Page 129 of The Edge of Dawn

“Now what?” She reveled in the crystalline silence. More than ever before, she felt in control.

She could do this.

Change or stay the same.

Take a chance, or die wondering.

“You can feel it, can’t you?” Noa’s voice was calm and detached. “The way it organizes the chaos of existence into perfect order.”

It was true. In her heart, in her mind’s eye, she could sense it. Fractals and grids. A spectrum of color; every single visible wavelength arranged by frequency.

Everything in its right place.

“Destroyer of chaos,” she murmured, the words coming to her spontaneously.

“That’s what krisalix translates to in the old language,” Elgon said, not sounding surprised in the least.

Tentatively, Jade started to channel her energy through the device. At first, it was difficult, like threading a needle, but once she got the hang of it, it started to feel natural. The krisalix itself pulled her ka’qui through, drawing it like a magnet, amplifying it.

And suddenly, with her eyes still closed, she began to see.

It was like having a thousand eyes, all seeing different things at the same time in perfect sync and clarity.

In perfect, unnatural order.

She saw the Fleet Station in its entirety, a detailed blueprint brought to life in excruciating detail, complete with machines and workers making their way along the labyrinthine corridors.

She saw the Kordolian fleet—hundreds of sleek, intimidating alien warships created with unfathomable technology.

She’d had no idea there was so much devastating power lurking just beyond the reaches of Earth’s orbit.

And it had been here all this time.

Humans never stood a chance, did they?

Her awareness began to spread outside the Fleet Station. She saw the void of the Universe, filled with infinity: stars, planets, and slowly drifting meteors. Asteroids, suns, and rare bits of space debris. Supernovas and dying stars. Nebulas. Life on other planets clinging tenuously, ephemeral in the grand scheme of things. Then, there were the oddities. Phenomena she couldn’t even comprehend because they hadn’t been discovered by humans yet.

She saw something dark and all-encompassing, a void that sucked in everything in its immediate vicinity.

Meteors, fragments, dust; the very fabric of space itself.

It, too, was a destroyer of chaos, transforming disorder into nothingness.

The krisalix drew her toward it.

What is it?

I’ve heard about this sort of thing.

A wormhole?

A black hole?

Were they one and the same? Was this the very portal Dragek had traveled through?

Her power was being pulled and twisted together like the skeins of a rope. Now, she could see inside the void; that it went in one side and out the other.

All she had to do was follow it.

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