Page 9 of The Edge of Dawn

A strange scent reached her nose: bitter and faintly sulfuric.

Oh no!

She covered her nose with her shirt, desperately trying not to breathe in the strange smell.

If she breathed it in, she would be gone.

The notion of freedom, of casting off her identity and escaping as an entirely different person…

It slipped out of her grasp as the sedating gas swirled around her.

Jade’s limbs grew weak. Her eyelids dropped.

She started to slip away.

No… it can’t end here.

She drifted into unconsciousness, wishing the world of her dreams was the real one and this was all a nightmare she’d wake up from… any time soon.

FOUR

“Dragek. Are you ready?” Ashrael stood opposite him, watching him in that intense, silent way, where he could feel just a sliver of the other Silent One’s ka’qui as it danced in and around his awareness.

Analyzing him.

Dissecting him.

How irritating.

Dragek put his shields up, blocking Ashrael’s insidious presence.

He couldn’t be underestimated. He was one of the very few beings in the Universe that could enter the transcendent state between worlds that granted him pure invisibility.

The qim.

Dragek could wield qim too, but it took him an immense amount of effort, to the point where he’d feel drained for a long time afterward.

He suspected Ashrael was much more proficient at entering the transcendent state of qim. The Silent One was infamous, feared throughout the Universe as the deadliest assassin to ever come out of The Program.

His kills would easily number in the thousands, if not the tens of thousands.

Of course, Dragek was lethal too, but he was yet to achieve complete mastery of his powers.

There was more training to do. There was still room for him to expand and strengthen his ka’qui. Perhaps he could even equal Ashrael, if not surpass him.

That bastard.

Of course Dragek wanted to surpass him.

Idly, he wondered whether Ashrael could walk through dreams.

His thoughts turned to the human female he’d encountered while his consciousness was detached from his body.

Strange creature. He remembered her human innocence, her alluring state of dishevelment.

And then she’d decided he couldn’t possibly be real, and she’d grown reckless and impertinent.

If she was able to see him in her dreams, then she possessed more than a small degree of the Talent. The discovery of Ashrael’s mate proved that some humans were also capable of wielding the ka’qui, but there was no way she would have been specifically trained in its use.

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