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

Chapter 48 - Talina

Talina sat up in the dark, her face cool with sweat. She peeled out of the sheets and stumbled onto the deck, heading for the washroom--except it wasn't in the direction it should have been if these were her quarters on the Teven Spar. She stopped in the faint glow of the washroom night light on the other side of the room. She wasn't on the Spar, was she? She was with the Resistance. No, not anymore, she was on Kalec's ship, The Robber Prince. But this was an Armada ship, with gray bulkheads and uniform cabins, not the blocky design and haphazard layout of Kalec's ship.

She took a slow turn around. The cabin was smaller than her cabin on the Spar, but it was familiar. And it was an Armada ship.

Talina started. God, this was her cabin as a lieutenant on the Bright Horizon. She hadn't been here in, what, six years? What was she doing here now?

"I'm sorry, I thought this would be more familiar."

Talina jumped and spun, the hairs raising on her arms. "Lovich!"

He was feet from her, arms crossed. She reached for her belt holster, but she'd been asleep. Of course she wouldn't have her pistol.

She stopped and stared at Lovich. She was still dreaming, wasn't she?

"I killed you," she said.

God, she'd heard of the dead haunting those who killed them. Was that what this was? Was it going to continue?

"I'm not dead," he said. And then he paled. His close-cropped gray-black hair grew longer and silvered, and his eyes sheened gold.

Talina hissed and stumbled back. "It's a dream, it's a dream, it's a dream."

Lovich turned human again. "But you know what I am. Barenin told you that much?"

"Barenin?"

"Damon," he said.

Talina squinted at him. She took a step closer. "Damon said you were at the Countess' station. You attacked us."

"I wasn't with the attackers," he said, "I don't work for them."

Talina swallowed. God. God and Void. "You work for my mother."

He tilted his head. "In a way."

Another step closer. "What the Void does that mean?"

Lovich held out placating hands. "I don't wish to harm you."

"And what the Void does that mean? You made me shoot my husband!"

He gave a one-shouldered shrug.

Talina took another step, anger building. Dream or not, he was here. "You made me shoot my husband, and I killed you, and I'll kill you again!"

She took a swing at him--and then he wasn't there. She whirled--he was behind her, several paces back. Still infuriatingly calm.

Talina charged, and he disappeared again.

"Coward!" she roared. "You face me, coward! You couldn't face me before, you couldn't do it yourself, you made me pull the God Void trigger--"

Lovich appeared in front of her, gripping her arms. "We don't have time for this."

"It's my Voided dream," she spat.

"No, it's not," he said. "It's mine. Listen. Do not trust the Halians. Do not trust the Aezthena. Do not trust your mother, unless she looks like me."

He paled Aezthena again, much faster this time, then stepped back.

Talina yanked her arms back to herself, rubbing her wrists. "I'd never trust my mother."