The Exalting

by Dan Allen

Genres: Fantasy action & adventure; Dragons & Mythical Creatures; Historical Fantasy; Christian Fiction; Futuristic Christian; Religious & Inspirational; Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Alien Contact; Space Exploration; Space Opera; Steampunk

Synopsis

“The perfect alchemy of science fiction and magic . . . I can’t wait for the next installment!”
- C. David Belt, The Arawn Prophecy and Time’s Plague

Seventeen-year-old Dana has discovered a bloodstone. It’s crystals have the power to control the magic and wills of an entire city-full of people. Used properly, the stone would give Dana nearly limitless power, but where Dana grew up, bloodstones are forbidden. She has no idea how to use one, and even if she did, using the stone without permission comes with a death penalty.

Dana isn’t the only one who wants to use the bloodstone. Powerful and bloodthirsty magicians from across the sea are determined to bring it back to their supreme leader. And Dana is in their way.

While Dana struggles on her home planet Xahna, the rest of the universe is at war. Unbeknownst to her and the inhabitants of her world, the entire universe is coming to use Xahna as a battlefield. Marine Jet Naman leads his advance landing team to reach the planet Xahna before their enemies.

The fate of the galaxy lies in the hands of two young people who have never met. Outnumbered and outgunned, their only chance to survive is each other.

Release date: May 15, 2019

Publisher: Future House Publishing

Print pages: 406

Sample

The purple-needled pine trees grew denser, and Dana knew she was close. She looked back. Norr was seven miles away, eclipsed by the trees, but she could still make out the black smoke rising from its workshops against a backdrop of white dust clouds from the sayathenite polishing yards. She turned to continue up the slope toward her grandfather’s cabin with one thought in mind.

It’s time I found out.

This time her parents wouldn’t be there to steer the conversation away. She would have her grandfather all to herself. It was high time somebody told her the truth. Every other city in Aesica practiced blood-binding. Only Norr forbade it.

Why?

After a few more paces, Dana realized she was limping.

Oh, here we go again.

She was no stranger to pain. But this was not like sore muscles from hiking. The ache ran deep into the bones of her lower leg.

Dana’s hands curled into fists.

Trappers.

With every step she took, the pain grew sharper until it bit and stabbed at her flesh.

Dana had never been caught in a trap, or shot with an arrow, yet she could describe in exquisite detail exactly how it felt to have a tibia crushed or punctured lungs fill with blood.

For her it was impossible not to take the killings personally.

Leave it. You’re almost there.

But Dana turned aside, angry determination coursing through her.

This would only take a minute. Trappers only checked an area every few days.

But there would be consequences if she were caught. Freeing a trapped animal was the same as theft.

And what about the murder of an animal?

Dana ran. The pain grew with every step until she was nearly in tears. Looking up, she spied a young nox. The bloody jaws of a hanging snap-trap held the sloth by its leg. Its lavender autumn fur was perfectly grizzled with the beginnings of its white winter coat—a rare catch.

Dana quickly climbed the nearest tree. When the nox was within arm’s length, Dana wedged her foot in the fork of a branch and shook stray strands of black hair out of her view. She closed her eyes and tried to quell her nausea.

Pull the pin. Get out.

Dana opened her eyes and leaned toward the trapped animal.

The nox jerked its leg in desperation.

“Ow!” Dana’s leg gave way under a stab of pain, as if her own muscles were convulsing around shattered bone. A branch struck the side of her face, stopping her fall.

“Stop it, will you? That really hurts.”

The nox suddenly gave up trying to pull its leg free, and the throbbing pains waned. It wasn’t her words, but her will that had made it stop.

Having passed a good chunk of her own volition to the nox, Dana was left without any desire to climb farther out on the branch.

Come on! You can do this.

A pall of apathy hung over her. Saving the nox just didn’t seem to matter anymore.

You have to do this.

If only to reduce the pain radiating from her leg, Dana drew out of her jacket a hook-tipped iron rod. She reached out with the tool to pull the ring on the linchpin of the trap’s axle. The spring-loaded mechanism was designed to be easily released, though not by a nox’s wide fingers.

Suddenly, the nox’s sifa flared. The three spine-like tufts of twined hair rose at the back of its neck, fanning into a feathery headdress. The sifa were not as long or colorful as the sifa of the marmar monkeys or as articulated as those Xahnans like Dana possessed. But the meaning was clear.

Danger.

Crunching leaves and breaking twigs sounded from below, and the nox twisted to look down. The trap swung out of reach.

