Page 148 of The Edge of Dawn

I know you, Dragek, she replied as the forces of the Universe dragged him back to another point in time. Time itself was a vast, gently undulating ocean from which he could surface at any point.

Unlike before, it was calm, almost a nurturing embrace.

I’ve seen what nobody else could. I saw into your mind’s eye. What you’ve done. Where you came from. I’m not afraid of you. I don’t despise you for what they made you into. You didn’t have a choice in any of that. I’ve seen what you’ve become when you weren’t held back or forced. Some people, if they had your existence, might have become terribly evil, but you aren’t. So come back now, Dragek.

Come back to me.

The tesseract folded in upon itself. The fabric of time twisted and imploded.

Back there, in the Old Empire, where Tarak had gone, something was happening.

Everything was changing.

And yet, everything stayed the same.

Because of her.

She alone knew.

He fell.

Never before had he felt so helpless, so vulnerable. Not even when he’d been under the command of the Mistress. At least then, he’d been able to escape into the recesses of his mind, where he’d created his own world.

Now, it was hers, too.

And still, he plummeted.

She held on, saving him from careening into total madness.

Then, there was an existential pop, and suddenly, he was back.

Standing there.

A blade was in his hand, the tip pointed at the steady pulse in Amun Kazharan’s neck. His other hand held the dagger that pinned the Kordolian’s strange metal tail to the chair.

And he felt like he was about to tip over the edge.

This can’t be happening.

He’d gone back to this point?

Had all of that just happened, or was he hallucinating? Had the Mating Fever driven him mad?

He had one job to do right now, which was to make certain Amun understood that there was very little standing between the prince and certain death if he did anything stupid.

He was in his skinsuit. His hands were not yet tainted by Kordolian blood.

The prince stared back at him, his single eye cold and unwavering, an insolent smirk hovering on his lips.

If this timeline was the same as the last, he knew what came next. In a moment, Tarak would appear.

Again.

And this Tarak would have no idea that the slightly-in-the-future version of himself had stepped back through time to intervene.

Or did he?

I can’t…

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