A wide-winged hawk fought the turbulent air currents high above Il'Aicharen, driven by Sitara’s will. An unexpected gust threw it toward the sheer cliff face above the wreckage of the keep. It clawed at the air, its wings cracking under the strain. A few feathers fell away and crumbled to dust in the wind.

Sitara growled in frustration as she struggled to maintain her tenuous connection with the great hawk. From where she sat on her bunk in the tiny cabin assigned to her for the journey to Diodor, she caught glimpses through the hawk's eyes.

The view triggered a sense of vertigo. Flashes of vision from high above the devastated battlefield superimposed themselves every second or two over her view of the gently rolling sea through the tiny porthole.

She nearly lost the connection entirely as the hawk changed course and let the wind carry it up and over the cone of Mount Il'Aicharen. Sitara muttered a curse and re-established control.

The spell Masego had taught her for controlling animals was similar to the one Bajaran had taught her for bleeding away their life to feed her own soul. It was subtly different, however. Instead of leeching the animal’s life and drawing it into herself, she used that power to fuel the conduit she used to control it.

The animal still had to die.

Sitara shuddered as she felt the hawk decaying beneath her spell. Every muscle in her body quivered from the strain of holding the far-distant connection. She had consumed the life force of another bird prior to commencing this attempt, but even with that energy bolstering her strength, she couldn’t maintain the effort much longer.

Tears stung her eyes as she forced herself to re-establish control. Masego had been clear in his directive, and she couldn't risk failing. The hawk's vision swept her away from the ship as her connection solidified. Before she could direct it back toward the battlefield where she expected to find her quarry, something caught her attention.

On a remote corner of the mountain, a small circular building clung to the edge of a barren cliff. A long black streak marred the otherwise white expanse of snow.

A man, glowing brilliant white, suddenly leaped from the window and fell through the air, barely cresting the edges of the long steps of stone. Sitara watched in astonishment as the figure in the unbleached woolen garments of a stalwart descended in a graceful slide that somehow kept him from slamming fatally into the rocks.

The hawk circled far above, but its beak cracked and two of its talons crumpled and fell away. As it began its final death spiral through the cloud bank hugging the mountainside, Sitara noticed something new. At the terminus of the black streak, a crimson-robed man was running through the forest.

Sitara focused the bird's dimming vision on the figure and confirmed her suspicion. He was a shadeleech.

The hawk disintegrated into powdery bits of ash as Sitara returned to herself, rubbing at the deep chill that had settled into her limbs. She could still feel the hawk's indomitable spirit, its love of high places, and its fierce hunger. She very nearly screamed its final cry for it, and only barely swallowed the impulse.

Wiping tears from her eyes, Sitara whispered, "I hate you, master."

She had been tempted to ignore his order and flee when she reached Diodor, never looking back. Curiosity got the better of her. She wanted to see the shadeleech.

She yearned to fulfill Bajaran’s goal of restoring the Tamerlane Empire to greatness and establishing peace finally with their neighbors to the west. How better to do that than to begin a dialogue with the shadeleeches?

Despite her loathing for Masego, she applauded this attempt to begin the process. She had no idea how he knew to find the shadeleech in Hallvarr, didn’t understand how the shadeleech’s presence there tied to the gruesome battlefield, but she would contact him.

She prepared her mind for yet another spell as she took a tawny cat out of its box and set it in her lap. It purred as she stroked its flanks. Sitara kissed it gently while fresh tears dripped onto its head.

"Fulfill the measure of your creation," she whispered, her throat dry.

After a long moment, she closed her eyes and reached for the cat with fingers of power. The animal shivered at the touch of her magic. She hushed it with a gentle thought and filled its mind with feelings of love and contentment. It was the least she could do.

Another moment, and the cat would feel nothing.

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Sitara had practiced her shielding for hours while she sat in her cabin. Masego had urged her to use her imagination, so she did. She had taken the revelation he shared with her about multifaceted shielding and reinforced it until she felt it would withstand her master’s next assault.

If only she could shield her emotions so well. Applying her newly enhanced shields, she threw her mind out into the air. Reinforced by the strength of the cat's life force, Sitara left the ship and whisked north toward Diodor with the speed of thought.

The sea appeared to her as a vast amber plain, teeming with life, while the shoreline looked black, flashes of ethereal life forms glowing upon it like subdued candles.

Eventually, Diodor blazed on the horizon. As Sitara's mind raced closer, the concentrated population appeared like a giant, writhing flame. She avoided the lure of the city for there, glowing brighter than the rest, brilliant points of light identified the presence of sentinels. Masego had warned her of heavy shielding around the palace. She wouldn’t risk approaching, but needed the beacon only as a landmark.

