‘But it’s not working,’ Taren stressed again.
‘Give yourself some time,’ Noah suggested. ‘If you’ve done it once, you can do it again, you just have to want to do it.’
Taren drew a deep breath, doubtful about that. ‘I can’t even decide if I want you to be right about that, that’s how confused I am!’
‘Give it a few days, talk to the people who will be directly affected and you’ll find clarity, I’ll warrant.’
‘Some clarity would be nice,’ Taren agreed, holding up her glass to ‘Cheers’ to that.
Over the course of the day that followed the mission to Maladaan, Zeven had been watching Lucian quietly go insane. His captain had never been the type to discuss his personal concerns, but Zeven couldn’t stand the silence and the boredom any more, and when he saw Lucian still sitting in the garden where he’d been most of the day, he wandered over to speak with him.
‘Zeven.’ Lucian saw him coming and forced a smile. ‘I’ve been meaning to come see how you are faring.’
‘I feel perfectly average,’ Zeven replied, uninspired, as he took a seat beside Lucian on the bench. ‘But I guess it could have been worse. The governor’s people are looking at the weapon to see if the effect is at all reversible.’
Lucian nodded, looking back to the garden. ‘Do you miss it?’
‘Shit, yeah.’ Zeven found his passion. ‘I’ve been doing nothing but trying to figure out how I am going to get it back.’
This made Lucian smile, considering how much Zeven loathed having a Power in the beginning. ‘Worse than never having it at all, really.’
‘Absolutely,’ Zeven agreed, suddenly wondering if they were still talking about his talent or Taren. ‘What do you think Taren means to do?’
Lucian shook his head, not wanting to speculate out loud, despite the fact that that was all he’d been doing all day. ‘Something tells me whatever it is, it involves sacrificing my relationship with her in some way.’ He looked to the ground to bring his welling emotions into check.
‘But you are the entire reason she did all this!’ It didn’t make sense to Zeven.
‘She is the heiress to the Phemorian throne,’ Lucian whispered hoarsely. ‘If she has figured out a way to put things to rights, then we are going to have to face up to that sooner or later.’
‘If Taren is forced to choose between her birthright and you, she’ll choose you.’ Zeven knew that, and suspected this was not Lucian’s real worry. ‘You were the one who liberated the Phemorians from the curse of the royal line, so I doubt very much —’
‘There’s another man involved now,’ Lucian blurted out and then wished he hadn’t, although he was frustrated, a little jealous and dying to vent.
‘What? Who?’ Zeven was floored by the information.
‘He’s dead.’ Lucian waved off further comment. ‘But something about his death has altered Taren’s feelings and priorities, I feel it.’
‘With all due respect, Captain, you’re wrong,’ Zeven stated. ‘You and Taren have the same guardian spirit, so unless this other guy is another incarnation of you, I wouldn’t worry too much.’
That knowledge was comforting to be sure. ‘But, be that as it may, I still fell in love with Amie,’ Lucian argued.
‘Her love was a cleverly disguised deception,’ Zeven pointed out. ‘I don’t know if Amie really cared for anyone besides Amie. But Taren, she’s different, she’d never abandon a friendship, least of all yours.’
Lucian smiled again; Zeven was a romantic at heart. ‘But what if you had to choose between your personal happiness and the greater good of all?’
Zeven was stumped by the question as he had already been given this ultimatum and had been compelled to choose the greater good.
‘Exactly.’ Lucian forced a smile. ‘That’s what worries me.’ He looked back to the water feature calmly trickling away in the centre of the serene garden, and Zeven did too.
The tranquillity of the moment seemed amplified by not knowing what the future held.
‘The tundrell that Ringbalin has raised since Taren plucked it from Oceane is still thriving in the bio-containment lab on AMIE, so far as I know,’ Lucian informed Zeven.
‘That’s how you turned your Power on.’ Zeven had never had the chance to discuss that miracle with his captain before now.
‘And Kalayna, too,’ Lucian advised. ‘We just spent twenty-four hours breathing the atmosphere in the lab and —’
‘Awesome.’ Zeven jumped to his feet, excited, until he realised. ‘How am I going to get back to AMIE? Do you think the governor would let me borrow one of his spacecraft?’
