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The year 434 after the Double Death

Prologue: Nidra

Storm Ahead

I’ve only heard stories about this place, yet it feels familiar. I have never set foot here, yet I know every stone, every tree. The echo of my meditation, made real. It’s like the enclave’s garden is growing all around me. Time and again something draws me here, pulling me from deep meditation. Something needs me here.

An open area stretches before me, with water on one side and a ruin on the other. Stones lie mostly buried in the ground but still reveal the outline of a building. I look at my arms. I’m strong, taller than most people, though I’ve never been particularly muscular. An advantage for a woman in my line of work. The golden auras around my sun-tanned forearms flare to life. This Place of Power feeds my abilities. Is that why I’m here?

Further on stands an old, imposing tree. No flowers or plants grow around it. Perhaps something in the soil holds them back. In my meditation, the atmosphere here felt different. Everything’s in the same place. But the light is different. I look at the tree again and remember. In my meditation, it radiated light from within. The large, pointed leaves form a dense canopy around the thick trunk. Now the light comes from above, casting shadows below. In my meditation, the leaves glowed from underneath too, like the whole tree was floating.

That tree must be the source. I scan the area for more clues. A hilly landscape rolls out across the dark water. I’m alone. People rarely come this far north. Only when they’re desperate, or when someone’s life depends on it. In my case, someone else’s life. I don’t even know whose. I wouldn’t be here without a strong pull from the True Light.

This place is deserted. Every forest has a heartbeat. Crickets, rustling leaves, birds calling to each other. This place has nothing. No sounds. Not even birds in the sky. The air is still. Something’s wrong here. The unnatural calm scrapes at my nerves. I’ve been caught off guard in places like this before. Places of Power draw anyone with abilities to them, like moths to a flame. I must resist, even if that goes against my own nature. Until I know what’s waiting, I stay alert.

How many people still seek out these ancient Places of Power? Most people know this place from the meteorite impact nearby, but other places are already lost and overgrown. Rarely in my long life have I been pulled toward a place this strongly. Rarely have I seen something so clearly in meditation. That makes me determined. It doesn’t make me comfortable. The ruin sinks deeper into the ground over the years, until no one has any memory of it. It’s strange that people once wanted to stay in such remote locations, though who knows if they were Places of Power back then.

The sun passes slowly. Hours go by. I have to be here. I just don’t know when, or what happens next. I sit down on a flat stone and drink some water. Strange how my senses sharpen here, even in this absolute silence. No movement. No sound. Time itself seems to stand still. Even the wind has died, leaving the air strangely warm.

I need to sense every shift in energy here. I strengthen my conscious connection to the True Light, the source of my ability. The golden auras on my forearms flare, shifting into fiery flames. A sudden, suffocating pressure hits my spine and I whirl around. In front of me, the air itself warps. Vibrations appear at eye level, like hot air rising in a desert. It remains hovering at one fixed point a few feet above the ground. It grows larger. It begins to rotate slowly at first and then faster. It turns into a vortex that remains still in the air like a flat disc. In the middle it’s dark, but at the edges it becomes increasingly lighter.

White flames dance wildly around my arms. A strong connection anchors me to the source of the True Light. Then the vortex reshapes into a tunnel of light, too bright to look at. A deafening roar rips through the air. A voice shouts from the void. I shield my eyes against the blinding light. Then a young man stumbles through the vortex, his legs buckling like he’s never used them before. His muscular arms flail, trying to grab something, anything, but he collapses forward. His head strikes stone with a sickening crack. Blood pools thick beneath his blond hair. Panic floods his green-gray eyes before he loses consciousness.