[LEGACY VERSION] The Emperor of Time (Book 1 - The Kaireyeh Chronicles)

Chapter 26.5 - Talina

Talina sat frozen in the hover chair. Hearing Jonas'...other...name from a stranger was worse than hearing it from Jonas. It made it more real.

And this man, who said he was Resistance, was asking her to come with him. Helping Jonas was one thing--he was still her husband, for now. But going with this man would be collaborating with the Resistance. There was no going back from that.

Talina heard the pounding of footsteps in the distance coming toward her, followed by a muffled shout. "Commander!"

The sergeant hadn't left her alone after all. Another of Roche's orders? Let her go, but see where she went?

He would have heard her yelp.

Oh, Void. Roche had just dangled her as bait. She was an idiot.

The Resistance man glanced down the corridor. "Quickly. Come."

Talina grabbed his arm and hauled herself from the sagging chair.

"Bring the chair. We can't leave it here."

Talina grabbed the chair, looked back once to where the footsteps were getting louder.

The Resistance man jabbed a code into a maintenance hatch nearby, pushed her inside, and shut it quietly behind them.

Talina held her breath. In the cramped space, lit by sparse yellow strip lights, she heard the footsteps reach them, and then run past.

Talina clutched the back of the hover chair, trembling.

The man touched her shoulder, and nodded down the maintenance corridor. Distance. They needed distance.

She moved ahead of him, her back itching. As she walked, the sense of danger shifted from the sergeant chasing to the man behind.

The sergeant might be tailing her to make sure she wasn't attacked, despite Roche's orders, or maybe Roche had given him separate orders to follow her and see where she went.

The man behind her was an unknown quantity. He breathed heavy, bile-thick breaths. When they reached a cross-section, he touched her shoulder again and nodded down the right corridor.

Talina walked several paces in until she judged their voices wouldn't carry back.

She should insist they return to the public corridor. This man had known Jonas' real name, but she was fairly certain her mother knew that, too. This man could have been hired to eliminate her, or bring her in.

Talina turned to face him. His shoulders brushed either side of the narrow corridor, his brow glistening with sweat in the dim light.

Talina gripped the hilt of her pistol and took a step back. "Who are you? How do you know--Jonadi Chevani? What do you want from me?"

The man eyed her still-holstered pistol and held up his hands. "My name is Luc. I met your husband earlier--"

Talina pulled her pistol and aimed it at his head. "Did you kill him?"

Luc's movements stilled, and his stance became very deliberate, as if he was handling a rabid animal.

"Do you want proof I'm Resistance? I have the genetic crest. Are you familiar with that? I will show you."

He lowered his right hand an inch, and looked to her as if waiting for permission to continue.

Her eyes stung, and her aim wavered. She didn't know what she wanted. If he was Resistance--that was bad. She was in the deepest shit now, and maybe she should have stalled and let the sergeant catch up for reinforcement. She could have let him handle this hulk of a man and slipped away in the tumult to look for Jonas. That would be helping Jonas, then, not having anything to do with the Resistance as a whole. But that chance was over.

If this man wasn't Resistance, though...that would be worse.

She kept her pistol trained on him, but nodded. If he'd met Jonas earlier, there was a chance Jonas had sent him to get her away from Roche.

Talina tracked the man's hand down to his left arm. Gold swirls etched from his fingertips to spiral into the Caelian crest on the back of his hand.

She stared. Any use of the Caelian crest was strictly regulated, even in the history texts. No one wanted to see that symbol, not in the Miravec Armada, at least.

He could be a former Caelian that her mother had turned. But a crest in this form marked nobility, didn't it?

She glanced up at Luc's face. He stared past her, his jaw tight as if showing this to her was like disrobing before a stranger.

She looked back down at the crest. Pinpricks shone around the interlocked circles of the inner crest, marking the Caelian capital worlds in map-like detail. Then finally, a name drew itself around the outer circle in flowing High Sayri script.

Talina traced the letters with her eyes.

Her heart skipped a beat. She lowered the pistol enough to step forward and traced the name again, and one more time. She looked up at the man, every inch the muscled brawler.

His expression shifted when he met her gaze and he glanced down at his hand with the crest on it.

He cursed and let go as if stung.

"Landon," Talina said, pointing at his hand. "That said Landon Kynaston."

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