“What’s going on?”
“It’s the convocation,” Deek murmured.
“You just had one last night,” Frieda pointed out. “Why are they having another one?”
Deek shook his head, but at that moment, Trin burst out of the house and hurried toward them. “Come quick, both of you!”
“What’s happening?” Frieda asked.
“It’s the factions,” Trin told her. “The Felsite and the Ursidreans are meeting on the frontier. They’re making peace.”
Chapter 9
Deek took a step forward to follow Trin to the convocation, but Frieda held back. He glanced back at her. “Are you coming?”
She tried to pull her hand out of his grasp. “I don’t think so.”
He brought his face closer to hers. “Come now, Frieda. If you’re going to join the Aqinas and stay here with me, you should come now. We need you.”
Frieda’s eyes flew open. “You need me? What for?”
“For the convocation,” he replied. “We need every Aqinas to participate so we can get a clear vision of what’s happening on land. Help us. It’s the best way we can help the other factions put their differences aside.”
Frieda watched the long line of white-clothed people. The end of the line approached the corner. They would enter the meadow in a minute and leave her behind, alone. Was she with them or not?
Deek loosened his grip on her hand to let her go. He would leave her to join his people. She couldn’t let that happen. If the convocation was good enough for him and his family, it was good enough for her. She caught hold of his hand again and squeezed it. “I’m coming with you.”
They ran to catch up with the last Aqinas in line. Deek caught the man by the hand, and Frieda held onto Deek. She couldn’t go wrong if she only kept hold of him.
The line emerged into the meadow and circled back on itself. Frieda couldn’t see any faces in the enormous circle beyond those closest to her. White specks dotted the landscape and formed a huge ring. The front of the line looped back and Jen, the first person in the line, took Frieda’s hand. A surge of power ran through the circle, and the grass and flowers inside the ring shimmered with watery waves.
Frieda’s head swam, and before her eyes, the whole landscape disappeared. In the middle of the circle, an arid plain stretched from one horizon to the other. A bleak, yellow sun glared down from an empty sky. None of the colors of the Aqinas world decorated that country.
A chasm cut the plain in half, and on one side, a column of people crossed the expanse. Some rode on palanquins off the ground, but most walked in files of three and four. A leonine man with a burnt orange mane of hair around his head stood on the palanquin at the column’s head, and a small, dark-haired woman sat at his feet. She had no mane. She was human.
A murmur rippled through the convocation. Was it a voice, or just a silent knowing transmitted through the water connecting them all? “Alpha Renier, leader of the Felsite. And that’s Carmen, his mate.”
Across the plain, on the other side of the chasm, another column rose out of the parched ground. They rode on some kind of vehicles, most with massive guns mounted on their fronts. The people all carried weapons, and the weapons buzzed with strange energy.
A burly man with black hair and powerful shoulders sat on one of the vehicles, but he didn’t show himself the way the Felsite leader did. He sat among his men, with only a burning intensity in his small black eyes and on his heavy brow to indicate the weight on his shoulders.
“Alpha Donen, leader of the Ursidrean faction,” the water whispered. Frieda didn’t see any females in the Ursidrean column, and none accompanied Donen on his battle machine.
The vision pulled back to take in the whole scene, and a tiny hint of movement caught Frieda’s eye from somewhere deep inside the chasm. She narrowed her eyes, and the vision focused on the spot. All of a sudden, she cried out in surprise.
Four tiny
Marian Tee
Tori Kiss
Veronica Henry
Lynda La Plante
D. H. Sidebottom
Sue Margolis
Randall Wallace
Roman Gitlarz
MAGGIE SHAYNE
Randy Wayne White