Surit’s body was a chalky-white outline to Tennal’s reader senses, his physical dimensions were just a shadow, his eyes were milky white. They opened wide.

Surit’s mind touched the exposed root in Tennal’s brain. The touch sent stars all through Tennal’s head, all through his nerves, all through every physical and invisible part of him. Tennal barely heard, behind him, the aide say, “Captain Halkana!” Tennal was so deep in Surit’s mind, the voice sounded like it was echoing down a well.

“Sir! On the governor’s authority, this prisoner—”

Tennal threw his whole self at the sync and met Surit, whose defenses crumbled, fissures opening all over his mind like the shell breaking away from a magma core. The heat of him was overwhelming. Tennal fell into him like a root system grasping the earth, like nerves knitting themselves back together.

Tennal had seen the sync as a threat, as a punishment, as all but a death sentence. This didn’t feel anything like that—this was a surge of life, a heady plunge into orbit. Tennal had thought he would sense Surit controlling their minds, but all he got from Surit was the same electrified wonder as Tennal as their fragmented selves coalesced into a newer and terrifying and alien whole.

They took a breath. Tennal had a moment of terror when he realized he didn’t know which set of lungs was his.

After a horrible moment of hanging in the void, the sheer force of twenty years’ habit fired up nerves and synapses through familiar paths, and he felt his way back into control of his own body. His physical form was uncomfortable, like a badly fitting pair of shoes. He snapped back out of his reader senses. The room flooded with color.

The door opened enough for the aide to force his way through. “Sir, please report! Is the prisoner attacking? Are you safe?” His tone suggested the questions were for form only. He stopped when he saw Tennal turn.

Tennal resisted the urge to balance himself with an arm on the doorframe. With every breath he took, an afterimage of Surit’s mind burned in his brain. And Surit was still there, no longer a dim presence, but a blazing star that only Tennal could feel.

It was hard to focus on something as mundane as the aide. Then Tennal remembered. Oma. His aunt. Brainwashing. The coup.

They had to escape.