Dana’s heart skipped into a panic at the sounds of footsteps—two sets coming from opposite directions, and headed right for her.

Trappers.

The young nox’s eyes shone with fear and desperation.

Dana was out of time.

I was so close! In utter frustration Dana dropped from the tree and landed in a crouch.

Two men emerged from the trees, one on her left and the other on her right. Neither carried a game bag or a long-hooked pole for releasing a trap.

“There’s the druid.” The man to her left pointed at her. His red-brown hair was so matted his sifa were barely visible. “Told you she’d come.”

It wasn’t a trap for the nox. It was a trap for me!

I should have listened for them.

There were plenty of birds and scampers in the wood that might have noticed the trappers. But she had only been focused on the nox.

As a druid adept, Dana felt things that only the Creator should. There were thousands like her on Xahna, from each of the four classes of adepts. They were revered and recruited for their abilities.

In blood-bound cities, some were even exalted.

But in Norr, they were a nuisance. Some, like her friend Forz, kept it a secret. Others tried to starve it into submission.

There was no cure. She would always feel pain that was not her own.

The other man closed in from her right, tramping through a tarberry bush. “Look who’s clever now.” He had a full beard, and all three pairs of his black sifa were tucked down against his neck.

This was no friendly greeting.

“Caught you in the act.”

Dana forced her inferior sifa to lift from off her neck, where they had lain tucked under her hair. It made her all the more conscious of the fact the three pairs of twined hair weren’t fully developed, still half-bound in tight bundles. “Hello,” she said, forcing the words out. “What brings you out here?”

“Ha. Very funny. It’s prison for you this time,” said the trapper on her right. “The magistrate won’t stand for this.” He held up two dirt-crusted fingers. “And we’ve got two witnesses.”

There was nothing to say. Still, she dug for an excuse. “I haven’t done anything wrong.” Yet.

“Liar. What’s that hooked bar for—scratching your bottom?”

Dana twirled it deftly and mimed the motion. “Yes.”

“And what do you think you were doing in the tree?”

“Scratching my bottom.”

“With a nox in a trap!” laughed the second trapper. “What a load of—”

Dana made a break for it. She feinted downhill, then jumped back the other direction and raced into the trees. If she could lead the men far enough, she might be able to loop back and free the poor nox.

She ran across the trade road that cut through the forest, clearing both steam-wagon ruts in a leap, and headed for a cluster of trees where she could hide in the mass of dense purple boughs.

But the men were faster than her. They closed quickly from both sides and seized her arms.

Dana thrashed, but their hands held her like vises.

“You try to call one of your little friends,” said the bearded trapper holding her right arm up away from her body, “and we’ll just kill you.”

“Is that so?” called another voice from nearby. Its wavering tone hinted at advanced age, and it was laced with curious interest.

Dana recognized the voice. Togath!

Togath, her grandfather, stepped around a large tree trunk. He was tall and thin, as if he’d been stretched out. His inferior sifa flared politely in greeting. “If you mean to kill her,” he continued. “I can help.”

“What?” Dana gasped.

“She is a troublemaker—the worst kind.”

“I am not!”

The warning glance from Togath told her that she wasn’t helping. “Shall I cut out her tongue first, so she doesn’t scream?”

“I can still scream without a tongue. How does a tongue help you scream? It’s more of a throat thing.”

“Dana!” he snapped. “Will you shut up, please? We’re discussing your imminent demise. It’s not a matter of debate.” There was a familiar twinkle in his eye.

“Fine, cut out my tongue first.”

“Yes.” Togath stepped forward. “And then the fun begins. We’ll probably have to dismember her, so they don’t find any body parts—best if we eat them.” He looked from one trapper to the other. “Have you ever eaten a Xahnan?”

The two men looked at him in complete horror.

“Come to my cabin. I’ve got plenty left over from the last trespasser.”

The trappers exchanged a horrified glance.

“Well, if you haven’t the stomach for this sort of thing.” In a flash he drew a short knife and brandished it in the face one trapper and then other. “You best leave her to me and get off my property.”

The trappers let go of her like she was a live rhynoid vine and beat a quick retreat.

“Honestly,” Dana said. “Cut out my tongue?”

Her grandfather laughed until his wheezes ended in a cough. “Alright. Let’s get you away from the scene of the crime.”

Dana gave a grudging look back in the direction of the nox. It would be dead before she got back. That hurt even more than the phantom pains in her leg. “Fine.”

* * *

Dana sat across from her grandfather in his small cabin, ignoring her bowl of bitter broth, and contemplating doing something else completely forbidden.

