Chapter 1

Rhiannon Draegon walked with a slow, effortless grace down the hall of the arts building at Aines University. There was no need to hurry as the sun slid below the horizon, painting the world in shades of purple, blue and green. Class had been over for hours and the campus was nearly deserted. Rhia had stayed to labor over her art final. She really was terrible at painting but it was a required course for someone like her. She was Diaga, magical, therefore she was high society and must only be trained in the art of being a lady.

In the year before a Diaga girl headed to university she was tested on different occasions to determine her life's path. The result of those tests either gave the young lady choices, or it took them away. Some girls, the variety that are fairly hollow but usually nice to look at, had their choices reduced to an immediate marriage to an "appropriate" man. Appropriate related to her looks in relation to his social status in the lower rungs of Diaga society.

The girls who tested high in sciences or arts were offered more choices than most. They could take an immediate marriage to a higher ranking member of society. Their other choice was to attend Aines University, majoring in the area they excelled in or liberal arts. These girls kept the greater choice in spouse and allowed a chance at a career.

Rhia ranked among the average girls. She had the choice of immediate marriage or university. While she, and others like her, could only major in liberal arts to make them better wives they gained some choice in who they married. That had been Rhiannon's motivation behind her choice, The Choice.

So many choices had already been taken from her or were never really hers in the first place. She was told how to dress, how to behave, what to like, where to go and when, even what to study. It didn't really matter if she was terrible at every subject that wasn't magical because she was already sworn to be a priestess, limiting the husband pool to priests.

Considered odd by the other girls, Rhia didn't have a lot of friends at the university. It wasn't that she was a rebel who disliked her lot in life. It was that she wanted more from life. Adventure. Exploration... Love. Love was unheard of, except for the obscenely lucky. Those were the ones who learned to love the man they were given to. Most grew to loathe him.

Her parents had been the luckiest of all. They had fallen in love as children and their fathers had been good friends, so the case for the match had been easily made to the council of elders. Rhia dreamed of the same kind of love in her life.

Thinking about the differences between what she wanted and what she could have made her want to sob. But she couldn't have that either. That was why she was an outsider even though she enjoyed the same parties and styles as the other girls. She only had one friend and she wouldn't trade Inara for the world.

Inara was also a bit of an outsider. Inara was one of the rare children who didn't exhibit a talent in magic until they were older. Inara had been 7 Renewals when the Seekers had found her, making the separation from her real family much harder. She had been placed with the family next door to the Draegon home. The angry little red headed Fire-keeper had wreaked havoc on the household until she chanced on Rhiannon in the Lily garden on the Draegon estate. The girls had become instant friends. The Fire-keeper and the Soul-dancer.

Fire-keepers were fairly common, had been since time began. They were important to survival in the beginning but now they served purposes such as lighting fires and lamps. If they were male they could serve in the army. These soldiers were never on the front line though, that dangerous position was reserved for the Gnach.

Soul-dancers were much rarer because they were able to call all the elements: earth, air, water, fires and spirit. They could call forth the dead and ease souls into both the beginning and end. Those Soul-dancers with shadowed souls could enslave the souls, both living and dead. Soul-slaves were forbidden, but all laws are broken sometimes. Most soul-slaves were the result of Death Deals for some favor or another from the Shadow-caster. It was possible to enslave the unwilling, just far more difficult. A soul-slave could live their lives on their own but when their master called, they had no choice but to obey.

Rhia was not shadowed but she could see them. That was a secret she had only entrusted to Inara. Nobody knew of any other Shadow-seers but they had heard of them. It would be dangerous to be a known seer. Those particular wizards would not want to be seen and would have no qualms with having her killed to prevent it.

Exiting the arts building  in the temple courtyard, Rhiannon took a deep breath filled with the sweet scents of night blooming flowers planted in abundance as tribute to the moon goddess, Ilunara. The Mother, as she was commonly referred to, was the goddess Rhia felt closest to when performing her meditations. Sometimes she thought she felt the goddess wrap her arms around her in comfort.

"Rhia!" A breathless voice called. She turned to see her friend's bouncy red curls and glowing green eyes as she loped across the courtyard from the medical classrooms. Inara had tested off the charts in science and chose to study healing.

Together they started toward the parking area. They always rode home together with Rhia's family guard. Young women could not legally travel unguarded. Soon Rhia would be assigned her first "Lady's Guard", a Gnach male with enhanced physical abilities whose life would be tied to hers forever. The members of a Lady's Guard were forbidden to take wives or have children. They lived, and died, with and for their lady. Rhia didn't want that for anyone. She only wanted protection from a man who loved her and chose his position, not one trained from childhood to serve her out of duty.