In March, when the winds blew and the buds of spring remained tantalizingly out of reach, she saw again, asked again. Heard refusal again.

The third time lit the fuse of her temper.

“How am I supposed to know when I only fight with you, with swords charmed not to harm? You can’t beat me on horseback, and hardly ever otherwise. I can shoot an arrow farther than you and with more accuracy now. And with this?”

She flashed out her hands, sent the fire roaring, the candles flaming, the potion in the cauldron flying into the air and then spilling back in again.

“I’m as good as you.”

“I remain your teacher, and you my student.”

“Then let me learn what’s happening in the world. All my life I’ve been protected. At the farm, now here.”

“You’re not ready.”

“How do you know? I’ll just all of a sudden be ready when I’m fifteen? I’m nearly fifteen anyway.”

“Age isn’t the line.”

“What is? What is?”

“Open that door.” He gestured to the locked cupboard.

She marched to it, tugged. Held her hand and her temper over the lock. “You locked it so I can’t.”

“No. When you can open it, ask me again. I’ll work in peace now. Go, do something else, and do it somewhere else.”

“Fine. I don’t want to be around you, either.”

She stomped away, stomped to her room. She didn’t want to go outside in the continually crappy weather. She didn’t want to ride or swim in the faerie pool. She didn’t want to be there anymore.

She flopped down on her bed.

“I just want to see. I want to see, something else. Someone else. I want to see,” she muttered again. “I want to see, I want to be. Free to begin what’s asked of me. I need to start to play my part, to make my mark and hold back the dark.”

She didn’t intend to cast the spell. It just wound through her. She wasn’t aware anything had changed even when she got up to pace and brood a little more.

Then she noticed the ball of crystal on her table. And saw it had cleared.

“I want to see,” she repeated. “Now in this sphere my vision clear. I will see what I must see.”

She saw it all, sharp and clear as life within the globe. Not what was or would be, but what had been.

She watched, even as her heart hammered, as she felt licks of fear cold on her back, she watched it all.

Knowing what came next, what must come, she strapped on her sword, shouldered her bow. Laying her hands over the crystal, she let it take her inside.

Mallick worked off his annoyance, and considerable insult. Or tried. But when Fallon came back to the workshop nearly two hours after what he thought of as her tantrum, he realized he hadn’t worked off a thing.

“I’m not sorry,” she began.

“Then there’s no reason for you to interrupt my work.”

“The crystal cleared for me.”

He looked up then, looked at her. A little pale, he noted, and her eyes still full of visions. “And what did you see?”

“I saw New Hope. I saw the attack. I saw my uncle and his whore kill my birth father. I know their faces now. I know their faces. I saw my birth father shield my mother and me with his own body, his own life. I saw her grief and rage. And the killing wave of it. I was there.”

“There?”

“I went into the crystal.”

His first reaction, temper, took a great deal of will to hold back. “How?”

“It was open to me. I opened to it. I had to. I had a duty there. My mother ran, to save me and her friends. She ran, heavy with me inside her, alone, grieving, bloody. And she ran, hid, ran, evaded, and once dropped down exhausted, close to giving up. She told me I came to her then, and what I said, though she didn’t know me. Didn’t know I was her daughter. And what I said helped her go on. So I went in, and I went to her, and I said what needed to be said.”

He walked over, poured wine for himself, then a little into a second glass. Added water to it, and gave it to her.

“You’ve seen now more than I’ve shown you. The crystal is yours. In it, with it, you’ll see more.”

“I followed her for a while, to make sure. She was so tired, her heart so broken, and so strong. Stronger than I ever knew. I saw that, and I saw the faces of the ones who killed my birth father. I didn’t see if what she threw at them killed them. I know if they live, I will. I am their death. I swear it.”

She walked back to the locked cupboard, tried again. It didn’t budge. “I will open it.”

“I trust you will, when it’s time.”

She drank the wine, frowned at the glass. “It’s okay. When I go into the crystal, am I protected?”

“You are both here and there, and are vulnerable in both places.”

“All right. I’m going for a ride. I need to clear my head.”

When she left, he sat, no longer annoyed or insulted, and more afraid than he’d expected. She’d go into the crystal again, and now it was beyond him to stop her. This step was hers, as it had always been.

At fifteen, Duncan tolerated classes at the academy. He instructed more than he played the student, but attendance satisfied his mother and kept the heat off.

He worked in rotation on supply runs, scouting missions, hunting parties. When cornered, he took his turns in the community gardens, the trash and refuse committee, power and maintenance.

He knew first aid and could fill in as a medic.

He enjoyed weapons training, basketball, and heading out to the farm road on his bike. He liked hanging with his friends, messing around with Denzel, listening to Denzel rock it out on his guitar or kill it on the ball field.

He’d done considerably more than get his hands on interesting breasts, and enjoyed that, too. A lot.

That spring he began to help plan and organize rescue missions as well as joining the ranks.

He’d helped plan the one they prepared for tonight. As he and Flynn had captured the wounded Purity Warrior, brought him back to be questioned, he’d earned his spot.

“Better’n eighty miles out.” Eddie looked at the map again. “Farther than we’ve ever tried one of these. A lot of road between here and there.”

“And according to our guest, more than thirty being held, tortured, and up for execution.” Will studied another map, one Arlys helped him create. “He says they’ve got about a hundred people—but only half of them soldiers. Built up walls here, barbed-wire fencing here, here, guards.” He tapped the stick figures on the map. “Communication center here, in what was the town library, and prison here, in what was the local police station.”

“Those are the primary targets,” Duncan added, “after we neutralize the guards, get through the gate or through the fence. If we don’t blow open the gate, or take out a piece of the wall, the fencing, we could end up cornered inside.”

“Exactly right. And before we get there, we have to get through or around Raider camps scouting reports put here, here, here. So let’s go over every step of it again. If anybody sees a hole, let’s plug it.”

As Duncan stepped out to join his squad, Denzel, hair in dozens of braids bunched back with a band, loped over.

“Can’t you talk Will into letting me in on this? Come on, man.”

“Can’t do it, bro. You tanked weapons training again. And chem.”

Denzel, already more than six feet of packed muscle, kicked at a stone. “Chem’s bogus.”

Duncan leaned back against his bike. “You need to study up.” Never going to happen, Duncan thought, but he hated seeing Denzel’s disappointment. “You got speed, agility. You just have to study up, and pick a weapon, practice.”

“Kato’s my weapon.” With a grin, Denzel swiped the air with a panther claw.

“You got that. Look, you suck at chem, I suck at the guitar. I’ll help you, you help me. Maybe we won’t suck.”

They’d tried it before with pitiful results on both sides, but they could try it again, Duncan decided.

“I’m up for that.” Still he gave the trucks and bikes and weapons a wistful look.