Vennoss paused. 'At this moment, I will not. Tomorrow he will be tested further ... then we can get some answers. Perhaps after Tarsha has talked some sense back into him.'

The Daijuar exchanged concerned looks, but agreed, and then all three searched where they had last seen Tarsha and Jaden before silently retreating into the temple.

Tarsha was sitting patiently with Jaden, among the trees and out of sight, just below one of the shrines. She dared not say anything. Jaden's head was in his hands. He was refusing to acknowledge her as the minutes slowly passed them by. When Jaden finally stirred, he did not look at her, nor did he lift his head.

'Are they dead?' he asked.

'No,' said Tarsha.

Jaden seemed to breathe easier as he lifted his head to rest it again his left hand, while he put the other out in front of him, making it glow with white.

'I feel it inside,' he said softly. 'It's taking control of me. I can't fight it.'

Tarsha moved forward to better hear him. 'Fight what?'

'I don't know,' said Jaden.

With a sigh, Tarsha leaned back. 'I cannot say what you are going through, so I will not try to reason with you, but perhaps I can help you in another way.'

Jaden said nothing in reply, still toying mindlessly with the light coming from his hand.

'I know a little about the Daijuar,' Tarsha went on. 'I might be able to tell you where you're going wrong. It might help to try without your grandfather standing over you.'

Tarsha waited out the following minutes, deciding she had said all she could for now. There was nothing else left to do except let Jaden tell her what he wanted. The minutes crept on by without any sign, but she remained. She thought with all that had happened, what Jaden needed most right now was a friend, so she did not mind.

She was happy to be able to rest for a change, and enjoyed being able to finally sit in a Daijuarn place. She had often dreamed of what this would be like, but she had never guessed how it would make her feel. There was so much history, so many centuries worth, and knowledge that many could never have imagined to be true. It all seemed surreal and timeless, and everything was so much more vibrant and alive. The energy was high, she could sense it herself, and she guessed that this was what Jaden needed to learn to feel if he were ever to become a sentinel.

Jaden stood up unexpectedly and began walking higher up on the slope of the hollow. Tarsha followed only a couple of steps behind. They stopped at the shrine, Tarsha at its edge, and Jaden in its centre so that the Daijuarn symbol was under his feet. He studied it for a few seconds, but then closed his eyes.

'Why is he angry with me?' he asked.

Tarsha moved to one of the benches on the left and sat down. 'I do not think he is angry with you,' she replied plainly.

'Then why has he changed?'

'That is just how he is,' said Tarsha.

'He has never been like this.'

'In your village, no, perhaps not. He was at peace there. But the world is at war. He feels there is never a moment he can rest while it remains so. This is the person I have known for all these years, I'm afraid. He has not changed from what I can see.' Tarsha waited a moment for Jaden to understand what her words meant to him before going on. 'He is fond of you, I know that much. If it were anyone else up there, he would have shown anger. He is a stubborn man when he wants to be, he is known for it, and he is very particular in everything that he does. He expects results, for things to be done as he thinks they should be. He has no time for those who cannot achieve what he wants them to. But he has time for you.'

'I have disappointed him,' said Jaden.

'No, do not be so hard on yourself. He understands what you have been through.'

'I can't disappoint him. I have to succeed,' said Jaden.

'Then you must train.'

'I don't know how.'

Tarsha stood up and walked toward the trees at the entrance. 'Then I will show you,' she said, and picked several lemons growing nearby. 'I think I know your problem. You have more power than you know what to do with, but you think about your objective too much. You do not focus enough on how you will succeed. Start from the very beginning. First, try to simply feel the energy around you, let it drift in and out just like the air in your chest, and then try to push it out. Breathe deeply if it helps. You must learn control. The Daijuar may not be there next time to protect the people near you.'

Jaden bowed and then took in as much air as he could before releasing it slowly and taking in another breath.

'Good,' said Tarsha. 'Relax with it, accept it.'

Jaden coughed and let his concentration go for a moment.

'Relax,' Tarsha repeated. 'There is no hurry. When you can feel the energy, let me know.'

'I don't understand it,' said Jaden, but stopped as the two steel doors at the top of the grand stairway swung open.

A woman of great beauty and dressed in white appeared and hastened down the stairs.

'Raquel,' said Jaden.

'What?' asked Tarsha.

Jaden turned to her, 'Wait here,' he said, and then quickly dashed down the slope before she could reply.

His mind was suddenly alert and his eyes wide. She was here. She had come back to find him. For some reason he felt excited that he was going to see Raquel again, the woman of untold beauty and royal grace. She had made it to the temple and entered ahead of him, and he quickly followed her in, but as he stepped inside the hexagonal room, his heart sank.