‘And fly into Maladaan airspace?’ Lucian raised both brows. ‘Ah, no, I think not.’
This was most frustrating for Zeven as the only other two people he knew who could teleport him were Taren and the Governor of Kila, both of whom had a lot on their minds at present. Ibis had not yet assumed her immortality and so could not yet teleport, not that he could get to her now that he’d lost his Power and he’d sworn to Taren he would not see the princess again. ‘Shit, I’ll have to find someone else to aid me.’ And it wasn’t easy meeting the locals when he was locked up in this temple.
‘Hello.’
Both men were elated to find Taren had materialised close by.
‘There you are,’ Zeven noted, as Lucian stood to return her welcoming smile. ‘I was just on my way to find … somebody.’ He pointed towards the temple and headed off in that direction.
‘I’m sorry if I made you worry,’ Taren began a little awkwardly.
‘You don’t make me worry, I do it voluntarily.’ Lucian grinned with one side of his mouth, an expression that Taren found incredibly attractive, and caused her to rush to hug him.
‘I love you, always …’ she said plainly, ‘… now, yesterday, tomorrow, in the next universe, the next life, another dimension! No one has, or will ever, rival the love I hold for you.’ Her conviction caused tears to well in her eyes.
‘Why are you telling me this?’ Lucian was concerned by the distress that she was trying very hard to control.
‘I have to go back in time.’ She shocked Lucian with her frank response and he sank to a seat on the bench; Taren sat beside him.
‘How?’ He frowned, confused; this was the last resolve he’d been expecting, but it certainly explained Taren’s aversion to her solution. ‘To when?’ The question shot fear through his entire being.
Taren opened her mouth to reply, but was forced to refrain to save herself from bursting into tears. ‘Shit,’ she muttered under her breath, ‘I thought I’d got a handle on this.’ She breathed deeply to compose herself.
Instead of hounding her to answer, Lucian began to rub her back in a large circular motion with his hand. ‘It’s okay,’ he choked on a realisation, having employed a little of his own logic. ‘I know to “when” you need to go to reverse this calamity … the day we took the sample from Oceane,’ he concluded, in shock, his gaze transfixed on the flowing water of the fountain once again.
Taren gasped at the relief of having fallen in love with an intelligent man, for she was spared the part of the conversation she’d been dreading the most and she hugged him tight as he processed the ramifications of the same epiphany she had earlier that day.
‘That was the day we met —’ Lucian gulped down his distress, realising they would have no time to build up any kind of a rapport before Taren would have to convince him not to do the very thing he’d flown her into deep space to do. ‘If you prevent us from taking the sample, then what will you do?’
‘About you and Amie, you mean?’ Taren guessed and then shrugged. ‘What would you like me to do?’
‘Without the stolen sample, you’ll have no evidence against Amie.’ Lucian panicked as he realised his entire past would play out very differently.
Taren nodded, she’d thought this through too, but could only get so far without Lucian’s aid. ‘It’s a problem,’ she agreed, ‘when you didn’
t want to believe Amie was guilty, even when I did have evidence.’
‘Please tell me that you will not leave me married to that woman!’ Lucian looked to Taren who appeared perplexed.
‘But how —’
‘Seduce me,’ he begged.
Taren grinned. ‘It would be fun to try,’ she conceded, ‘but in reality, I think I would fail … you were really hot for your wife back then and —’
‘No. It might have appeared so,’ Lucian said, preparing to make a few confessions of his own, ‘but I was, in fact, lusting after you from the second you stepped on board.’
‘No!’ Taren felt he was just trying to give her false hope. ‘I don’t believe that for a second.’
‘Believe it,’ he said.
‘Perhaps if you’d met me before Amie, I might have stood a better chance —’
‘There would have been no competition,’ he assured her. ‘But as it was, you didn’t pick up that I was flirting with you?’
Taren had a think about this. ‘Well yes, a bit, in the beginning, but then —’
‘— Amie was murdered,’ Lucian concluded for her, ‘and you had that encounter with Zeven.’
