Book One – Chapter 1

As they moved deeper, the wind changed. It no longer moved across the land, but through it. Where it had crossed the dunes in broad currents, it now struck the crystal ridges. Forced through their clefts and hollows, it was ever again broken, distorted, compressed and driven further through these glass throats until it reassembled into something that fought back; no longer the coarse rush of desert air, but an aggressive, hollow shriek that pierced the senses. Screaming in defiance, the wind tore slivers from the formations and hurled them upward. The fragments were light, almost insubstantial, but sharp enough to cut. They filled the air, amassing into a swirling storm of a million minuscule claws. They slashed through cloth and skin alike. Yves’ coat tore. Midnight’s fur could not shield her from what was fine enough to pass between hairs.

Yves raised a deflection pulse. Rothar spread outwards from him in a thin pressure, enclosing them both in a thin shell. It was barely sufficient, just enough to blunt the cutting edge of the storm before it reached flesh. Even so, it cost him more than it should have. It drained his reserves with unsettling speed.

It was .

took from every pulse of energy he expelled. Yves felt the theft as a pressure behind his eyes, as an intrusion in the deep structure of himself. His Rothar diminished at a rate that was neither natural nor safe.