For one thing, she can see that he isn’t Addin. She is not like the other young people imprisoned there. Kenyen is barely keeping his cover, when Aranka turns up in his lab. His mission is to infiltrate the Addin labs in Idaho where those who carry the genetic code of the Kyrennei are being studied.

The next, she's a prisoner, a reviled mutant and not even considered human.Īt the same time, a young doctor code-named Kenyen fights with a band of international outlaws in a clandestine war with impossible odds. One day Aranka Miko is a small-town student. It begins in a large round valley in the mountains of northeastern Oregon. Now those who have kept faith with the ancient gods for a millennium stand at the cusp of a new era - the time of the Seed. The Meikans, the descendants of human allies of the Kyrennei, yet exist, though they live under a tyrannical treaty with the Addin that has bought their survival at the cost of centuries of silence. Their true name has been forgotten.Ī prophecy says they will one day return, but the Addin vow to exterminate them. Legends around the globe still speak of them - slight people with pointed ears, now relegated to fantasy stories. Once - more than a thousand years ago -there were people who were immune to Addin control of hearts and minds. In present-day America, a power cult can usurp your will and turn you against your friends and family. The facade of freedom is a thinly veiled lie. But does a giant even notice the crushing of a single flower? One girl is easy enough to kill. Then a mere girl fulfilled an almost forgotten prophecy and hope briefly flowered in unlikely places. The ancient Meikan people, like Cho, have lived in terror of the Addin for generations, and those who dare to stand up to its power are shunned as outlaws by their own people.

But a clandestine force controls the highest seats of power and will stop at nothing to stamp out resistance. It's the twenty-first century, right now, in America and everything looks just fine on the surface.

Hope is a fragile thing and fear is constant companion. At least two of her closest friends are dead, the man she loves is at the epicenter of the danger and the one who carries the first hope in a thousand years is lost, almost certainly killed in a rain of bullets. Then Cho will be on her own in this secret world war that can never be won. If they're captured, their souls will be usurped by Addin control. The scouting team in Portland, Oregon has been ambushed on the 205 bridge. Company compound in Montana when disaster strikes. Twenty-two-year-old Cho is the temporary commander of the J. Despair has always dogged at the heels of those in the desperate fight against the Addin, but now that they've tasted hope, the return of darkness is all the more bitter. What if you had to fight a war you knew you could never win?Īranka Miko, the girl who carried the hope of resistance against Addin mind control, is lost and assumed to be dead.

The Fear and the Solace by Arie Farnam