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

Chapter 46 - Damon

The air felt thick with ozone under a sky that wasn't quite blue. There was no sun or any true shadows, only ambient light as clouds rippled gold from the Kaireyeh clouds above. Damon shrugged in the tight confines of his embroidered coat. Landon walked a pace behind him over the wide white stone bridge, and beside him walked Admiral Kosef and the steely-eyed Admiral Onayama, both sent down as Kalec's envoys. Damon had his double handful of guards surrounding him, and Kosef had his own; and then there were the guards from the planet who'd met them on the landing platform.

Damon tried not to gawk as gold streaks played in the water beneath the bridge. Ahead, a palace rose in towers of white stone and glass. He'd seen the former palace in Hale City on Hale--or what had been left of it. It had been a ruin, home to streeters, and in one section, a street market. This palace looked nothing like that. There had been a river running through the Hale City he knew, but not this wide, and he didn't recognize the land, or the buildings in the city behind them. They'd landed on an island Damon didn't think had been there before, either. If this was even Hale at all. If that claim was possible.

No one spoke. The sounds of the city were at their back, the footfalls on stone beneath them. Damon could hear the wind gusting past them, though he wasn't cold.

Some tension didn't have to be spoken, though, and Damon didn't need Aezthena senses to feel it. Landon and Kosef had been warily eying each other since both of their shuttles had landed. Onayama watched Damon as if he was a snake about to strike. The ruler of this world had told them to bring one other only, and up to ten guards for each party. The Resistance guards watched the Armada guards with barely concealed hostility, and the Armada guards did the same. And everyone regarded the white-uniformed palace guards with suspicion.

The crown on Damon's head felt warm and too heavy. It was the reason he was here. It was why the ruler had asked him to come down. And he'd argued with Campa to come here, too--she'd wanted Alexi to focus human and go in his place. But Damon had to come, he had to know if this was Hale or not. If this felt like his home.

Were there fields outside the city? Did slaves still work them? Had any of the world or people he'd known survived? It hadn't all been bad. He'd never had anyone he'd call a friend--Luc had always warned him off from getting too close, and then he'd made a habit of it on his own. Friends got sold. Friends messed up and were beaten, and sometimes you with them.

Damon felt himself hunching down and tried to stuff that part of his life back away again, but the memories wouldn't go away. Not here, where things had a ghost of familiarity on top of something completely alien. Or maybe they only felt that way because he wanted them to.

He didn't trust himself. He didn't trust his thoughts or his emotions, and that was why he'd also argued to bring Landon. The ruler here wouldn't know Landon's past; Landon was dressed more simply, as an aide or advisor. He'd been convinced to take off the black sash on his wrist as well, and that had set Kosef off. But Landon knew politics like no one else Damon knew on the ship. Landon could play the game, he could fence with the ruler if he had to, and he could help Damon to do it, too.

The palace guards led them into the palace proper where they shed all but four of their own guards for each party. Then they were taken down hushed vaulted corridors and up into comparatively smaller chambers. It was at the door to one of these chambers that the palace guards stopped. Their leader didn't knock, she just made a sign for them all to wait and slipped inside. A moment later, the door reopened on its own.

Damon glanced at Landon, but Landon's face was carefully blank. Damon tried to smooth the nerves out of his own, though his stomach churned.

"Oh for the love of God," Kosef said, and stepped in first.