The woman was speaking to his grandfather and the Daijuar, but he immediately realised she was not Raquel. Her hair was black and her clothes were white, he now saw. Raquel had worn blue and her hair was sun-streaked brown. Jaden stood frozen in the doorway as all eyes were turned on him, but he could not take his gaze away from the woman. Her face was similar to Raquel's, but not quite the same. Her jaw was thinner and her eyes not as deep, green instead of blue, and her eyebrows had a greater arch in them. Her nose was almost the same while her lips were not as full, but what struck him most was that this woman's expression was one almost of fear before she had turned to him. Raquel had always been calm, even when she had seemed otherwise. Behind her mask, there was always a unique calmness to her.

'Jaden, I'd like you to meet Dahla,' said his grandfather, but Jaden managed only a slight bow before making his way out of the temple.

It wasn't Raquel. His heart felt as if it had lowered several inches in his chest while his stomach felt weak and empty. Over the little time he had spent with Raquel, he saw now just how close he had felt to her. She was something more to him than company. She was someone who, although she did not speak much to him, was able to understand him better than he understood himself, and without knowing it, she had put him at ease in a place somewhere inside that he didn't know existed, until now.

He wandered past the fountain, but stopped to take a look inside at the statues. He wanted to see Raquel again, if only for a second, wanted to look upon her face and remember the beauty he had witnessed. Unable to see clearly through the curtain of water, he jumped into the pool and walked to its centre so that he was standing next to the statues, water splashing about him continuously and sealing him off from the hollow. Inside, he studied the Daijuarn embrace, the statues' hands lightly upon each other's necks, their foreheads pressed gently together and their eyes shut. Now he saw what he had somehow expected but didn't want to believe. The statue was not of Raquel. The statue was the woman who had just entered the hollow, a woman his grandfather was surely familiar with, while Raquel was a stranger to him.

Disheartened, Jaden walked back up to the shrine. His hair and skin were wet but the Daijuarn garments were dry, despite water droplets being upon them. The Daijuar had told him that they would be like this. They would never get dirt on them or get wet, and they would not burn from the energy he used. They were made of some kind of special fabric, but they had not explained how it worked or where they had got it. Jaden asked no more questions, deciding it was just part of everything else he didn't understand about them.

He found Tarsha waiting for him at the shrine. She had a questioning look on her face, but all he did was shrug in answer.

'I can feel the energy,' he said. 'I need to understand how it works before I can go any further.'

Tarsha seemed to have given up on her question and resumed her place near the trees. 'That is something you will have to ask your grandfather,' she said. 'All I know is that it is from the Forgotten Years, but has since calmed and no longer causes the damage it did all those centuries ago.'

'But it is still here.'

'Yes,' said Tarsha, 'and perhaps one day, it may even leave us entirely, and the Daijuar will be no more.'

'What will they do then?' asked Jaden.

'I do not know. Live as the rest of us, without power, I assume.'

'Then I will no longer have to wear these,' he said, looking at his wrists.

Tarsha chuckled. 'Yes, if it happens in your lifetime, that is correct. But for now, you have been given great power, young master. If anything at all, at least use it wisely. Do not let it go to waste.'

Jaden shrugged, rolled his shoulders and then shook his arms to loosen the muscles. 'What did you want me to do?' he asked.

'Feel the energy as I said. You must let it inside you before you can push it back out. I want you to imagine the energy leaving you as a giant shield that surrounds and protects you. It is white and pure like those of the sentinels. Trust in yourself and the Daijuar, and then I want you to imagine that shield pushing away everything around you gently.'

'I don't know if I can,' said Jaden, and was silenced as Tarsha raised her hand. He knew he would have to try.

He breathed deeply, repeating the steps she had told him earlier as well as what his grandfather had taught him, and then he imagined the white shield coming from him, pushing wave after wave of energy outward. After intense minutes of concentration, nothing more than a light had come.

What was he doing wrong, he asked himself, what was he missing?

He could hear Tarsha repeating the steps to him, but knew she had missed something too. His grandfather had said the mind had to be mastered first; the emotion had to be there so that the body could know how to use the energy. Emotion was the key. His anger at failing and his grandfather's disappointment had been enough to make his hands feel as if they were on fire. What did he need to feel to release gentle repelling energy? He couldn't think of anything in his past. He would need something else instead.