I can ask him now. My parents will never know.

There were certain things that were forbidden to even discuss in the free city of Norr.

But I’m not in Norr—well not in the city proper. She was still in the jurisdiction of its rangers.

Close enough.

Dana sipped the herbal tea that tasted like scorched dirt with overtones of overripe fruit and smiled at her grandfather, swallowing back the question that beat at her from inside.

Nobody in Norr, including Dana, was blood-bound to a ka. But every other city she had heard of allegedly practiced blood-binding. Some even required it.

Perhaps what made it all the worse was the one thing she knew about the making of a ka.

A ka was chosen from among a city’s adepts, people with abilities like hers.

The fact that her city was the only one without a ka seemed a bit off, like vegetables that were just starting to get a little slimy. You could stomach it, but only if you closed your eyes and plugged your nose.

Dana had heard every good reason that the city of Norr had banned blood-binding. Inequality. Too much power concentrated in one person. The obvious potential for corruption. Blasphemy before the Creator. But that only her made her more curious why the other cities all practiced it.

Dana ran her hands along her sturdy calf-length trousers, considering how to broach the subject. It was like asking how babies were made—there was no way to bring it up without Togath wondering why she was asking.

If she didn’t ask now, she would have a long walk home to nurse her regret.

It’s now or never. She raised her voice. “Togath?”

“Hmm?” Without looking up, her grandfather put a spoon of steaming soup into his mouth. Wearing his usual gray waistcoat and long-sleeved shirt, he looked like a simple woodsman. But he knew things—forbidden things.

“If blood-binding is so wrong,” Dana began, speaking quickly to avoid being interrupted, “why is it done in other cities?”

Togath’s spoon clinked against the tin platter under his bowl. He looked up. The small distance between them seemed to open like a spreading ice crevasse.

Dana bit her lip, hoping that this would be her first glimpse into the dominant culture on Xahna—the world in which she lived like an exile in the unbound city of Norr.

Togath opened his mouth to speak but stopped. He absently twisted the key on the winding spring on the watch around his neck, his pause belying a deeper struggle. “Dana, you know discussion of bloodstones and the exalting are forbidden in Norr.” His lips pressed together, forming wrinkles on his narrow face. He kneaded his hands as if trying to quell a nagging ache. “And besides, what would I know?”

Far more than he’s letting on.

Dana glanced out the window. The pale blue sky was already fading.

Twilight. I’m running out of time.

At least at this altitude, there weren’t any predatory rhynoid vines along the trail. She could risk staying a little longer.

“You lived in Shoul Falls. It’s a blood-bound city,” Dana said. “You must know more about the making of a ka than anyone else in Norr, including the cleric.” Dana couldn’t hide her irritation on that point. “Why do we even need a cleric?”

Togath gave a grudging nod. “Goodman Warv’s function, as I understand it, is knowing how to not offend the ka of other cities.”

“Anyway, it’s ridiculous going to meditation when we don’t even have a ka to pray to.”

“It builds strength of spirit,” Togath said. “As does the fast.”

“I’d rather endure public humiliation.” Dana’s sifa shook at the very thought of foregoing food.

“Yes, I recall you’ve made that decision before. But you should fast, Dana. It will make your will stronger.” His superior sifa lifted upward and to the sides, punctuating the edict. Then her grandfather stood, lifted his half-eaten bowl of soup, and set it in a brick-lined sink, seeming to have lost his appetite.

Stronger. It wasn’t strength the Norrians wanted from her, it was self-denial.

Dana crossed her arms. “I don’t need to fast just to prove I can not do something. I’m strong enough.”

“Strong enough to be a teenage girl in a mining town without any responsibilities except skinning her father’s game and appraising animals for auction.” Togath turned his head and gave her a wry smile.

“I hate skinning game.” Dana shuddered. “I can see how they died when I touch them—why do I have to see that?”

“I wish I knew.” Togath rubbed the back of his neck. “The Torsican scholars claim the veil between this world and the Creator’s realm is thin. Perhaps it is not so in other places.”

“Other worlds.” Dana had heard all the tales of farseeing ka who gazed into the heavens and felt other beings—creatures like Xahnans, walking upright with two legs and arms and familiar faces. Children of the Creator. Of course, she hadn’t seen any of that. Her senses hit their limit at well less than a mile.

She huffed a breath of frustration. “If there are so many places to live, why did the Creator curse me to live in Norr?”

