai. He was just there, and he’d never achieved enough comfort in his own life, in his own skin, to seek out a path that suited him. So, he’d followed. He’d followed Tristan to Ticus, he’d followed Jorken through training, and with both gone, he’d moved right to following Percival in the hopes he could make sense of another role he wasn’t suited for. Content to pursue paths trod by others, Cade never so much as took a single step on a trail of his own making. And now, he found himself at the end of a path, in a place he didn’t belong, and there was no one there to tell him where to go.
Cade stared at Wu-Xia. He tried to mine a compelling response to Wu-Xia cutting to the heart of his true identity, but there was nothing for Cade to say. Wu-Xia was right. Cade was, and always had been, a follower.
All he could do was look away.
“I shouldn’t be here,” Cade said. His head was angled down, and his words tumbled to the ground. “I shouldn’t be doing any of this. I’m not the Paragon; I’m not the Chosen One.”
“What if I told you,” Wu-Xia said, “that there was no Paragon. No Chosen One.”
“I’d say you’re full of sh—” Cade stopped himself and cleared his throat. “I’d say that’s not what I’ve heard. And seen. And experienced.”
“Think of this place. People can come here and visit ancestors, long dead, like they were still among us. Think of the spire where I made a weapon more powerful than the galaxy has ever known. In my bones, my heart, my soul, I feel the power of these places. And you do, too. Something exists in this galaxy that is outside ourselves. Unseeable, unknowable. But it’s there. The Chamber of Memories is proof of this.”
Cade had been nodding along to Wu-Xia’s words, but his agreeable nods transitioned into confused shakes by the time Wu-Xia was finished. “Wait … I don’t know what you’re talking about. I thought I did, but … no. You lost me.”
Wu-Xia smiled. “The galaxy guides us, Cade. And in times of great peril or danger, times of great change, it finds someone to correct its course. It chose Percival to try to stop what was soo
n to happen with Praxis, and it chose your brother to, in a sense, correct its own mistake.”
“And it chose you,” Cade added.
“But I wasn’t the first; there’ve been others,” Wu-Xia said, then he turned to Cade with a renewed sense of mournfulness in his eyes. “I was just the first to make a terrible mistake.”
Cade studied Wu-Xia, expecting to see some kind of levity to break his mien; he expected Wu-Xia to somehow betray the notion that the Paragon could make a mistake. But the break never occurred, and Cade realized Wu-Xia was telling the truth. Something terrible had happened.
Wu-Xia shifted his eyes away, and with a swipe of his hand, he brushed the space above his and Cade’s heads. The arc of his movement left a black smear behind it, and in that swath of obsidian, an image began to take shape.
It was Ga Halle. She looked down at Cade, her eyes burning red, the horns twisting off her head. She said nothing, only stared at Cade, burrowing a hole into his soul. A chill ran up his spine. He’d always been frightened of Ga Halle, but in a more practical way. She was a cruel tyrant, and that was something to be fearful of, particularly when you’re the one who must stop her. But now, his fear was more primal; he feared Ga Halle the way he’d feared the monster under his bed when he was just a kid. It was as if she’d become something otherworldly, something without reason. She was simply a manifestation of evil. And as Cade trembled before her, he tried to convince himself it was only an image he was seeing and nothing more. But he wasn’t certain.
The black smear faded and Ga Halle with it. Cade exhaled.
“I’ve tried,” Cade admitted. “I’ve tried to make myself the Paragon. I’ve trained. I’ve focused. I almost sacrificed my life for this, but I don’t know that I can defeat her.”
“What do you feel when you hold the Rokura?” Wu-Xia asked.
Cade looked down and studied the weapon in his hand. Right now, he felt nothing. But when he did feel something—that loud, poignant call that refused to leave him be—he knew exactly what it was.
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