my arms. I know she is already aware of what she must do. That she knows it, with every atom in her body. She is nothing if not brave. But I know she is also asking me for strength, for certainty, for something she can hold on to as she walks into the fire.
And so I tell her something I have never told another soul.
“My earliest memories are of my parents fighting,” I say.
I feel her uncertainty about why I am telling her this. But she trusts me enough not to question and simply lets my words sink in, then holds me just a little tighter still.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “That’s sad.”
I nod, staring past our reflection to the Fold beyond.
“My mother and father were young when they met. She was a novice at the Temple of the Void. He a Paladin of the warrior cabal. When they first felt the Pull, their friends and families all tried to talk them out of becoming lifebound.”
“Why?” Aurora asks.
“Warbreed and Waywalkers rarely make good pairings. Those who seek answers and those who answer most questions with conflict seldom get along.” I shrug, and sigh. “But still, my parents did it anyway. They loved each other dearly in the beginning. So much that it hurt them both.”
She manages a small smile. “That sounds romantic. Two people wanting to be together, no matter what anyone else says.”
I nod. “Romantic, perhaps. Ill advised, most assuredly. I think my mother thought she might be able to guide my father’s love of conflict into love of family. But Syldra was at war with Terra in those years. And as the rift between my people and yours deepened, he lost himself inside it utterly. The cracks in their lifebond were showing by the time Saedii was born. And they grew deeper still once I arrived.”
I sigh again, realizing how bright a blessing it is to be able to speak like this. To simply have someone I trust enough to share with.
“My father was a cruel man. He ruled with a heavy hand, and he brooked no dissent. He commanded that my sister and I be inducted into the Warbreed Cabal, and he oversaw our training personally. When he tutored us in the Aen Suun, he did not hold back. Many were the nights Saedii and I retired to our bedchambers bruised and bloodied by his hand. But he said it would make us strong. Mercy, he told us, was the province of cowards.
“Saedii and I were close at first. When we were young, she was the star in my heavens. But as we grew older, Father began to show me more favor than her, and she became jealous. Saedii loved our father, you see. Loved him with a fierceness that eclipsed my own. Though I was raised Warbreed, in truth I always felt more kinship with my mother. She taught me the value of life, Aurora. The joy of understanding, the justice of an even hand. I loved her dearly, even as my father pressed me to embrace the war within, that I might better fight the war without. Mother would come to me at night, once Father was asleep. The bruises he would lay on her skin were the same shade as my own.
“ ‘There is no love in violence, Kaliis,’ she would tell me, pressing a cool cloth to my wounds. ‘There is no love in violence.’ ”
“The battle lines our parents drew became mine and Saedii’s. Saedii sought only our father’s praise, cared little for my mother’s wisdom.” I touch the three blades at my brow. “We were living aboard my father’s ship at the time. He wished us close, I think. The better to control my mother, to mold Saedii and me into what he wanted us to be. I grew older. Taller. Stronger. When Saedii could no longer best me in practice, she sought to punish me in other ways. For my eighth nameday, my mother had given me a siif—a stringed instrument, not unlike your Terran violins. It was a gift from her mother before her. And one day, when I was twelve, after I had bested her in practice again, Saedii went to my room and smashed it in retaliation.
“Though I always tried to take my mother’s teaching to heart, I was still my father’s son. And this was the first time I truly felt the Enemy