‘That was something in the air on Oceane … and therefore a mistake.’ Taren took offence to him bringing that up.
‘So was my marriage,’ Lucian insisted. ‘Please, promise me, if you do this, you will wake me up to her somehow?’
Taren nodded. ‘I promise you, I’ll think of something.’
‘Oh dear heavens.’ Lucian stood, realising that he must have been the least of Taren’s woes. ‘Your parents?’
‘I know.’ Taren rolled her eyes, her list of wrongs to right was endless.
‘You have to let me help you.’ He sat down beside her once more.
‘I would love for you to help me,’ Taren agreed, ‘it’s just —’
‘I’ll be a mere mortal again,’ he guessed at her hesitation.
That had not been Taren’s first fear, but one to be considered nonetheless. ‘I don’t care about your Power, I was just into you for the sex.’ She dispelled the heavy mood with a sarcastic grin. ‘I was more worried about convincing you to leave your lifelong scientific endeavour and your beautiful wife to pursue a life of espionage with me, a total stranger.’
‘I know which I would choose now.’ Lucian kissed her while he still could, but at last had to concede, ‘Still, I see your point: we’ve got a bit of brainstorming ahead of us.’
15
THE MALADAAN SOLUTION
The next day Taren called a meeting with the team she’d taken to Maladaan. The governor, En Noah and the Lord of the Otherworld were also present in the small, domed amphitheatre that Cadfan used for lecturing visiting healers.
Taren stood to explain what had happened during the mission while her audience sat about on the smooth marble stairs. She took the opportunity to apologise to Jazmay for killing her the day before, but the revelation of Taren’s time-travel ability caused much more of a stir than her killer instinct.
‘You went back in time?’ Jazmay was stunned by the premise, her jaw gaping open. ‘That’s unprecedented.’
‘None among the Chosen are so powerful,’ Avery noted, ‘not even me. It’s like the Great Watchers are compensating for the extreme evils operating inside your universe and have given you additional power with which to combat them.’
Noah nodded in agreement with the theory.
‘Do you plan on going back in time and preventing Maladaan from shifting universes?’ Telmo queried, saddened by the premise. ‘If you do, I’ll find myself back in the labs at Maladaan, unaware of this amazing place or that any of you fine people exist at all.’
‘No,’ Jazmay chimed in with her objection, now that the cat was out of the bag. ‘I’ll be back in prison, and I shall never meet —’ She gasped before she could say her lover’s name, not prepared to accept the fate.
‘I will get you and Fari out,’ Taren promised, but clearly Jazmay didn’t want to hear it.
‘I am happy for the first time in my miserable life —’ the Phemorian stood, ‘— and you want me to give that up?’
‘You think this is what I want?’ Taren challenged. ‘You don’t know the half of what I stand to lose, and what’s more, this may never happen as I have been unable to repeat the feat, yet. But this planet that you say you love so much, is under a very real threat and if I can prevent a disaster here, I will, despite the personal cost to me.’
Jazmay was still fuming, but breathed deeply a few times before nodding to accept what Taren was saying. ‘I will go along with whatever the governor decides is best.’ She backed up a few paces.
‘Jazmay, please, hear me out,’ Taren appealed, empathising completely with how she must feel.
‘What’s the point?’ Jazmay replied coolly. ‘What will it change? I’m going to be with the one I love, while I still can, for nothing you can do back in the past will bring him back to me.’
‘I’m sorry, Jazmay,’ Taren said before she left, ‘I truly am.’
Jazmay nodded to accept her condolences, before she turned and left the room.
Zeven wasn’t thrilled about the idea either. ‘Look, Taren, I hate to object, but I’ll have no hope of getting my Power back then, I won’t even remember that I ever had a Power!’
‘I know,’ Taren sympathised and looked to Ringbalin who was smiling.
‘Ayliscia will still be alive,’ the botanist explained his delight. ‘And I shall have my greenhouse in Module C back.’
‘We’ll never have a reason to become friends.’ Zeven looked to Ringbalin, who’d become his best friend during the Maladaan debacle.
