Aurora Rising (The Aurora Cycle, #1)

by Amie Kaufman

I’m 237 years old. Everyone I know is dead. My parents are dead. My sister is dead. My friends are dead. My home is gone. Everyone I know is gone. I can’t.

I was born with the taste of blood in my mouth. I was born with my hands in fists. I was born for war.

“A lot of those stars actually died millions of years ago. It’s just they’re so far away, the light they created before they died hasn’t finished reaching us yet.” He waves at the galaxy beyond the glass. “You’re looking at a sky full of ghosts.”

She might never miss an opportunity to give me a hard time, but I know my sister would follow me to the edge of the galaxy if I asked. If blood is thicker than water, Scar and I are practically concrete.

I look around the bridge at my crew. Squad 312. This pack of losers and discipline cases and sociopaths, these misfits nobody in the whole of Aurora Academy wanted to get paired with. And I realize the magnitude of what we just pulled off. I think about the fact that I just asked every single one of them to walk into the mouth of the beast because they believed in me. The fact that none of them blinked. And the fact that they didn’t just walk in. They flew.

“My mother’s people have a saying: Ke’tma indayōna be’trai. It means…you do not walk alone when you walk your true path. I will be able to walk mine if I know you are pursuing your own. By honoring your wishes, I honor the Pull that has called me. And my path leads back to my people.

Watching Kal, I realize how alike we are. Both alone. Both without a home. Both of us have had our paths chosen for us by forces outside our control. He said he’s never heard of a Syldrathi who felt the Pull with a human. Being at the mercy of that, of the warrior within him—it must be so hard.

“Do moons choose the planets they orbit? Do planets choose their stars? Who am I to deny gravity, Aurora? When you shine brighter than any constellation in the sky?”