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

Chapter 12 - Landon

"He's trying to decrypt," Mackie said, running both hands over his head. "Gods, but everyone is trying to decrypt, and his halo...he's...I think he's--" But Mackie couldn't speak the name.

"Yes," Campa said. "Out, Mackie. Not a word of this to anyone. I'll shoot you myself." She never took her eyes off of Luc.

Mackie slammed the hatch behind him.

"Do you have me bugged?" Luc demanded, cracking out his halo to full length.

Campa glanced at it, unimpressed. "You don't like that we're meeting with the Countess. I knew you'd make more and better options for yourself. At least, what you thought were better options." She added, "Landon."

Luc stiffened. "I'm--"

Campa shoved him back. "Damn you for taking Shivi's name!" Another shove. "By all the gods, you don't deserve it!"

She wasn't stronger than him, but she blasted with the full force of her directed rage. Luc braced himself against the med table.

"Did Talina tell you?" he rasped.

"Talina? I knew Shivi, you bastard. Did you think I wouldn't know you weren't him? I was as close to him as any could be without getting into bed with him."

The halo retracted in Luc's hand. Memories he had buried for years bubbled to the surface, bitter in his mouth. He couldn't contain them on this ship, with these people. Not with the name Alexi had given him.

Yes, Campa had known Shivi, and himself by proxy. She'd been Shivi's closest friend, and he had been--closer than Shivi's friend. But she'd been an entirely different person then. This Narya Campa here had been stripped of anything soft. The Miravec had stolen her youth. The Miravec had stolen from all of them.

He'd thought time and distance would protect him.

Campa's eyes brimmed with old pain and anger. Her lined and weathered face churned with what she wanted to say, but she restrained herself.

"You can't decrypt," she finally said.

"I can do what I bloody well want," Luc said.

"That!" She jabbed a finger at his chest. "That is why you can't decrypt! You're a child, Landon. You never grew up. You can't have what you want, not all the time, not in the way you go about acquiring it. Think, man."

"I have thought about it, and I want to decrypt!"

She tried another step forward, but her injured leg stiffened and she had to grab his arm. Her nostrils flared and she glared up at him. "So you want to offer yourself to the Countess, is that it? Give her Landon Kynaston instead of Damon. Do you know what a gods-stupid idea that is?"

"Campa--"

She pushed away from him and stabbed a finger in the air. "First of all, you'd create havoc on this ship. We all still think you're dead. We're very happy to think you're dead, and that Zivali's shooting at air, and that your only offspring is barely more than a child--an anomalous child, to be sure--but who is nothing like you. Nothing that would tear us apart like your presence would immediately do."

She held up another finger. "Second, the Countess will use you. Maybe it's you she's been after with her search for Kynastons, I don't know. And yes, maybe she'll try to take Damon, but he can't inspire like you can. She can't leverage him like she could leverage you. You're not a good leader, Landon, but you could always ignite the fire of the masses. People follow you to hell. And did you ever stop to think that she'd take both of you, and use Damon to control you?"

"I can't be Shivi anymore!" Luc roared.

He stood there, chest heaving, his fists clenched. Of all the names Alexi could have given him, Alexi had called him Shivi. He'd had to have known how deep that would cut.

Campa pressed her hands briefly over her eyes. "If I decrypt you now, it is permanent--"

"I don't care--"

"It is permanent," she said again. "Shivi told me you are gender-neutral, and that you've never been allowed to own that publicly. I don't know what you want, Landon. I don't know how you see yourself, if you would wish to change your appearance or sex, but if you decrypted now, with your injuries, your only future options would be surgery. In the public eye. Society as a whole is not conservative like the Kynastons, but you would embody all the ideals of the old empire just by being Landon Kynaston."

Luc found himself trembling. He had buried that part of himself as a child. His father had told him, "If a Kynaston is born with balls, he'd bloody well be a man!"

Shivi had accepted him and loved him, but even then so few people had known he was more than Shivi's friend. That he'd married the wrong Alyras heir. They had all played the roles prescribed for them--Shivi, Coreen, and he. The brother-in-law, the imperial wife, and the imperial husband. There had been love, but never on the terms that any of them had wanted.

He had Damon now. "Decrypt me. I don't care if it's permanent."

"You haven't been listening," Campa spat. "You wouldn't be taking Damon out of danger, you'd be painting the biggest target on his back he's ever had." She looked between his eyes. "And on yourself. You're not prepared to deal with that. We aren't, either."

Luc cut a frustrated hand through the air. "The Countess can't have my son."

"No, and she won't. She'll have to go through all of us to take him."

Luc took a breath. "Why do you care?"

Campa rubbed at her eyes. "Stop wavering between your Joppan accent and your Halian one, it's making my head hurt."

Luc grunted, replaying the last few minutes in his head. He closed his eyes, and forced himself focus. His thoughts flowed back into the rhythm of the Halian accent he'd worn for nineteen years. It was easier and less grating than the Joppan.

"There's a lot more riding on Damon than any of us want to admit," Campa said. "Alexi is proof of that, whatever the Void that means. And Damon's caught up in a game he's not prepared for, and doesn't deserve. And he's Shivi's nephew. I will protect him with everything and everyone at my command, myself included."

Her eyes burned sharp and bright.

After a moment, Luc nodded. "Fine--fine." He wasn't conceding defeat. Only agreeing not to act at this moment.

Campa sighed. "Get some sleep. It's good for us, I hear."

"Does Elise know?" Luc asked.

Campa barked a laugh. "You were ready to walk out of here fully Landon Kynaston, and now you're worried if I told my wife?" She shook her head. "Elise and I have an understanding that some things we just don't share." She shrugged. "I'm married to a politician."

She touched Luc's hand. "I'm not your friend, Landon. Can't say I ever particularly liked you. But I'm not against you."

He didn't know if that was supposed to be reassuring. But she knew the truth of who he was, and didn't turn away from it.

He nodded to her, and moved toward the hatch.

"Thank you," she said quietly. "And try not to start any brush fires before they're ready to be lit, eh?"

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