45. DEVOURER
DEVOURER
JACEN
Turil struggled to break through, but Jacen and Nines held the goddess in check. The world seemed to shrink until only the four of them remained. He lost track of everything else.
He could not let Turil forge that tether to Tharanoth.
But when the Firstborn soldiers crashed through the door to the rooftop, cold panic speared Jacen’s chest. He whipped his head around. He saw Teheda and Saraida cutting down beetle-armored enemies two at a time, valiantly holding the line. Ysira should have been there too, but where—
Then, apart from the chaos, there was Ged. He had a hand on Neri’s arm, as though to restrain him. Ged reached for his belt.
Neri gasped, “No—”
Ged raised a blinking metal sphere—an explosive. He could barely hold himself upright, but when he drew back and threw, it was with unerring aim.
The explosive stuck to the transport, blinking fast. Orange lights shifted to red. A high-pitched whine filled the air.
Saraida screamed something Jacen couldn’t hear. A warning, perhaps, to their allies who had already closed the distance.
Too late.
The transport exploded. Neri and Ged ducked, covered their heads.
Saraida was thrown back, landing near Jacen.
Nines shrieked. Flaming debris and body parts crashed across the platform.
The burning hull tipped over and, with a terrible polyphonic groan, it toppled off the ledge.
Crashes echoed down and faded to nothing. Dead silence thundered in its wake.
Jacen stared in mute horror as part of a head—it might have belonged to Commander Azaharo—rolled up beside another corpse.
Urien. He had not made it as far as the transport, but the blast must have killed him instantly.
It had shattered every fragile bone in his body, ruptured every hollow organ.
He lay crumpled on the ground, limp and horribly contorted.
His faceplate was shattered, and his features, exposed to open air, smeared into a grotesque tableau of blisters.
There was nothing Jacen could have done about it. He hadn’t even seen it happen. He hadn’t sensed what Ged was about to do, not until it was too late. How could he not have seen this coming?
He finally spotted Ysira as she joined Teheda at the door. Between the two of them, they managed to wrestle it shut and bar it. Any other Firstborn who’d made it through were either dying or dead. Nearby, Saraida had crawled to Goran’s lifeless body. Her hands trembled as she reached for him.
Ged leaned against the wall, dangerously weak and on the verge of collapse. But he wore a look of grim satisfaction.
Neri had fallen to his knees, breathing fast. And Seth was laughing.
“Shut up,” Jacen hissed. Impotent, helpless rage overcame him, and he shoved the body that housed their enemy. “Shut up.”
Seth kept his feet. He rammed his forehead up against Jacen’s face with a painful crack.
Jacen stumbled backward, howling. He could not stop Seth from wrenching his one hand free of its restraints, shredding flesh from bone without a second’s hesitation.
He seized Nines’ knife—the one he’d given her as they escaped Zivora—from her belt.
As she tripped forward, he slashed her face.
He’d have buried the blade in her throat had Teheda not tackled him from behind.
Nines’ control broke entirely. She crumpled to the ground, clutching her face, blood streaming between her fingers.
“I can’t,” she sobbed. “I’m sorry, I can’t stop her.”
Any minute now, Turil would have access to Tharanoth’s—and probably Ileth’s—telepathic powers. Without sedative, with Nines in this state, Jacen couldn’t stop her alone.
But what did it matter now, with no more transport to take them to the station?
That awful laughter came harder, increasing in pitch. Teheda struggled to hold Seth down, until Saraida pulled herself together enough to help him.
One hand still braced against the wall, Ged reached out to his son.
He seemed about to say something.
Ysira reached Ged first. She took him by the shoulder, pulling him toward her as if she meant to embrace him. He faced her—just as she plunged her knife up between his ribs.
No one tried to stop her. Teheda and Saraida were preoccupied with Seth. Nines lay wounded behind them. And Neri . . . Neri was still on his knees, staring in silent shock.
Ged grasped at the knife’s hilt with bloody fingers. Now the look on his face was one of betrayal.
“You don’t get to see this victory,” Ysira said to Ged as she held him close, driving the knife deeper. “We both failed him. I can at least do this. I don’t know how he’ll live after today, but it won’t be in your shadow.”
Had Ysira known what Ged would do? Could she have stopped him? Had she tried? Was this vengeance for all he had done, as she twisted the knife in his heart? Or was it to ensure that he alone took the blame as the truth died with him?
