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

Chapter 42 - Barenin

Barenin sat on the bunk he shared with Oji, legs crossed, eyes closed as he leaned back against the bulkhead. Oji sat beside him, a restless presence. He could feel her trying to put up her walls around him--he'd taught her that much as a precaution against Damon's unknowing intrusion the last time they were in Kaireyeh. But Damon wasn't the issue now, and Barenin was too close to Oji. It always ended up that way, with his lovers, his husbands, his wives. Anyone he drew close to, their thoughts began to bleed together.

He took a conscious breath for Oji's sake and quietly built up his own walls to give her space. She must have felt that, somehow, because she shuddered and drew her knees up closer to herself.

On his playmat on the deck, their son Kaden played with his toy aircars. He made a subdued whirring sound, and then a screech and the cascade of tumbling plastic as he crashed the car into a pile of blocks.

Oji's hand crept over to Barenin's and held it.

He felt her reaching for him, in her thoughts. That intrigued him; she had only tried to shut him out since she'd learned what he was. He cautiously let a small window open between them.

Yes?

Gods, this is strange. Can you hear me?

Of course. Why not talk aloud? He was careful not to pull the answer from her thoughts, careful to keep that window between them restrained to words, and the very slight overflow of emotions that was inevitable between those he was closest to.

Oji shifted, nodding her head toward Kaden. Barenin could feel the motion through the pattern of muscle tension in her hand. It had been so long since he'd been himself, this fully Aezthena and aware. He'd never been this part of himself around her, not like this.

He understood her gesture. Yes, this is private. Completely private between you and me. Damon is walled out.

Oji's fingers tightened just a fraction on his before easing again. Am I your thousandth, or two thousandth, wife?

He rubbed the edge of her thumb, a familiar gesture between them. I've had many wives, and husbands, and lovers, and partners, yes.

And children?

He felt her trepidation at that question.

Many, he said softly. Some I've been closer to than others.

They had skirted around these questions since he'd awakened those weeks before, and since Damon had taken most of his Aezthena focus. They could skirt around them, because Damon had been the one obviously Aezthena, and he'd been so very human--an anomaly, still, but human.

My life hasn't been one long continuation, he said. It's not one endless stream of lovers, or families. I've had many lives. I've been rulers, and artisans, and businessmen, and con men, and a few times even joined the military, though that was never to my taste. I've lived many human lives, and many Aezthena. Some under my own name, some under another name when I had to, or when I wished to. But all of these lives are real to me. All of them are entirely my own, and I have fully lived each of them.

Then there had been dark times. Lives between lives, when he'd questioned himself, his purpose, his reason for living. A few times when he'd entertained the notion of ending himself--but Kaireyeh had always nudged him back. He was part of the balance. He was created to be part of that balance, between human and Aezthena and the Kaireyeh they both used and were made of, each in their different ways. And he'd always known that someday, he would step through the time wall and come back to now.