The answer came to him a moment later. The experience needed for calling on emotion did not need to be real. All he needed was to imagine something that would bring the right emotions and they would come. He thought of the energy as Tarsha had said, and then gave it reason to come forth as he imagined a child throwing berries at him playfully. It made him smile on the inside, keeping his mind calm as he played in their game with gentle energy, as he would never wish to harm them. The energy came forth as he kept his eyes closed, and soon he could feel a small shield around him. He opened his eyes for a moment to see the smoky haze in front of him spiralling in and around his body, and then closed them again to maintain his concentration.

'Good!' said Tarsha. 'Now let us put it to the test!'

Tarsha walked up to the shield, seemingly unafraid, and then touched it with her finger. Her finger was pushed back away from it, but had otherwise left her unharmed. She then placed her hand on it and pushed in a few times, making the shield appear as a rubber cushion that let her move only so far in before it would push her back. It held the same low tone as the other Daijuarn shields, but changed to a higher pitch as she touched it.

'And now for the real test!' she exclaimed, taking several paces back.

With an underarm throw, she sent the first lemon she was carrying slowly gliding toward Jaden. The shield did its job and repelled the lemon. She then threw another, a little harder this time, and again it was repelled unharmed. Gaining confidence, she started to throw the lemons as hard as she could.

'You've done it!' she yelled, but Jaden did not seem to hear her.

He was in deep concentration, seemingly ignorant to the rest of the world as each lemon dug in a little to his shield before being pushed straight back out, just as Tarsha's hand had been earlier.

Tarsha walked to pick more lemons and started throwing them from the trees rapidly. After she had thrown another six, she picked the biggest one she could find.

'Here comes a hard one!' she called out, and then threw it with all her might.

The shield disappeared at that moment and Jaden was left standing defenceless, his eyes still shut. The lemon slammed into his chest, causing Tarsha's hands to fly to her mouth.

'Oh!' she cried out, hurrying toward him. 'Sorry!'

Jaden made no gesture to her, no sign that he was hurt or had even felt the lemon hitting him.

His eyes opened slowly. 'I have to go,' he said.

Tarsha looked confused. 'Where?'

'I can't stay here. I have to leave-now.'

Before Tarsha could protest, Jaden ran down the slope, but this time turned toward the grand stairway instead of the temple, and made his way to the left, to the opening through which he had first entered the hollow.

'That was Jaden, a hopeful,' said Vennoss as Jaden had left the room.

Dahla nodded, but continued looking in the direction Jaden had gone, seemingly curious about him still.

Vennoss tried to regain her attention. 'Now, what have you found?' he asked.

Dahla slowly turned back to him, taking a moment to settle her thoughts. 'The Alliance has received reinforcements.'

'How many?' asked Vennoss.

'I can't say. Thousands.'

'And in the south?'

'More. All nations between Chiresk and Omada will fall.'

'They move quickly,' said Vennoss thoughtfully, 'just as they did in the Tiquan continent.'

'They are desperate for victory,' said Blair.

'They wish for an end beyond patience,' added Adonis.

'Yes,' said Vennoss, 'but the Resistance is weakening. This may not be the mistake it seems.'

'Corsec cannot be allowed to fall,' said Adonis.

'Is it time to act?' asked Blair.

'The nations have had their chance. They have failed. The world is no longer theirs,' answered Adonis.

'No,' said Vennoss, shaking his head as he stood up and paced the room. 'We cannot interfere to that extent. Their right to life is equal to our own, and we haven't the numbers to stand against the Alliance without them.'

Adonis and Blair exchanged looks of disapproval.

'We are more powerful than in the beginning,' said Adonis.

'And so is the Alliance,' said Vennoss. 'It would be foolish to even try. The war must go on for longer. We must prolong it.'

'Then we must make a stand at Corsec,' said Dahla.

Vennoss turned and gave her a small nod. 'Yes, if we can summon enough in time, that is what we must do. If we help the Resistance defend against the Alliance assault, it may help them gain a foothold in the war again. We need them to become the aggressors, and then we will help the Alliance while in Tiquan. There must be balance between them for the coming years, it is our only hope.'

'How many do we need?' asked Adonis.

'It will depend on the size of the force. Can you give an estimate?' Vennoss asked Dahla.

'Fifteen, maybe twenty thousand from the west. Double that in the south.'

'And a few hundred thousand across the land bridge,' finished Vennoss. 'The bulk of their army resides around Corsec, but they will be held off by the Diadon fleets.' He said nothing for a moment as he began to pace again, this time slowly with his eyes directed to the floor. 'If we can maintain position with the Resistance, we will be able to do it with as few as ten or eleven, but I fear circumstance may require a minimum of fifteen.'

'Who can we call upon?' asked Blair.