“No,” I agree. “Because they anticipated that the first one was going to do his damned job.”
“They anticipated total self-sacrifice,” he agrees, lip drawing back into a sneer. “For their Trigger to die on their knees.”
“As opposed to taking this thing they left behind, the culmination of their entire species’ efforts,” I snap, “and using it to wipe out whole suns in the name of conquering the galaxy. Your own people, billions of them, so you could do what? Rule for the next few years until the Ra’haam bloomed?”
“We were born to rule!” He throws the words back at me like a spear, but it veers off course—it’s Kal who takes half a step back, his breath uneven. “And my people were cowards and traitors!”
“You had a chance!” My voice echoes off the walls of the crystal chamber around us. “You had a chance to catch the Ra’haam while it was sleeping, and instead, you did this!” A wave of my hand takes in the floor around us, littered with the bodies of his people. They’re probably the lucky ones—they didn’t live to see the Ra’haam takeover that must have followed our disappearance.
The Starslayer doesn’t spare his dead prisoners a glance. The anger inside me thickens, and I shift my weight, because I swear there is nothing in this time or any other that would be as satisfying as getting my hands around his throat. But Kal’s mind brushes against mine, violet twining around midnight blue, calming, quieting me. He finds me effortlessly now, something unlocked inside both of us. And he’s enough to bring me down.
“How did this happen, Father?” he asks.
Caersan turns away and navigates a path through the corpses carpeting the floor. When he reaches the wall of the chamber, he lays one hand on the crystal and glances up at the vaulted ceiling.
“It is unclear,” he says. “Psychic dissonance caused by the presence of two Triggers, perhaps. But if the Neridaa performed such an extraordinary act once, then I believe it could be replicated. I know this ship as well as my own self. The power that hums through it as well as my own breath. It is less a weapon to be fired than an instrument to be played.”
A sliver of hope creeps into my mind, like the smallest beam of sunlight breaking through the clouds. “You think we could play it again?”
He’s thoughtful. “I know the note of the song I heard as we moved across time. I could replicate it, with enough power. Your mind could provide the unsophisticated push, for want of a more precise term. I believe I could channel it into that same song and return us to the moment we left.”
“Aurora … ,” Kal begins, but I’m already laughing.
“It’s okay, Kal, I’m not volunteering for that.”
“Oh, but …” Caersan turns to me, hands over his heart. “You are the Trigger of the Eshvaren, Aurora! You have a chance to catch the Ra’haam while it sleeps! Is it not, as you so eloquently put it, your damned job?”
His mock sincerity drops like a mask, his hands to his sides.
“Not so eager to serve them now, eh? Now that you know what it will cost?”
My fingers creep up to brush my cheek, and though most of my anger is directed at the arrogant bastard standing in front of us, a little flame within me flickers, and whispers: How were you meant to fire this thing twenty-two times? You would have died piece by piece.
That’s what they asked of you.
But even still, I feel the power tingling at my fingertips, aching for release. Again, I feel that sense of exhilaration at the thought I might get to unleash it. It’s like a river, welling up inside me even now, and even though I’m still weak from the last time, even though I can feel it hurting me every time I use it, I almost …
I almost … want to.
“All this is irrelevant, regardless,” Caersan sighs.
“Why?” I ask, pushing the want down to my toes. “What do you mean?”
“Do you not sense it, Terran? In the air? In the walls?”
I let my mind quest outward, to the pulses and flickers that flow through the walls around us. And I know what Caersan means. It’s like Kal already said. “The music. The song in this place … it feels different now.”
The Starslayer nods. “The Neridaa is damaged. During the battle for Terra. I cannot play the note if her strings have been cut.”
“Well, we have to repair it, then,” I declare.
Caersan scoffs. “As simple as that.”
“I’m not saying it will be simple,” I say, hands curling into fists. “But we can’t just float here doing nothing. If this is the future we made, we have to get back to the past and fix it.” I wave toward the corrupted Syldrathi colony, that moldy slick of oil in both our minds. “This is our fault, Caersan!”
“We should continue this debate in a place more sheltered than beside a FoldGate,” Kal says. “If the Ra’haam has taken Taalos—”
His father scowls. “Turn tail and run, you mean? What else has she gifted you? What other Terran weakness now poisons your veins?”
“Only a fool strikes a blow in haste,” Kal shoots back. “A warrior strikes once, and well.” A flash of contempt crosses his face that’s all Caersan, from the lift of his chin to the curl of his lip. In this moment, I can see the same blood running through them. Our minds brush together, mine reaching for his as instinctively as his does for mine. We don’t need words—silver and gold wrap together, confirming our shared intent.
When we make it back, we’ll take him on again. We’ll be ready.
We’ll be together.
Caersan’s mouth only quirks, though, and he inclines his head. “At least you retained something of my teachings,” he murmurs. “We passed by a FoldStorm not far back. It should provide cover. You will assist me in propelling the Neridaa into the storm, Terran.”
He glowers as I hesitate, and I size him up, studying that face so similar to Kal’s—and so completely different.
“You moved it fine on your own before,” I point out.
He scowls. “You are too cowardly to make yourself vulnerable to me.”
“We’re surrounded by people you killed. Can’t think why I’d hesitate.”
“You are right to fear me, girl,” he smiles. “But I may require your mind to return to my own time. I would be a fool to destroy you now.”
He turns his back, contemptuous, unafraid, and the display projected in the center of the room shifts as he plots out a course to the storm. Slowly, tentatively, I ease down my barriers to observe the way he interlinks with the Weapon—the Neridaa, in his mind—and propels it forward by will alone.
His mind is rich and deep and strong, layers of the same gold as his son’s, and a dark, dried-blood red. I can feel the strength in it, a coming together of his Syldrathi heritage and his training in the Echo. He would’ve been a stronger Trigger than me, if he’d been willing. And as he glances back toward the corrupted Taalos colony, I can feel it in him, beneath that ice-cold demeanor. He might play the imperious one, the faultless one, but I can tell he’s furious at the sight of that fallen world. Much as he loathes me, I can sense there’s something he loathes even more.
Defeat.
He bats me away before I can look more closely, and we each put our mental shoulders to the wheel, easing the city-sized crystal through the quiet of the Fold. We work side by side, rather than weaving together as I do with Kal. But we’re moving through the black and white, fast as thought.
The storm looms in the distance ahead, massive and roiling, bigger than planets and crackling with power. As we cruise toward it, Caersan climbs onto the throne and, red cloak splayed beneath him, makes himself more comfortable. I settle on a step at the bottom, and Kal takes his place beside me, our hands still joined.
“Don’t look at them,” I whisper as his gaze falls—how can it not?—on the dead bodies littering the floor.