Turning east, she flashed across the dense forest toward the mountains, then followed the rising peaks toward Mount Il'Aicharen. On the far side of its bulk, at the limits of her strength, she detected two bright points of light, gifted souls heading westward.

Sitara approached the first and reached out to touch it.

A brutally powerful hammerstrike of magic slammed into her. Her multifaceted shields deflected most of the impact, but its intensity rattled her. She threw out a thought.

I am not the enemy that pursues you. I am an ally.

She didn’t want to open dialogue for peace by fighting, but she couldn’t let the shadeleech destroy her before getting her message out either.

She reached again toward the soul and made the most tenuous of contact. That brief touch felt like plunging her mind into a boiling cesspool. Hundreds of miles away, Sitara's body fell back onto the cot, covered with a sheen of cold sweat.

The horrifying mind spoke to her. I am busy. Do not waste my time.

Sitara shook from the contact. She should have known Masego wouldn’t send her to a good shadeleech, one seeking peace. He was an evil man, so would collaborate with like-minded men. He had somehow found a shadeleech as corrupt as himself. She shuddered to think what they might be planning.

Despite her loathing, she cast out the next thought. I bear a proposal from my master. I know you, Tanathos and I am to tell you--

Tanathos struck with unbelievable force at her shielded mind from three directions at once. Sitara's shield, which she had been so proud of a moment before, shattered under the blow, and he drove into her mind.

Sitara screamed in her cabin as sickening tendrils of thought burrowed into her mind, tearing out her secrets, digging for the core of her being, threatening madness. She struggled to flee, but he held her prisoner with shackles of thought. She tried to force him out, but he shattered her feeble attempts.

I’ll have to thank your master for sending me a much-needed soul. His mindvoice laughed with sarcasm. Who is this master of yours?

He was going to destroy her. Had Masego sensed her rebellious thoughts despite the care with which she’d tried to conceal them?

Tanathos tore at her mind and she writhed with fresh agony. Impatient with her delay, he tore the name from her mind.

The pain stopped.

Masego? What does this master look like?

I don’t know, she wailed. I’ve never met him.

Through the conduit connecting them, she could sense his fear of an approaching threat, his desperate hunger to consume her life force just as she had consumed the cat and the hawk. He hesitated, curiosity holding back the death blow.

What is your master’s message?

Sitara didn't know. Masego had implanted it into her mind, a seed surrounded by a form of shielding she had never experienced before. She had feared to tamper with it. Now she cast that seed at Tanathos.

Very well, he said a moment later. I will spare you until we meet again.

She would kill him the next time they met. She had vowed no one would again violate her, but he had done so with impunity.

Tanathos drove a dagger of pain into her mind again, his mindvoice laughing. Study hard, slave. Perhaps you’ll put up more of a fight next time.

Then he released her.

Sitara’s thoughts reeled as her mind snapped back to her body. A pounding headache left her groaning on her bunk, and cold sweat broke out across her skin. She didn’t understand why the shadeleech had spared her, and she felt defiled by the touch of his filthy mind.

She held the still-warm body of the cat to her chest and sobbed.

"Oh, Bajaran", she whispered. "Whatever is to be done?"

How could he have embraced a cause so filled with evil men? She couldn’t believe that he had known the caliber of the other revolutionaries, and yet how could he not have known?

As the steady rocking of the ship slowly eased her clenched innards, she finally understood. Of course Bajaran had known they were evil. That’s why he never introduced her to them. He had been shielding her.

The purity of the revolution had been corrupted in both countries. If she fled now, the evil conspiracy might well succeed in overthrowing the government, replacing it with a new rule just as corrupt.

Bajaran must have been planning to cleanse their ranks. No other explanation made any sense. With him gone, it fell to her to restore the purity of their cause. She must seek out other like-minded patriots, just as he had found her.

Sitara considered the challenge. Where would she find people committed to freedom, untainted by the evil of the current regime? They must possess the strength of character to withstand the lure of corruption that had pervaded the cause of the revolution.

She would never find them in the wilds. She had to return to Tamera. There she could leverage her position in the shadows of the emperor’s wife to bring about the change the nation so desperately needed.

She would learn Masego’s plan, she would pretend to embrace his plotting. When he struck, in the moment of his victory when he toppled the head of the empire, she would strike in turn. She would turn on him and let the emperor’s subjects tear him to pieces.

Sitara would rise to take the reins of a leaderless nation.

In the meantime, she had to work on her shields.