‘I’m sure we’ll find one.’ Ringbalin smiled to reassure him, although they both knew that was wishful thinking — they’d been on AMIE for five years prior to that and never said two words to each other. ‘The important thing is that Maladaan would be back where it should be.’
‘You’ll have your career back.’ Taren offered an upside.
Zeven reluctantly nodded. ‘Still, I kind of liked being an outlaw.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Stop apologising to everyone,’ Zeven insisted, ‘this isn’t your fault.’
‘I’ve been dwelling on your failure to repeat the experiment,’ Noah piped up. ‘And I believe it might be more than a conflict of interest holding you back.’
‘Go on.’ Taren urged him to speak his mind, despite her fear that the scholar might solve her failure to launch.
‘In the instance when you saved Jazmay, you willed yourself from a conscious state back into an unconscious state, but when you attempted to repeat the feat at the lake house, I am guessing you tried to go from a conscious state back to another —’
‘— conscious state!’ Taren was struck by the revelation, for the claim was perfectly true; could the solution be so simple?
‘So perhaps you should try willing yourself back to your last unconscious state?’ Noah suggested.
‘Like before I woke up this morning.’ Taren mulled this over but a second, before her curiosity took over and her will kicked in, plunging her surrounds into darkness.
Awareness loomed amid the comfort and warmth of her sleep state, and the first thing Taren realised upon stirring was that she had confirmed her experiment. En Noah was right! She woke with a gasp, next to Lucian, and didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I did it again.
Taren slid out of bed, threw on some clothes, and left the room. ‘Oh shoot!’ she gasped quietly as she entered the corridor and headed for the closest common room — the gym — which was empty at this early hour. ‘Now I have no more excuses,’ she told herself as she took a seat on a weight bench.
The fact that Taren had to will herself backwards to an unconscious state meant that her precise destination in the past was now crystal clear — the day she first awoke from stasis on board AMIE.
‘Damn it!’ Taren stood and hit a punching bag and it felt so good that she did it
again, and again. Then she kicked it, then she spun around in the air and kicked it harder.
‘Holy shit, Taren!’ Zeven wandered into the gym, amazed by what he’d just seen. ‘When did you become a street fighter?’
‘Yesterday.’ She grinned and approached him, eager to see how fast she really was. ‘Hit me,’ she invited.
‘I don’t hit girls,’ he declined, whereupon she kicked him in the upper leg and he retaliated with a strike, which she blocked.
‘Again.’ She beckoned him on with all eight of her fingers.
‘All right then, my cocky miss.’ Zeven backed up to the large sparring mat in the middle of the room, beckoning her forth with his fingers. ‘I’ll fight you, but if I win you have to give me a quick lift back to AMIE, agreed?’
‘Sure,’ Taren concurred. ‘Why do you want to go back to AMIE?’
Zeven came straight at her, and she avoided his punch to grab his attacking arm, twist him around, trip him over and wrestle him to a hold on the ground.
‘I was just being easy on you,’ he grumbled.
‘Well don’t.’ She let him go. ‘I want you to really go for it.’
‘I can assist.’ Taren looked to find the governor had entered the gym. ‘I used to spar with my parents all the time.’
‘Excellent.’ Taren beckoned him in.
‘Hey, what about our deal?’ Zeven protested to being ousted as a sparring partner.
‘Did I say you couldn’t play?’ Taren pointed out.
‘What … you think you can take on the both of us at once!’ Zeven scoffed as he got to his feet.
‘I wouldn’t doubt that for a second, if I were you,’ Rhun advised Zeven, as he stripped down to his trousers and kicked off his shoes.
Taren smiled, and it wasn’t just the heavenly male bodies she was about to beat into that had her so delighted, but a sense of the familiar — in the past she’d sparred with men a lot and she enjoyed it.
When Lucian awoke alone in Taren’s chamber, he was panicked, and rose to dress and find her. By the time Lucian entered the corridor, he was more awake and had calmed a little, having recalled Taren’s vow to him the night before, that she would not go anywhere without telling him first.
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