In guarded conversations with sayathenite traders and steam-wagon drivers, Dana had learned that young adepts in other cities were invited to live in a sanctum, trained as acolytes by senior adepts, and eventually given positions of power under the keeper of the city’s bloodstone—the ka.

But Norrians wanted nothing to do with her ability. Like Togath, they claimed strength came from not using it.

To Dana, their way of thinking wasn’t about freedom and equality, as they claimed. It was pure jealousy and fear. Why couldn’t they see her power could help them, protect them? If she were chosen as ka, she could wield ten thousand times more will.

Perhaps then, like the legends, her gaze would reach beyond Xahna.

Right now, she just wished she could see beyond Norr.

Or leave.

She was still underage. It wasn’t an option. But just because she couldn’t leave didn’t mean she had to live under the delusion that she was a freak to be tamed.

Dana clenched her fists. “Why?”

Togath placed his hand on the table, a patronizing gesture like he was patting the head of a marmar. “Whether living in Norr is a curse or a blessing, you must deci—”

“Ahhh!” Dana clutched her ribs and fell from her chair as a sharp pain shot through her side. She looked to the cabin door as her superior sifa flared defiantly from both sides of her head. Her gaze fixed with a sudden determination.

“Dana, no! You can’t interfere with traps anymore. I helped you get away from those trappers, but if you leave now—”

“It was an arrow, not a trap. The animal is still moving. I can save it.”

The long pace of its desperate strides pulsed through her legs, as if she were bounding through the forest. It was a bird—the largest on Xahna.

A greeder.

The pain in its side stabbed at her. Dana could hardly breathe.

Ka of Xahna—it hurts!

Why would somebody shoot a greeder? Wild greeder were rare in the mountains and far too valuable to kill—worth thousands of trader’s coins, possibly as much as a small house like her grandfather’s cabin.

Whatever the hunter’s reason, Dana couldn’t bear the pain in her ribs where the arrow had ripped into the great bird’s side. She bolted out of Togath’s cabin and ran across the footpath and into the forest.

Why is someone hunting a greeder in the forest at night?

“Dana, come back!” Togath called from his doorway, his aged voice unable to project far. “You can resist this. Be strong!”

But Togath couldn’t understand how this felt. He was not an adept like Dana and her older brother Tyrus.

With the stabbing pain in her side wringing tears from her eyes, Dana couldn’t just sit there and feel the beautiful creature dying.

Racing among the lower branches of the pine trees, the greeder’s labored breathing mingled with hers.

“I’m coming,” she muttered breathlessly.

A scamper hopped out from its hiding place onto a branch to watch her pass. This one she knew, though she had no space in her mind to hear its constant hunger. The frill-necked lizards thought only of food—like Tyrus, her older brother, who used his druidic sense for hunting.

Dana felt the wounded greeder’s pace quickening. It had turned downhill. Through a gap in the canopy of pine needles, she spied a tall stone outcropping. The great, long-legged bird was headed for a cliff. If it leapt, it would glide too far for her to reach it in time to save it. She had a pouch with caiman powder in her jacket. She could stop the bleeding.

Dana called out to the animal, pressing her mind and soul into the creature, knowing full well the effort would leave her with almost no will of her own.

“Climb down!”

The greeder turned aside as her forced thoughts overwhelmed its urge to leap from the precipice. The greeder headed instead down a narrow drainage on the near side of the cliff into a chute of broken shale. Its pursuer would never follow it down that. The archer would have to go around.

The effort of willing the greeder toward her sapped Dana’s resolve almost instantly. She no longer had any desire to run. The natural urge to rest her legs and catch her breath smothered all other desires. Her feet slowed. Soon she was walking, distracted by the dark sky and pine needles on the ground.

“Keep going,” she muttered, her own voice sounding rather unconvincing.

Be strong. Her grandfather’s voice echoed in her head, then her conscience.

Maybe I should do the fast more often.

Fighting the urge to stop entirely, Dana started ahead again, hurrying for the base of the cliff, where the six-foot-tall greeder would emerge.

As it neared, her sensations merged with those of the greeder. Her feet felt as if they had long-toed claws that slid over loose pieces of broken shale. She felt the greeder struggling for balance on the rockslide. But the most distinct feeling was the tremendous pressure on her back.

It’s carrying someone.

And that begged another question.

Who would shoot at a man on a greeder? One of the rangers?

The rider might be a dangerous criminal. That was reason enough to turn back, but this greeder felt unusually loyal to its beloved rider. Dana trusted the judgement of a greeder better than most people she knew.

I should help him.

