I grip my arm again. Tejani's shove was a bit too strong.

I refocus on the stage top, keeping track of the graceful movements of the current dancer. From her body-slang alone, I could tell the dancer was a freelancer. She danced with the expression of a hired dancer and one who refused to serve the empire. They weren't too common, but used their skills to make a living instead. Freelancers were my enemy.

I intuitively look away. What a disgrace. Part of me wanted to take on-and-off peeks at her body language, hand-signs, and exotic body paint on her hands. The artwork on them was political. I could feel it in each ripple of her energy in the air.

Even with my training, I still couldn't fathom how the dances had more than a physical existence. Most of the dancer's energy was leeched from on the spiritual plane from her soul. The possessor beings that were part of our soul made the connection between us. It was part of being Ryoken. It connected each one of us to our neighbor. It was also the main reason why the stages were so influential. The invisible connection amplified all our feelings and thoughts.

I let out a sigh. No one was immune from it.

Flashes of the dancer above me move in and out of my vision. I concentrate. I resist the current dancer's influence on me. Lam Lathi had trained me well. Seconds later, the dancer on stage disappears.

Disappearing felt like a good idea to me.

The resonating music from the stage ends. It came from the dancer's soul. I could make out the the stage crew wiping their brows. The energy around them was heated and I could tell from looking at the Pelathi stone. She had increased the temperature around me, as well. One of the strage crew members looks down at me. He hits his palm a few times, showing me he needed a “break.”

I wait patiently behind my fear. I had minutes to spare and I knew they would pass quickly. I talk myself through what I was taught. I look across at the horizon. The impervious grandiose of Lam Lathi's power was near me. I could see it from the outlines of the palace that had been built. Even Lapona was no longer safe from the southern tribes, the empire, and it's influential conquest. Lam Lathi was slowly uniting the Ryoken tribes and moving them to war.

I look away trying to find something else to distract me. I let my fingers tread lightly on the minuscule beads sew in patterns along my waist. Each pattern meant something and some beaded letters spelled my name. Lani Mercallahs. I had no idea how someone could sew such tiny beads together and form a picture. I play around with my beads.

My dark brown eyes peer harder at the beads in my hand. Their lustrous shine matched the many waves of gold across my eyes. There were black, when I let them hang. There was a small pearly bird in the middle. The beaded jewelry was only give those who deserved such patterns. They were awards given to the messenger dancers by Lam Lathi. Only one person each year received the award I was given. If anyone else could do what I was about to do on the stage, Lam Lathi would have chosen someone else.

Finally, the stage crew motions me up.

With a shaky exhale, I grip tightly to my envelop. The dark blue cloth inside with my message was fresh in my mind. The imperial mandate gave me butterflies in my stomach, but I just need a quick repeat. I feel the ancient writing soft on my fingers. I head up the glossy marble steps. The sharp reflections from the sun above me pokes at my eyes.

My boots make rushed taps and I eagerly approach to the top. I get about halfway when my left foot misses a step and I succumb to gravity.

“Why do things like this always happen to me?!” shouts the frustration in my mind. A nervous sweat was spreading all throughout my body. I stare at the crew above me. I was relieved I had managed to catch myself.

The crowds murmur below me. A piercing shout yells an insult at me that I don't want to hear. I quickly silence the criticism in my mind, opening a finger off my forehead, telling the crowd below “I didn't care.” I pick myself up and get to the stage top.

The crowds below me grow silent in anticipation of my dance. It was going to be destructive. Loyalties were about to be redrawn.

At the top of the stage, I take in the horizon. Lapona had a reputation for beauty at night, but even in the late morning it was startling to me. Now that I was on stage, I never felt so naked. I felt bravely beautiful. I was the soul of my people.

Beige houses stand stacked on top of each other like rows of boxes across the distance. I could see the home where I stayed with Tejani and his wife. I could even see all three branched of the “Y” river from where I was. Muggy banners were hanging freely under windows and the flat roofs were covered with people all catching glimpses of me from the distance. Woman and men wave their bandannas in the air hoping to get a signal back from me. My energy was still inside me and my possessor being. Good or bad, I was their pride and their culture.

Suddenly, I take note of the masses of uncountable eyes locked onto me. Their numbers snowball in size with every passing moment. I quickly come to my senses. I runs over to the stage crew to hand them my message.

One of the stage crew-members takes the imperial mandate and opens it with a grim expression. He rubs his hands over the fabric and official. seal embedded at the bottom. Finally, he motions something to the others who ready their equipment. With a grin, one of them hands me back my letter. He let me keep it. It would make a nice keepsake if the crowds liked my first dance.

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“Lam Lathi is asking a lot from us, girl. We'll bite our tongues. Just don’t burn us…”

I nod at the stage guard. My body could keep up with the music that would resonate off the Pelathi stone. The stage crew would make sure to destroy it if things went poorly. They would add in their energy if needed.

Suddenly, the music starts without me. My energy was leaving my body. I dart over to a rusty tray, caught unprepared. I put a machine around my writes, latching onto the leather wrist cuffs I was warning. The machine latches and feels light on my forearm. Long tubes and a mechanism end in the palm of my hand and I wiggle my fingers. Lani picks up some trace dust cartridges and jam them into their respective slots, nearly dropping one. It was amazing no one below was laughing at me. In the midst of her panic, a voice calls out from below. It was Tejani.

I give the stage crew a dirty look and I try to calm myself. They were laughing at me.

Moments later, I find myself at center stage, prepared. I start to match the music resonating in me. The illusion and Lam Lathi propaganda begins.

