were still me.
But I’m not. The Eshvaren saw to that, and now I know why.
He comes at me again, unleashing his power like a striking snake, and I meet him, holding the line. Midnight blue and deep russet entwine between us, each trying to choke the other. I lean into my power, impassive, knowing his passion will compromise him. Knowing my purpose will carry me.
I lash out at him again, hard as I can, a crack of psychic force like a slap to his face. Caersan’s head whips to one side, a tiny cut opening up on that flawless cheek. The silver braids he keeps draped over one side of his face are thrown aside, showing me the eye that was hidden from the rest of the galaxy.
And of course, like mine, it glows pure white.
But around that glowing eye, I can see scars carved down Caersan’s features, like cracks in an old riverbed. The right side of his face is withered, old, as if all the life has been sucked right out of it. The glow from his eye spills out through the cracks in his cheek as he glowers at me, dragging his braids back down over his face as if ashamed. He glances at the Weapon around us, the spears of crystal pointed toward the throne at its heart.
“So now you see. What it cost me to use it. And what it will cost you.” His pointed teeth are bared as he snarls. “They bestowed this power upon us, intending for this thing to tear it out of us again. To dismantle us piece by piece. No beautiful death. No ultimate sacrifice. They intended us to die in fragments. Twenty-two planets for us to destroy, twenty-two slivers of our souls to be ripped out of us one by one and fed to their vengeance machine.”
Even the thought is enough to make me recoil. I can feel the memory inside him, reverberating along the bond between us. I can sense just a hint of the pain he felt as he fired the Weapon, and even that is nearly overwhelming. But given what he used it to do, I know he deserved it, too.
He throws up his hands, his power rolling in the space between us. The Weapon trembles as I force him back, his boots skidding across the crystal. As the power rages around us again, cascading over us in waves of blue and red, the beautiful, powerful man before me takes an unwilling step back. I push outward, crashing into him with everything I have, and he staggers with a grunt of effort. His elegance is crumbling, his poise is fading, and he leans forward like a man battling the wind, those silver braids whipping out behind him. Midnight blue swirls around me in a growing storm, thundering as I harden my voice.
“You’ve corrupted the gift we’ve been given, Caersan. You’ve chosen years of power for yourself, trapped in a dying galaxy, over millennia of life for hundreds of species.”
My power crashes into him as I summon everything I have. The force of me, the power inside me, pure and unhindered, hits him like a tidal wave. He flails, torn off his feet, and sails back into the wall, smashing into the crystal with a thunderous crack. I strike him again, again, again, as a tiny line of purple blood spills from his nose and down over his lip. My midnight blue begins to consume the old blood it battles, surrounding it, silver twisting over gold. And finally, he collapses to the deck.
“One life isn’t too much to pay,” I tell him.
I take another step toward him, bathed in glittering midnight.
“Nor are two, Starslayer.”
He looks up at me then, braids draped around his face, and I see the pride and hatred crackling in his gaze. I feel his power swell, and I force myself to focus, to keep my hold on him firm. Kal steps forward in the storm, shouting over the roar.
“Aurora!”
But I ignore him, my eyes fixed on his father.
“I can feel it,” I tell him. “What you lost when you fired it.”
Caersan closes his fists, the air crackling. “What they took from me.”
“And once it’s gone, it’s gone for good.”
“Yes.”
I smile at that. “Which means you’re less than you were, Starslayer.”
I reach deep inside myself, ready to finish it.
“Less than me.”
“Perhaps,” he whispers. “But you are failing to account for one thing.”
There’s a sudden flicker in his presence that I don’t like, that makes