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

Chapter 26.6 - Talina

Luc stammered, "No, I--no it didn't--"

He stopped and stared at her, a look of frozen horror on his face.

Talina doubted she looked much better. She stabbed a finger at where the crest had been. "I don't know a lot about this stuff, but I know genetic crests aren't supposed to lie."

He ran a hand across his face.

"You blew up Hale," Talina said. She hadn't believed her mother, mostly because she hadn't believed in her gut that Landon could be alive. She'd thought her mother was using his name as a rallying point. She'd suspected her mother in the destruction of Hale.

But here he was: Landon Kynaston. Alive.

"Can they be faked?" she asked. "Why would anyone want to?"

He barked a laugh, a knotted sound. "I told it not to show the name. Gods-damned Kaireyeh tech."

Talina raised the pistol again. "Why?" she demanded.

"Why did it show you? Ah. No, that's not what you're asking." He met her gaze. "I didn't destroy Hale. Your people did that."

He said it so off-handedly, as if it meant nothing to him. But she watched his whole body tense, his eyes focusing into sharp points of rage. She remembered the stories about Landon's legendary temper.

"We wouldn't--" she said.

"My ship was there. I saw the actual battle-recordings, not this crap you've been broadcasting. I wouldn't blow up any world, let alone one I'd been living on."

He and Shivi Alyras had wrecked dozens of worlds in the War of the Fall. Maybe not as completely as Hale, but they'd set those worlds back hundreds of years. They'd killed millions.

"Can you please put the pistol down, I'm not going to harm you." Landon inhaled sharply. "I need your help."

"I'm not helping you," she said. She didn't have to think about that one.

"Someone I trust told me I could trust you," he said. "It's--I know you don't want to help me. I get that. But this is my son--"

Talina stopped listening as her mind made an extremely unwanted connection. This man was Jonas' uncle. She'd known that in the abstract, but standing here in front of him was something else.

"The hell do you think you could trust me?" Talina shouted. "Is that why you were looking for me?" Jonas hadn't sent him, then.

Landon looked behind him toward the main maintenance corridor, and made a shushing motion with his hand.

Talina bared her teeth, and aimed again for his head.

His eyes flashed and his hand jerked again toward his arm and the trigger for his Caelian weapon, but she followed it with the pistol.

He stopped.

"You want my husband dead," she said.

"I've only just met him. I showed you the crest--bloody more than you should have seen."

"He's the son of Aidan Chevani--"

Landon let out a breath and spread his hands. "He's also the son of my sister. And that was an old fight, and not one I want to take up again."

"But you had Aidan Chevani assassinated, didn't you? Not the Miravec?"

Landon's mouth tightened. But the rage had seemed to ebb, and now he looked tired. "I need your help to rescue my son. He has nothing to do with any of this, and I would like to keep it that way, as much as is possible now."

He eyed the pistol, and Talina had the crawling sense that the gun hardly mattered to him, as if he knew he could bat it aside if he wanted to.

"I have no desire to harm you, or your husband--I'll help you if I can." He licked his lips. "If it means anything, my son doesn't even know who I am."

"Yeah, that's a pattern with you people."

He flinched. "Listen to me. He was taken by slavers here on the station. He is in pain, he doesn't have the skill to fight, and there are Armada troops scanning for him right now."

Other Armada? That would mean her mother had more troops on the station, either commanded by her own people or conscripted from the Teven Spar.

"Where is Jonas?" she asked.

"You mean Jonadi? I don't know. The Armada were right behind us--he got away in the crowd. At least, I hope he did."

"Where did he go?"

"I don't know. Look, I have access to these maintenance corridors, and areas of the station that are normally restricted. That gives us a margin of safety while we search. Just from what I know of him, I can think of three or four places Jonadi might go. With your help, I'm sure we can narrow that down."

Talina lowered the pistol.

Landon nodded. "My son was taken by slavers. He's being taken to market. I can't buy him. I don't have the time or the means to go through the verification to get into the market. I'm--I'm in the system on the other end of things. They'll flag me as an escaped slave. I need someone to buy him back. Bring him out. I promise I will do all I can to help you and Jonadi in return." He stopped, and leaned back against the bulkhead, his breath coming in short gasps.

She surveyed his face and for the first time studied the bruises. Had he been injured while fleeing her mother's troops?

"You're Armada," Landon wheezed, "you can get into the market. You don't need verification."

He wanted her to buy his son back? "I'll throw up a flag in the system, too."

"But is it less of a flag than being a known survivor of Hale? An escaped slave in a slave market?"

Talina almost laughed. It was better than falling apart. "Probably. Maybe. The slavers won't try to detain me, I don't think. If you can get us back into these maintenance corridors, I think we can get away before anyone could stop us."

This was insane. She was insane for even thinking of helping him. He was the enemy.

Landon peered at her. "You're Armada," he said again. "And I mean really Armada. And I know who your mother is--and I know some of what happened with you and Jonadi. I know getting involved in all this wasn't your choice."

Talina stiffened. He had no right to know any of that. He had much less of a right to use it against her.

"You do know, if you help us, it is treason," he said.

"Goddess, man, I thought you needed my help, you're trying to talk me out of it?"

"I want to be sure you understand. If you're caught with us, you'll go down with us. Even if you're not caught with me--even if you're helping your husband."

Talina swallowed, too loud in the tight space between the walls.

"I assume there is still a way you can resume your life?" Landon asked.

Talina shook her head. Why would he care? Even Roche had known she was beyond a normal life. Roche had turned Talina loose to disappear on the station, or whatever she had done.

The only way Talina could go back was to help her mother capture the Caelians. To capture Jonas, and this man who stood before her.

He knew that, didn't he? He was asking, in this offhand way, if she would betray him.

"Where is the slave market?" she asked.

Landon straightened, or as best he could with whatever injuries he had. "There is one more thing. You are an engineer? Can you requisition seed orium?"

Talina let out a slow breath and nodded.

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