I press my fingers tightly and feel the hiss from trace-dust evaporating between my knuckles. The dust rises in heavy fog of black, maroon and gray – the colors of my Ryokani bloodline. The dust coils itself around my body and my dance writhes into motion

My hand-signs play off the glowing words on my arm sleeves. My twisting body gives hints of allure, hidden and blended into the many symbols of dust around me. My words become complex. My energy and dancing releases a flood of emotion onto my victims below. The Pelathi stone starts to warm and I spell the word “dream” with my silent gestures. “Hate” follows after, as I use my hips to gesture the word. “Lam Lathi” and “Neandeleria” follows after that. The last word is “war”

The cloth ribbon cords hanging from my arms move across my face and body. They reach out toward the crowd. My eyes glisten and I watch as my energy shoots out like my ribbon cords and attach to the other possessor beings below me. The connection was invisible, but I could catch small glimpses in my trance. The tribes below me were connected to my body. The oily lights from the Pelathi stone follow me, as my body vanishes and my dance ends.

My dance was over quickly. It took me by surprise. More time had passed than what it felt like for me. I feel my tan hair press and stick to my sweaty face. I was covered in sweat and didn't realize it as if I was lost in a dream.

My dance was over. Every movement was nothing more than the result of practice as illusionary as a magician’s sleight-of-hand. The crowds had already taken in my body language. They took in my beauty and the imprints of a woman's curvature on their minds and soul. The exotic flow of hands above the head, the sliver of skin above thigh high boots. Expression and propaganda had flowed like two rivers merging together. Ones that meandered and suffered each other before crashing out into the psyche of my onlookers

The all-consuming scent of burning trace-dust stings my eyes. My eyes. The smoky fingers of dust that remained no longer covered my body. Silence. The music had stopped. I realize what I had created, as the crowd begins to murmur.

“War......”

A smile forms along the edges of my mouth. I forms the hand sign for “love.” The crew member next to me shakes his head in disbelief. He felt like a different person. He was still partially entranced and influenced. He blinks as I dart to the stage edge.

I undo the multiple buckle straps of the trace-dust device. I squeeze out my arm and then run down the marble steps. I stop as I peer down the marble cliff below me. Hostile eyes glare up at me from below. I take another look at the stage crew, hoping to get some reassurance

The wind whistles as it collides with the sheets of Pelathi stone behind me. One of the crew members swallows and frowns with an uneasy shrug. Everything remains silent.

My first step seems to follow me, and I try to keep my head focused. From the corner of my eyes I watch as a narrow path is made at the bottom, as the crowds anticipate my arrive. I reach the bottom and people move aside, making room for their unwanted Lam Lathi messenger,

My foot taps the stones of the main square. It leaves a resounding echo.

A roar of voices catches me off guard and I try to dart past everyone. The wall of city guards near me tries to form a temporary path of safety, but the crowds were angry. Lam Lathi had trained me well, but the dancer before me had belittled me. She created a reaction in the crowds that would destroy my message. It was a clever subtlety. I feel the energy around me change. I had been set-up for failure by her.

The Lapona natives were angry at me. Their reaction was aggressive and violent. My own message of “war” was now being turned against me.

Angry people rush me. I listen to them crash against the wall of nearby tower shields A whistle blows and rusty bayonets are positioned by the city guards in anticipation of blood. The city guards rally against the shouting crowds around them. I duck and try to escape, but the line slowly collapses.

Gunshots go off to deter the aggressive crowd from seizing control with their anger. My dance had called for a merciless war to steal The Far Away Dream from the Neandelerians. It was an unrelenting death wish for the Ryoken tribes, and everyone knew it.

“The imperial leaders in Lam Lathi would pay for their selfish blasphemy!” I hear someone shout. Someone else tries to pull my hair, but I pull my knife and they back away. Another strikes me and I start to cry, but hold myself together. The collapsing strength of the human pathway was going to end. I try to move through the last of them, like a diver holding my breath. My panic was rising.

Another hits my arm and tries to grab it. The people's wrath was taking on a mind of its own. The pathway ends and a roar of bodies slams against me. I get pushed this way and that. Angry Ryoken hands reach out for me and try to knock me to the ground.

“I'm sorry!!! Please, let me go. I'm so sorry!!!” I start to scream

I yell continuously. I feels my body being pulled back into the violent sea of people. I get pulled in another direction. No one cared. They just want their scapegoat and revenge for their altered souls and wills. No one was going to influenced and control by Lam Lathi! Many were still trying to fight off the influence I had cast on them with my skill. I hear a tinker. My knife is smack from my hand.

“Sorry! No! I'm sorry”

The crowd starts to chant against me. They beat others who disagree. Fingernails scrape my skin with blood and jabs impact against my spine. One of my arm sleeves is torn. Numbness shoots across my body. An assailant grabs my arm and I shout. I close my eyes, and motion “sorry” once again. Even with my imperial training, I just couldn’t think straight. With sweating fear, I look at the assailant who had grabbed me. His fierce grip was choking my circulation. I look up and tremble.

Relief spreads across my face when I see Tejani. I watch as he elbows some people aside and tries to say something to me, yet the noises were too loud and deafening. He keeps shouting again and again, but I just couldn't hear. My eyes narrow as Tejani pulls me toward him. Finally, I understand what he is saying, as he leads me behind more city guards.

Tejani motions “Safety. You did great! Follow…’ with his hand gestures. He gives a smile.

It was something I much needed to hear. It was a message made in silence.