The Haunted Way (Champions of the Crystal Book 5)

Chapter 4.2

The cavern swam in front of Sabrina's eyes, shifting forms in a gradual but swift progression that made her dizzy if she tried to follow it too closely. She felt pain in her chest and realized she had forgotten to breathe. She was almost afraid to; the very air was alive with change. She'd never seen, never imagined anything like this, even with the miraculous things she had witnessed at Mara's side. Mara displaced objects in space/time, moving them around, for the most part. Rarely did she make the effort to reshape one thing into another, and if she did it was usually a rough conversion of mass to energy. Sabrina had never grasped more than the most basic physics of how Mara applied Crystal energy, but she knew it was different from what she was seeing here.

Ford was fast losing any resemblance to his true self, wrapping power around him like a shroud until he was too bright to look at for long. Sabrina was afraid his physical form was in danger of dissolving. Had the ghost been formless too long to remember how to take care of a body?

She looked down at her hands, twisted together so tightly her knuckles were white, alarmingly pale against the cherry red silk beneath them. Her combat suit was gone, morphed beyond recognition into this comfortable yet cumbersome red robe with ornate gold stitching. The stone bench she had been sitting on was changed into a cushioned chair, and part of the nearby wall was now reflective. She was afraid to face her reflection, afraid that the Emperor was trying to turn her into Kestabriani. She was even more afraid to think that he might be succeeding, without her realizing it. Had Ford realized he was being engulfed by another personality? Had he felt this sickening, seeping horror too?

In one swift, determined movement, she pushed to her feet and took the two strides to the mirror-surface. A stranger looked back at her, equally horrified. For a moment Sabrina thought the reflection must be seeing her true form, while she stared into Kestabriani's eyes.

She'd expected something exotic, maybe vaguely Egyptian, which was how she thought of the Pharon. But Kestabriani's hair was a plain mouse-brown, twisted into an elaborate coiffure of looped braids, and her skin was even paler than Sabrina's own. The eyes were a rich, unusual green, her one really attractive feature. Sabrina realized with a start that Kestabriani had not been Pharon at all—she had been a slave, from a race of slaves. Maybe that explained the hopeless acquiescence Sabrina had been fighting since the Emperor made his presence felt.

She angrily stamped down the stray thought that perhaps her relationship to Ford paralleled the one they were living now. Then she returned to contemplating that, aware that she might find valuable clues as to how to handle the Emperor when he again became aware of his surroundings. She couldn't tell what were her guesses and what might be memories from the ghosts around her—she didn't know if any of Kestabriani was in her mind or not. But she had to use what she knew, even though she had no way to verify any of it.

She began to construct his profile in her mind. He was out of his depth and knew it. Resentful. Insecure. He had probably always been insecure, which might explain his attachment to Kestabriani. Was he more comfortable with someone he regarded as an inferior? If so, she would have to be careful not to disturb his illusion.

Ford, on the other hand, gravitated toward his intellectual equals, when he could find them. Sabrina had, over the course of their friendship, managed one or two feats of cleverness that made him respect her intelligence; otherwise, their relationship would never have worked. He also had a strong protective instinct, probably the result of being the eldest of so many siblings and the de facto head of the family a large part of the time. The Emperor was used to being protected and considered himself more important than anyone else. She would be able to tell which personality was in control by identifying whom he was trying to protect. That is, if she was lucky enough to get to the point that his identity was in question.