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

Chapter 29 - Damon

Damon gasped as Jonadi fell, crashing to the deck. Then everything...slowed.

Dust motes hung like glitter in the air. Talina, her mouth open, was mid-way to elbowing the lieutenant who'd made her fire. Luc, twisting to reach for Jonadi with shackled hands, hung suspended in a fall of his own.

Damon licked his lips. He could still lick his lips. Was he the only one who could move?

Alexi?

We are in a bubble of accelerated time, Alexi said. What you are seeing is the slowed Aijas Normal time around us.

What?

I can feel through some of your senses, but I don't have my extra-sensory awareness paired with yours. I need to try and pair that now. Just briefly. It will be a shock, but it won't harm you if it's brief.

What? Why? What are you going to do?

A switch turned on in Damon's mind. He stumbled back against the wall, barely feeling the pain that spiked up his arm in the hurricane of sensation. What he'd felt when Alexi had bombarded his mind on the station was a whisper compared to this. Color screamed everywhere he looked, his ears rang with the hum of electronics around him, and the taste of bile coating his tongue became urgent. Then even these senses dimmed as a greater maw opened in his mind.

"Stop," he whispered. Thoughts shot through him too fast to track, leaving trails like liquid fire. He clutched at his head.

I need you to pay attention, Alexi said. I'm going to reach for Jonadi and send him elsewhere. That will take some of your strength. With the rest, I need you to concentrate on the place where he is lying and keep an image of him there. Fix it firmly in your mind and don't let it go.

I can't--it burns, Alexi--

Do it, Alexi said.

Hands slid through his thoughts and reached outward, extending the fire to Jonadi. Damon writhed against the wall, trying to break free from the feeling.

Don't fight me, Alexi said. It will just drain you further.

Alexi's mental hands clamped around Jonadi and yanked backwards.

It felt as if a wall slammed through Damon's mind and kept going backwards, layer after layer, until it passed through him.

Then Jonadi wasn't on the deck.

Hold the image! Alexi said.

Damon shook as he stared at the empty space. He panted as if he had just run from the fields to the house.

They gave me something, he thought. This is a hallucination. I'm hallucinating all of this.

He didn't really believe that.

Alexi centered himself again in Damon's thoughts, a deliberately calming presence.

Damon didn't want to be calm. He was perfectly content to hyperventilate.

Breathe, Alexi said. And then proceeded to time out inhales and exhales until, despite Damon's best efforts not to, his breathing synced up. His heartrate slowed, a little.

The fire still raced through his mind, but it was suddenly a familiar fire, as if it had been there all his life. For years before his life. It began to feel less like fire, and more like burning ice.

Please turn it off, Damon said.

I need you to hold the image before I do that.

Is he dead? What did you do?

Kaireyeh reached through me. This is a wound point. This is what I do, I heal Kaireyeh. That almost sounded like a confession. Alexi's emotions pounded like metallic fists against Damon's own panic. His breaths speeded up again.

Alexi exerted the rhythm he'd used before, and despite himself, Damon calmed.

I believe Jonadi will live, Alexi said.

Alexi. That name felt wrong, like a mask.

Alexi said quickly, You must establish the image before it leaves your mind. I will need to drop this bubble of time soon. It is rapidly depleting your body's reserves.

Damon's vision blurred in response. A wave of fatigue hit him, but he strained to blink through it.

Focus on Jonadi, Alexi said. He must be real. Like this.

A flood of--impulses, brief glimpses of understanding, assurance in his abilities--washed over Damon. It had the same metallic flavor as Alexi's emotions.

Look at the deck. Is Jonadi there?

No.

Look closer. Do you see him?

No, I--

He's there. Look.

Damon squinted. He thought he could see an after-image in his mind. He shook his head. "Why is this important?" He looked around him. "Time is slowed out there. Can't we just go kill everyone? Then we can escape."

Alexi was silent for three of Damon's heartbeats. Damon was keeping count of his heartbeats now, though he wasn't trying to do so. Numbers flowed through his head, etching themselves into the fiery ice of his thoughts.

You won't escape from here without holding the image, I promise you that. No one can know that I was here to take Jonadi away. There is little time. Focus.

Damon focused on the deck where Jonadi had fallen. He discarded the after-image and brought up the memory of Jonadi lying on the deck. There had been too much shock in that moment for him to recall it in anything other than vivid detail.

Alexi ran through the sequence of Jonadi's fall in Damon's mind like frames in a holodrama. He stopped just after Jonadi hit the deck, right when time had slowed. There. Hold that.

Damon stared at the image. And then a new part of his mind yawned open, and what he saw in his mind's eye transferred to what he saw with his eyes.

He might have gaped if he wasn't sweating with the effort to stay focused on the image.

I'll withdraw our synchronization, Alexi said, and the icy fire retreated into a slow burn, then faded. Now that you see Jonadi there, you will always see Jonadi there. That is a trick of the human mind--your eyes have seen it, now they can't believe otherwise.

Damon blinked. He could see Jonadi. Even though his mind told him otherwise, he could still see Jonadi there. Had he imagined what just happened?

I have to leave, Alexi said. I will cover your escape. I might not be back. Preserve my body.

Then the pressure that had been Alexi was gone.

The room erupted into chaos as guards reacted to Talina's snarling attack on the lieutenant. Zivali barked orders, and Luc crashed into Damon before he caught his balance. Campa yelled through the skintape and tried to rush to Jonadi, but the guards pushed her back.

The image of Jonadi lay on the deck, blood pooling under him and continuing to spread into the carpet, a darker stain on lighter red. 

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