[LEGACY VERSION] The Enemy of Time (Book 2 - The Kaireyeh Chronicles)

Chapter 32 - Damon, Narya, Talina

"Don't do anything rash," Alexi said as he walked beside Damon.

Damon said nothing. He was getting better at walling his thoughts off from Alexi, and he held his walls tightly now.

"Stop it," Alexi growled. "If we're going to get through this, you and I need to be in sync."

Damon glanced over at him. Alexi looked very human. And though his age had been frozen at his thirty-ninth biological year, just now he looked much older. And he was.

Damon felt and heard the thoughts and fears of those they passed in the corridors. People who looked between Alexi and him and hurried on, or did not look at all. First, he had walked the corridors of this ship as the Kynaston Heir, then as someone who'd looked like a younger version of Alexi. Now, he damn near was Alexi.

In the hours since they'd gone back into translight with Kalec's fleets, he'd looked at himself--looked with his own eyes in his bathroom mirror, not through someone else's personality-tainted thoughts. He'd inspected every angle of his face, memorized the pattern of his gold irises. He had no pores on his skin, no facial hair. His silver hair was as if it was ornamental only. Even when they'd been in Kaireyeh, he had not been this pale.

He felt the bones of the ship through Kaireyeh, humming with purpose, carrying them forward. Carrying them to what, he didn't know, only that he had to go there. Did Alexi feel it, too?

"Damon, are you listening?"

Damon blinked. "Of course." He rapidly played back the conversation--Alexi cautioning moderation, telling Damon to consult him first, telling him not to just act on instinct, because it might kill him. Kill Alexi, that was.

"And you're not yet at full strength, either," Alexi said. "Ration yourself, Damon. You expend energy with reckless haste. You haven't had the years I've had to--"

"I have your memories."

"It's not enough," Alexi growled. "You're like a child with diagrams on how to build a bridge. You can work it out eventually, and you can also fail spectacularly in the trying. Trust me, Damon. I have been doing this a long time."

Damon stopped. "No, you haven't. Not this. Not with me."

Alexi glared back at him. Then he twitched and shook his head. "Gods, this is unnerving. I don't like it. You have to find a way to give me my focus back. I need to be where you are, I need to be Aezthena. I have to be able to fight, when we next meet the Aezthena--and trust me, we will."

"I can fight them," Damon said. "I've had your training on focus--"

Alexi stepped closer. "You are too confident. Gods, but I was arrogant when I was young. Listen to yourself, Damon. You are not me. We share the same genetic code--Void, maybe even the same soul--but you are not me."

"What I did in going to Kalec--"

"Was a smart thing to do, in a very stupid way. Yes, it got results--good results, I'll grant you that. But don't, for all our sakes, pull something like that again. Do you understand me?"

Damon forced his lips into an ironic curve, part of a memory taken from Alexi/Barenin, an expression he'd often used to good effect.

Alexi's eyes bulged.

Damon turned before Alexi's rising desire to punch him became a reality. He continued on toward the bridge. They'd be dropping out of translight soon.

* * *

Narya Campa stared at the words on her holopad, cocooned as she was in her wrap of screens on the bridge. The holopad trembled in her hands. One line, from Kalec, sent an hour ago through the translight relays: Our mutual friend and all her acquaintances are well.