Scarlett looks between us, color rising in her cheeks. “Wait, you want to hook me up to a pulse of raw dark energy? The blast that’s cooked this entire station and killed us, like, a million times? That’s your power source?”
“WARNING: CORE IMPLOSION IMMINENT. FIVE SECONDS. WARNING.”
I look at Scar and shrug.
“It might tickle,” I concede.
“WARNING.”
BOOM.
23
AURI
When I swim slowly, painfully toward consciousness, I know where I’ll be when I wake up. I can remember all of it, though it hasn’t happened yet.
I’ll be on a slab, naked except for a silver space blanket.
There’ll be a boy on the other side of a frosted glass wall, and he won’t be wearing any pants.
A woman, white as starlight, will come in and tell me that this is the future, and aliens exist, and my family is long gone.
And I’ll ache for them.
And then I’ll find my new family.
And then …
My eyes snap open, and I try to push myself up onto my elbows, an immediate bolt of pain starting in my temples and reaching my fingers and toes in an agonizing millisecond. “Kal?”
The word comes out as a croak, and it’s another endless heartbeat before I realize he’s right there—a tangle of violet and gold curled up in my mind, like a cat that’s tucked itself away for a nap in a hidden corner.
Somewhere else, not far away, he’s asleep. But I can feel his pulse beating in time with my own. He’s all right.
He’s safe.
“He’s safe.”
The voice echoes my thoughts. For one wild moment I feel like I’m in one of those old vids where the main character wakes up from a bump to the head and everyone’s singing, because those two words are delivered in a three-note musical chord in a sorrowful minor key. Then, just as my brain’s pointing out the many holes in this theory, I turn my head and find not a guy with no pants, but the Ulemna member of the Sempiternity Council of Free Peoples.
My breath catches all over again at her perfection, the swirls of blue and purple in constant motion beneath her skin, the serenity of her silver eyes. I just stare, lips parted, and even if I wanted to, I couldn’t look away.
She lifts her hands and draws up her hood, and like that, the spell’s broken.
“What was that?” I murmur, still dazed.
Her musical voice sounds amused. “By that, do you mean the way you are drawn to me, or the battle we have just escaped?”
“The first one,” I decide. “And then where’s Kal, and then the second one.”
“It is the way of the Ulemna,” she says simply. “We … hold the attention of others. As for your Syldrathi bodyguard, he is just there.”
She nods to the other side of the room, and when I carefully twist away from her, trying not to jostle my aching head, I find Kal asleep in a chair, his gentle expression marred only by a small line between his brows—and the giant Syldrathi swords he’s got propped against his chair.
“And the Starslayer?”
“He would not leave the Eshvaren ship,” she replies. “But the Waywalkers sense his presence. He recovers, as you do.”
“Tyler and his crew?”
“The Vindicator was not among the casualties,” she says quietly, her three-part minor-key voice growing softer, sadder. I can picture the ships we lost bursting into flame, silent in the vacuum of space.
People who died because the Ra’haam followed me here.
“Okay,” I murmur. “Are we somewhere safe?”
“For now. You won the battle. Brought us to safety.”
I sink back against the pillow, closing my eyes.
I enjoyed it.
I know I was ripping myself apart to give them that power, but son of a biscuit, the thrill of it.
I want to do it again.
She’s still talking. “The council has voted on what our next steps might be. The decision was not unanimous, but …”
My eyes snap back open. “You’ll help?”
I try to keep the eagerness out of my voice. Their help will be the end of them—they’ll die defending me while I try to throw myself back in time, so I can try to die defending them. At least—how did Caersan put it?
At least I’ll feel like a god while I do it.
“We have seen the price you are willing to pay to right a wrong. To protect us,” she replies. “And there are many among us who, tragic as it may seem, agree with the Starslayer.” She shakes her head. “This is no kind of life. We see no other choice but to help you.”