No longer feeding her will into the huge bird, Dana felt her own self-control recovering gradually. Her pace quickened until her leather-soled shoes sprinted over the poor alkaline soil of the alpine forest.

As though a painted curtain hung in front of her, Dana spied a hazy vision of what the greeder was seeing: a junction at the base of the chute.

“This way,” she muttered, again channeling resolve into its weary, panicked mind. “Come to me.”

The greeder turned toward Dana.

Rounding a boulder, she caught sight of the animal. Scintillating black and green feathers covered its head and long neck. Bright white primaries graced the tips of its half-extended wings. A cloaked rider sat on its back in a saddle. The greeder stumbled over a root. It caught its footing but swerved awkwardly against the trunk of a tall pine.

“No!”

The arrow sticking from the greeder’s side struck the tree trunk and rammed further into the already weakened animal.

The pain in her side flared like she had been stabbed through with a hot poker from a forge. A mingled sensation of warm and cool ran down her side, as blood gushed in pulses from the greeder.

The arrow in its side had severed the artery that fed its massive legs.

In two paces the large bird fell forward, rolling over its rider with the sickening crunch of bones.

Dana gave a whimper of shock and covered her mouth. “Oh my . . .”

Both rider and bird would be dead in moments.

Dana raced forward, desperate thoughts filling her mind as she came to the scene. Pinned under the weight of his dying mount, the rider stretched out a wrinkled and weathered hand, his open mouth gasping for air that his broken body could not seem to take in. In his fingers, he held a small coin purse.

Take it.

The thought came to her mind clearly and with conviction. With her own will weakened, Dana yielded easily to the thought. She knelt beside him and took the small leather pouch. Within was a single object, not heavy enough to be gold. Her fingers traced the facets.

A crystal.

With a great struggle, the aged man spoke. His voice gurgled like a bellows half-filled with water. “Vetas-ka is coming.”

Dana knew the title “ka” and what it meant. The very thought filled her with terror.

Tears quivered in the corners of the man’s eyes. “Do not . . .” His voice choked on a gurgle of blood. “. . . let him get the stone.”

“This is a bloodstone?” The urge to drop the pouch became almost overpowering.

One of the gods was coming for it—a supreme.

Dana shook her head in horror, her legs itching to flee. At the same time, a sense of possibility rushed through her. This was a chance to change her life forever.

With the bloodstone she could become a ka, one of the Pantheon.

The man’s trembling hand caught hers in a desperate grip. At his touch, a sensation of total peace washed her concerns away like a flowing tide, even as the man gave a gurgled rasp—his lungs were flooded. There was nothing she could do to save him.

Words again flowed into her mind as easily as a daydream.

He is coming for it. His kazen are not far. Run!

Dana’s mind was a blur of questions, but she had no time to ask them. Giving the dying rider’s hand one last squeeze, Dana fled.

Behind her, the nostrils high up on the greeder’s beak gave out one long breath—its last. The animal’s departing soul carried tendrils of her own beyond the veil, where she sensed the arrival of its friend.

The rider had passed as well.

Go in peace.

The rider had been a good man. Behind that was the lingering impression left by what she now realized was the rider’s enchanting touch. She knew what he knew about Vetas-ka.

He was a bloodthirsty demon.

Dana’s resolve was now as solid as the ground beneath her feet. She clenched the pouch, realizing as she did, that she held the combined will of thousands of souls in her hand.

A tainted bloodstone.

Never use it, she told herself as increasing curiosity ate at her. The impression of Vetas-ka hung like a shadow over her heart. If she used the stone, what was to keep her from becoming like him? Years of Goodman Warv’s warnings about the dangers of the blood-binding echoed through her.

The great abomination.

But she couldn’t just let whoever had hunted the man steal it. It belonged to a city. Access to all those people’s wills was bound in this one object.

The unmistakable baying of Torsican hunting hounds sounded behind her. Images of their serrated fangs, maned necks, and spine-tipped ears flashed into her mind.

Dana’s sifa flattened to the sides of her neck at the chilling sound. Her people had originated long ago on the distant continent of Torsica. The call of the fierce pack-hunting Torsican hounds conjured primal fear.

They’ll find the greeder. They’ll get my scent.

Rather than continue downhill, the direction the greeder had been fleeing, Dana turned aside. Fear hastened her steps as she climbed a rise and circled away from Togath’s cabin. She had no desire to lead Vetas-ka’s acolytes onto her grandfather’s property.

The dogs were surely faster than she was, but they could not outrun her at this altitude for long.

