as she presses her mouth to mine is just … indescribable. Her skin is cold, like a corpse’s. Her breath smells of earth and some cloying sweetness, and her lips still brush mine as she whispers.
“We can’t wait.”
She lowers her chin. Eyes glinting with menace.
“But you need to tell us where Aurora is going, Tyler.”
And I look into her eyes.
And I feel the tears spill out of my own.
“Tyler Jones,” I say. “Alpha. Aurora Legion, Squad 312.”
And the pain hits me again. And again. And again. It feels like forever. And though in the end I can’t even scream, in the end I lose any sense of who or what I am, I know that even if I knew where Auri and the others were, I’d never tell them now. Because as much as it hurts, as deep as it cuts, all this pain is nothing compared to the agony of the only thought I cling to.
My Cat’s gone.
She’s really gone.
And they took her from me.
22
THE ECHO
Aurora
I’m fighting to stay upright, winds ripping through me from every direction. The gale howls around me, snatching at my clothes, trying to push me off balance and send me tumbling helplessly toward the ground.
I’m maybe a hundred meters above the lush grass of the Echo, but I can’t see it beneath me. Instead, I’m shrouded by a silver mist that the windstorm constantly snatches apart, then rebuilds. The point of this test—a simple one, according to the Eshvaren—is to keep myself upright, controlling my position by means of mental strength alone. But it’s exhausting and terrifying, like drowning in honey.
The Eshvaren’s voice sounds in my mind.
You rely too much upon your physicality, it chides gently. You must focus your mental strength here.
Right, of course. Mental strength.
Even pausing to think about this creates a crack in my shield, and I’m smashed head over heels, my scream snatched away by the wind. I claw my way back to balance, arms flailing as I stabilize, adrenaline pumping through me as I fight to stay upright a few seconds more.
Then another gust of wind comes from my left, punching me in the ribs and knocking the breath out of me. As I gasp for air, my concentration flickers, and in an instant I’m plummeting, screaming, flapping my arms in a vain attempt to stop myself before I hit the ground. The green below me becomes visible through the cloudy haze, and then it’s vivid and alive, and rushing straight at my face. I crash into the earth like a comet, shattering the ground around me.
Above, my own personal storm rages on, but all around, the Echo remains as golden and beautiful as it’s always been. The sun shines down gently, wreaths of red and yellow flowers hang from nearby trees. The air smells so good you could eat it. But as I drag myself to my feet in the broken crater, my heart is racing, my face streaked with tears. I turn my head, and there’s the crystalline figure of the Eshvaren, rainbows refracted in its shape, watching me as impassively as ever. A light seems to shine from inside it, setting all its colors glittering.
Again? it asks immediately.
“Just g-gimme a minute,” I beg, doubled over, hands braced against my knees, “to catch … m-my breath.”
That is not air in your lungs, it tells me. That is not sweat on your skin. You have no physical self in this place. Here, your only limitation is your imagination. Your only obstacles are those you place in front of yourself.
I close my eyes, trying to fight the frustration I feel at another round of psychobabble. It’s been going on at me like this for hours now. I realize the Eshvaren knows what it’s talking about, but I’m really trying here. And being told every failure is my own fault isn’t helping.
“This isn’t working,” I sigh, straightening slowly. “This isn’t working even a little. I’m getting worse, not better.”
Your performance does appear to be declining, the Eshvaren agrees.
“Why are we even doing this? What’s the point?” I wave my hand at the roiling sky. “Am I going to have to fight my way through a storm to get to the Weapon?”
The Eshvaren shakes its head. Patience is required in your training. There are two steps in mastering your power. The second is far more difficult. We will begin with the first: you must learn to summon your abilities on command. You apparently find even this simple lesson difficult.
“Well, it hasn’t