—and Caersan is hacking and slashing at the growths around him, and the pressure is building, hammering against my temples, cracks running down my face as the light pulses through them, and I think I’m screaming
—and Lae’s mind is bright, and in it I can see Saedii’s tae-sai gaming table, and I understand her mother loved to play against Tyler, and she taught her daughter, and I see the regret and defiance in Lae’s mind as she wrenches one arm free of the Ra’haam
—and Kal and Caersan shout, but in all our minds she tips her wooden Templar piece to signal the game is over, and with her free arm she gets her pistol up, and like her mother, she denies the Ra’haam its quarry
—and as she pulls the trigger and the rainbow brilliance of her mind is gone, Kal falls to one knee, and I wrap my mind in his, and I can hear myself screaming as he shows me one last time how much he loves me, because if we can go back, Tyler will still live, Toshh and Dacca and Elin will still live, one day Lae will be born, but if Kal dies here and now, I lose him forever.
With a roar, Caersan attacks the Ra’haam as it brings down his son, but for every vine he hacks away, another takes its place. He knows no victory lies this way. I can feel it.
“Fight!” he screams, and I don’t know who he’s talking to anymore. He swings his blade again, unable to surrender, refusing to let go.
“Caersan!” I cry. “This is not the fight! Heal the Neridaa with me!”
And he looks up, his face splintered and cracked, the light almost blinding …
—and then he stands in the Echo with me in a field of crystal flowers, and once more I’m in two worlds, three worlds, four worlds, so many times and places …
—a boy tries to understand why his father is angry
—the boy’s son tries to understand why his father is angry
—“Imagine what we could have made, if only you had loved us.”
—“My son, I …”
—the flowers shatter one by one … and then they are still …
… and everything is still …
And in both worlds—beside me in the Echo and beside Kal on the floor—he raises his voice to roar his defiance to the Ra’haam:
“YOU WILL NEVER WIN!”
and the Starslayer shatters into a million pieces, spending every piece of himself in his defiance, in his absolute refusal to surrender
and all around him the Ra’haam burns black and red, shriveling and curling in on itself
and within the Echo, he is everywhere, infusing the place with his energy as it knits back together and becomes beautiful
and he infuses me with his energy, and I am powerful, I am infinite
and for a moment I know him completely, and then he is gone, but in the roaring silence the instant after his departure
I know he killed billions.
And I know he can never be forgiven.
And I know that he has spent the last of his life force in a tangled, furious stab made up of defiance, a refusal to concede defeat, an act of anger and iron-willed resolve …
… and yes, of love.
Kal lies gasping on the floor, surrounded by the burned and blackened remains of the Ra’haam, and I stagger to him, dropping to my knees, and he closes his eyes against the glow from my face, but he reaches up to throw his arms around me and I wrap my mind around Kal’s to brace him, and I say
I love you
I love you
I love you
and I’m not completely sure who’s speaking in that moment, and I harness the power of Caersan’s that still runs through me, and feel Kal’s warmth inside me, and
light
shines
from
me
as
I—
34
TYLER
“You certainly have a flair for the dramatic, legionnaire.”
I open my eye. Gray walls around me. Pale light above me. A figure is silhouetted against it, broad-shouldered, thick-necked. The metal on his chest and cybernetic arms gleams dully, and his voice is a low, rumbling growl.
“Admiral Adams … ,” I whisper.
I’m in the academy med station, I realize. The same bay I was in the day I first met Aurora O’Malley. For a moment, I almost want to turn my head to see if she’s on the other side of the wall, just waking up.
Monitors and machines hiss and hum around me, pulsing with a steady, warm glow. I’m mostly numb from the neck down, wondering why the world looks so strange. Bringing my trembling hand up to my face, I feel a thick derm patch across my cheek, over my right brow.
“You lost it,” Adams says. “The eye. Lost your spleen too. The shot missed your spine by about two centimeters. You’re lucky to be breathing.”