Dana paced herself as she topped the rise. Moments later she descended behind the ridge and the sound of the hounds was lost, giving her a chance to think through a defense.

If the dogs caught up, she might be able to convince one or two not to attack. But as a pack, their collective hunting instincts would overcome her suggestions.

Dana sprinted for another quarter mile, her desperate thoughts of how to save her life constantly interrupted by the effort of avoiding tripping on the roots and rocks that leapt at her from the darkness.

A long howl from a hound sent a tremor of terror down her spine. This time it was even louder.

No. Please.

The chorus of baying grew quickly as the swift dogs closed on her. She hadn’t gotten a sufficient lead to tire them.

An idea struck her, a terrible one. She would never succeed trying to get the dogs to stop hunting.

But I can give them another target.

Dana winced at the thought of sacrificing another animal to save her life.

But it was not just her life in the balance. The bloodstone carried a connection to every bound soul of an entire city.

Dana reached out with her mind, seeking for an impressionable animal that would be large enough to interest the dogs.

Nothing.

No. There.

A young three-horn bandeer was in a meadow two hundred yards away. It was lying down, hiding from the dogs.

“Run this way!” she urged.

It would not budge. She was too far, and her suggestion went against its basic instinct.

Dana had only seconds before the baying hounds reached her.

Fumbling with the tie on the purse, Dana opened the small leather pouch, shuddering as she fought sixteen years of indoctrination about the evils of the blood-binding.

The bloodstones give the ka their power, virtually limitless will.

Dana reached the meadow. A large hound emerged from the trees to her right, its jowls flapping as it bared its teeth and howled. Dana’s heart thudded in her chest. Dana gasped panicked breaths as tears spilled down her cheeks.

I don’t want to die.

Two more hounds burst from the trees to her left, joining the chorus as they spotted her.

Her balance shifted unexpectedly, and the ground slammed into Dana’s face. With a mouthful of dirt and her hands tingling from the impact, she climbed to her knees.

I didn’t trip, she thought. What happened?

But Dana remembered the coin purse with the stone. She ran her hands over tufts of thin grass, searching frantically in the dirt for the pouch. Neither of the twin moons of Calett and Osoq had yet risen. The evening sky was already dark.

Come on. Where is it!

Her hand struck the pouch.

“Don’t even think about touching that.” A man stepped out of the cover of the trees.

“Leave me alone,” Dana whimpered, her fingers still on the bag.

“I claim that stone in the name of Vetas-ka,” said the dark-haired man. His superior sifa rose at the back of his thick neck, the twined hair fanning in a posture of dominance. He was short, but nothing about his stature made him any less menacing.

Dana glared at the bow slung over his shoulder. Running was no use.

“Don’t make this any harder,” he added, “or you’ll end up like Sindar.”

“Who is Sindar?” Dana said, desperate for some distraction as the dogs circled behind her, closing her exit.

“The dead man you just robbed for that stone.”

Dana wanted to point out that she had not stolen it, but the kazen reached out his hand, and suddenly she could not move.

A warlock!

Dana had met many adepts with the ability to channel their will into physical force or even heat, but never had she met any who could stop someone from even moving at such a distance. Dana struggled to move from her kneeling position as beads of sweat dripped from her forehead, stinging the scraped skin near the corner of her eye. Her muscles quivered against the invisible force that held her.

“You have never felt the influence of a supreme?” said the man. “Vetas-ka will grant me as much will as I need to obtain that stone.”

Dana reached out with her mind, searching the forest for help, finding only a few squirrels and an owl. “How does he know you won’t take the stone for yourself?” Dana said, trying to sow doubt. “Now that you’ve seen it, you’re a threat. Vetas-ka will claim the stone for himself and eliminate anyone who has seen it. You are as expendable as me.”

The man gave a disgusted laugh. But there was something more than bravado. Dana sensed a touch of fear.

It’s working.

She struggled to move, forcing the man to feed out even more will to keep her arms and legs from moving.

“Vetas-ka sees all,” he said. “My eyes are his eyes. My ears are his ears—yes, he knows your face now. Even if you were to escape, he would hunt you down to the ends of Xahna. You are powerless against him. There are six kazen in the forest at this very moment. Do you think you can defeat us all?”

“You are merely a tool—a dog. Once your usefulness is gone, your ka will dispose of you.”

“Blasphemy! When I deliver the stone, Vetas-ka will lift up his follower Omren among his children,” shouted the man. “I’m . . . sure of it.” His voice wavered with increasing doubt. Dana was no enchanter, but sh