The beating stops. My sister’s weight upon my chest eases away. I open the eye that is not swelling shut and find my father standing above me. I can see him in my face when I look into the mirror at night. I can feel him behind me when I think I am alone. My mother watches, her expression one of anguish as I roll to my belly, push myself to my feet.
Father sinks to one knee before me so we are eye to eye. He reaches out and drags one thumb across my cheek. But where once he found tears, now there is only blood.
“Good boy, Kaliis,” he says.
I nod. “Tears are for the conquered, Father.”
“Kal, please wake up… .”
… I am in my room aboard the Andarael, and I am nine years old.
My fists are torn, my blood deep purple in the low, warm light. The engines thrum as I fish inside the deepest gash with tweezers, and wincing, I draw it out from my swollen knuckle—a pale sliver of broken tooth.
I did not mean to hit him so hard. I do not remember most of what happened after my first punch landed. But I remember the words he spoke about my father—the words that smelled like cowardice. The Warbreed denounced the Inner Council’s treaty with the Terrans, attacked Earth’s shipyards, crushed their navy. And now we will turn our attention to those among our own people who cry for peace when there can be only war. Because war is what I was born for.
Isn’t it?
The door opens with a whisper, and my mother enters the room, clad in a long, flowing gown, a string of Void crystals glittering about her neck. I stand as is proper, head bowed, voice soft.
“Mother.”
She glides to the viewport, staring to the dark beyond. I can still see the echoes of the battle out there in my mind’s eye—those vast ships burning away in the light of Orion. All those lives snuffed out by my father’s hand.
I see the faint bruise at the corner of my mother’s mouth, a dark smudge in the starlight that kisses her skin. An ember of rage flares inside me. I love my mother with all I have. And though I love my father also, I hate this thing within him, this thing that makes him hurt her.
I would tear it out of him with my bare hands if I could.
“Valeth is in the infirmary with a broken jaw and nine broken ribs.”
“That is unfortunate,” I reply carefully.
“He says he fell down the auxiliary stairwell.”
“They can be treacherous.”
My mother looks to me, eyes shining. “What happened to your hand?”
I keep my gaze on the floor, speaking soft. “I injured it training.”
I hear quiet footsteps, feel her touch, cool on my cheek. “Even were I not Waywalker born, even were the locks upon your heart not open doors to me, still I am your mother, Kaliis. You cannot lie to me.”
“Then do not ask me to. Honor demands I—”
“Honor,” she sighs.
Her fingertips brush the new glyf on my forehead, the three blades branded there on my ascension day. I know she and Father fought about which cabal I would become part of. And I know he won.
He always wins.
“How do you think that boy will feel when he lies to his father about the beating you gave him?” she asks.
“He made himself my enemy,” I reply. “I do not care how he feels.”
“Yes, you do. That is the difference between Caersan and you.”
She lifts my chin, gently forcing me to meet her eyes. I see the pain in them. I see the strength. And I see myself.
“I know you are his son, Kaliis. But you are my son also. And you need not become the thing he is teaching you to be.”
She leans forward, presses her lips to my burning brow.
“There is no love in violence, Kaliis.”
I see light behind her. A halo of midnight blue flecked with silver.
I hear a voice, familiar but strange.
“Kal?”
“There is no love in violence.”
“Kal, can you hear me? Oh, please, please, wake up.”
… My mother’s touch rouses me from sleep. My heart thumps as my eyes flash wide and her hand covers my lips. I am twelve years old.
“Get up, my love,” she whispers. “We must go.”
“Go? Go where?”
“We are leaving,” she tells me. “We are leaving him.”
I see a bruise, faint upon her wrist. The split in her lip is new. But I know it is not for her that she is running from him at last.
She draws me up off my bed, hands me my uniform. Wordlessly I dress, wondering if she truly means it. My father will never allow this. I have heard him threaten to kill her if she leaves. There is nowhere she can run.
“Where will we go?” I ask.
“I have friends on Syldra.”
“Mother, we are at war with Syldra.”
“No, he is at war,” she hisses. “With everyone and everything. I will not let you become him, Kaliis. I will allow him to poison my children no longer.”
My mind is racing as we slip through the dark to Saedii’s quarters. Mother steals inside while I keep watch, my heart hammering, my mind whirling. He will never forget this. He will never forgive.
“Saedii,” Mother whispers. “Saedii, wake up.”
My sister seethes upright, blade drawn from beneath her pillow, teeth bared. When she sees our mother, she relaxes only a fraction. And when she sees me, she tenses once again.
Her face is still bruised from the beating I gave her. The rift between us wider than it has ever been. She broke the siif that Mother gave me after I defeated her at spar. She can no longer best me in the circle, so she sought to punish me another way. And I punished her in kind. I can still picture her blood on my fingers. The pain in her eyes as I hit her with the siif she broke. I feel shame even now that I laid hands upon her so. Mind echoing with the memory of Father’s words when he learned what I had done.
“Never have I been more proud that you are my son.”
“What do you want, Mother?” she whispers, lowering her blade.
“We are leaving, Saedii. We are leaving him.”
Her eyes narrow. Her lip curls. “Are you crazed?”
“I am crazed to have allowed this to continue as long as I have. Caersan is a cancer, and I will allow it to spread no further. Come now.”
Saedii snatches her hand away from Mother’s grip. “Faithless coward. He is your lifelove, Laeleth. You owe him your heart and soul.”
“I have given him both!” Mother hisses, pointing to the bruises on her skin. “And this is how I have been repaid! And were it only I to bear the burden, perhaps even now I would keep my troth. But I will not stand by and watch my children fall into the same darkness that consumes him!”
Saedii looks to me, face bruised, teeth bared. “You allow this, brother?”
I meet her eyes, pleading. “I am sorry, sister. But you know the truth. He is no good for us. He is not what I wish to become.”
“Coward!” she spits, rising. “Both of you, faithless cowards!” Midnight-blue light flares behind her, and I squint, blinded. The warmth of it bathes my skin, tingling through every part of me.
“Kal?”
“Saedii, come with us!”
“I would die before I betrayed him.”
“Kal!”
“Coward! Shame! De’sai!”
“KAL!”
… I open my eyes.
I see her above me, a halo of light playing around her head. My heart surges so painfully I press one hand to my ribs to stop the ache. My sight is blurred, mind aching, but still, one thought burns bright enough to pierce the fog of my broken thoughts.
She is alive.
My Aurora is alive.
The walls around us are glittering crystal, and I realize I am floating a meter above the floor. As I shift my weight, try to rise, the air about me hums gently, rainbow-colored—the same as the energies of the Echo, where Aurora and I lived half a year, a lifetime, in the memories of the Eshvaren homeworld. But they feel different now. The song of energy hanging in the air is—
“No, don’t try to sit up,” she whispers, one hand on my shoulder. “Just rest, okay? I thought I lost you for a minute there, I—I thought I …”
Her voice breaks and she closes her eyes, tears in her lashes as she hangs her head. I raise one hand to cup her cheek, soft as feathers.
“I am here,” I tell her. “I will never leave you. Unless you wish me to.”
“No,” she breathes. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry I sent you away, Kal.”
“I am sorry I lied to you, be’shmai. I was a coward to do so.”
“You came here alone to finish him. To save the damn galaxy.” She presses my knuckles to her lips. “You’re the bravest boy I ever met.”