She let Ged go. Hardly anyone was left to witness, and those who were barely blinked. He would not be mourned by anyone present.
Ged fell in a pool of his own blood. His chest rose with gasping agonal breaths. Ysira watched, listless, dead behind the eyes as Neri scrambled to his father’s side. He leaned in, shoulders heaving, listening to words choked out against a throat full of blood.
“Why?” Jacen’s voice came out a croak. “Why?”
Ged might have been too far gone to hear him, anyway. Blood trickled from his mouth as he tried to speak. “Couldn’t . . . without me.” He coughed. “Sacrifice . . . everything.”
What had Jacen hoped to hear? What could explain such an act, let alone reverse its consequences?
Maybe it would have helped to find Ged possessed, mind held in thrall to an alien intelligence like his brother’s, but Jacen looked and looked and found only the man.
Only anger, tinged with grim satisfaction and the fading echo of a thought: You can’t win this without—without—
It was futile. Jacen wrenched himself away before he could feel Ged die.
He looked to Ysira, speechless. She said nothing. Her face showed no triumph. Jacen followed her gaze as it traveled toward Neri, still on his knees.
The boy held his head in his hands, shaking it back and forth as though arguing with someone—something—no one else could see.
“We will wipe every green place from the face of this world,” Turil declared, in Seth’s voice. “Alendal, Lun, Kasoa . . . Our Empire has thousands of planets; this makes no difference to us. But you only have the one. Pity you squandered it.”
It was exactly as Akkani had warned him. Their entire civilization was about to pay the price for Jacen’s sins. All that remained for him to do—the last sacrifice he could make, however pathetically inadequate—was to go out fighting.
He took a long, shuddering breath, held it in for a few moments, then released it. He turned toward Seth and ordered Teheda and Saraida, “Let him up.”
The two backed away. Teheda kept an eye on Nines, placing himself between her and Seth.
“Come out, you worm,” Jacen said through gritted teeth. He switched to extradimensional speech. “Face me and fight.”
Seth grinned. “Before we return you to the dust you are, you will live to rue this day. We will begin with Zivora.”
Then Neri spoke. “You won’t.”
At first, Jacen thought he’d imagined it. Neri knelt alone, unmoving, eyes closed. Tear tracks stained his face. He winced as though in pain, or from a loud noise no one else could hear.
With the slow heaviness of one who carried the weight of centuries, he got to his feet. He wiped his eyes. He looked at Seth, then at Jacen, then Ysira. At Nines, Teheda, and Saraida, and the bodies all around them.
“We tried.” Neri seemed to be trying to put on a brave face but only looked exhausted.
“It was always going to be this way, wasn’t it.
” He squinted up at the eclipse. Jacen felt Neri’s fear leach away, replaced by a glacial calm.
He’d been pushed past his limit of grief and terror, and all that remained was awful, inevitable destiny.
Ysira still had that dead look on her face. She asked, very quiet, “Are you sure?”
“Only I can end this.” Neri lifted his shoulders and drew a ragged breath. “And now there’s only one way.”
Jacen’s mind brushed Neri’s and found depthless power brimming beneath its surface. He felt him reach toward impossible awareness, a thousand generations before him whispering their knowledge, their desires, their rage, their hate—
Jacen had to retreat inside himself, blocking it out. His heart pounded. “How—” He cleared his throat. He’d spoken aloud without meaning to. Do you know how?
You showed me, remember? Neri smiled sadly. At the Gate. It’s just . . . opening a door. I let them in. I become part of the whole and their power becomes mine.
And then?
I’m going to destroy the station.
Jacen was suddenly lightheaded. Hesaya had said the station was the size of a moon. He knew so little of the universe beyond this world, and could not think of a more intelligent way to ask What if it falls on us?
It won’t. Neri sounded nothing less than certain.
I don’t know how, but they do. Naxal does.
His face worked as he wrestled with some deep and unexpected grief.
The pain of an impending loss. I need you to keep the gods distracted, like we planned.
Make them think you’re trying to exorcise Seth. Make sure they don’t leave the station.
Jacen made himself nod. How long do you need? I don’t know exactly. But . . . not long.
Then I’ll buy you as much time as I can.
Their conversation passed in the space between heartbeats. Ysira watched them. Not hearing, but understanding nonetheless.
“Hold the line with me,” she told a despondent Saraida. She beckoned Teheda, too.