"Bana-"

"Bane!"

I was no longer Bana Riftkin, son of Johan and Bantara, brother of Camille. All of that had been stolen from me! Who I was had been ripped away by Valyn and her kind. They had left me torn and broken, but what rose from the ashes of my former life was stronger. I was a blade forged in steel. I had only one purpose now.

One deadly purpose.

"Bana is dead."

I walked away to keep from seeing the look on Saka's face. Thankfully, he didn't follow me. The council was convening. If I wasn't there they would proceed without me. Councilor Rellic would be positively smug.

I slammed my hand on the door scanner to my private chamber.

The plate flashed red. "Unrecognized."

I growled and slammed my hand onto it again. I heard something crack.

The plate flashed red again. "Unr-r-recognized."

My heart stuttered. I needed to calm down. If I broke the scanner I would definitely miss the session. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, forcing my anger back into the dark box at my center. There would be a time and place to unleash it. Until then I needed to master it. If I couldn't do that, I would never master level ten.

I placed my hand carefully on the pad.

It flashed green. "Welcome, Bane." The door slid open.

I took another deep breath and slipped inside, grabbing the dark robe hanging from the hook just inside and slipping it on over my shoulders as the door hissed shut behind me.

My console flickered to life.

"Bane," Prime Councilor Janis appeared, her lips pulled in a familiar frown. "So nice of you to join us."

She was distant as always, but I'd made it in time to join the session.

There were many who had argued I shouldn't be allowed to attend until my eighteenth cycle, even as the rightful owner of the seat in my parents' absence. Janis had, thankfully, taken it personally. She had been only seventeen when first admitted to session following the death of her father, and there had been some who argued against her right to join as well. She had levelled her iron glare on her dissenters, silencing any argument without a word. She had done much the same for me.

Eleven green lights glowed along the side of my console, only one still dark. I sat down quickly, pulling the edges of my robe shut, and pressed the button that enabled full video. Images of the other councilors flickered to life in panes across the screen, with Janis at the center.

Of course.

My eyes were drawn, as always to Rellic Wistern. His shaved head and brooding face were the only parts of him not covered in ink. It was excessive, even for a leader, and gave him an appearance of one who was clothed even when he was not. Only the loose black pants he wore gave any distinction between skin and material, and he eschewed more clothing than that. Even the ceremonial councilor robes hung over his chair rather than his shoulders. His dark, cheerless eyes stared into the screen as if looking right at me.

They might be.

I looked away before he could find anything in them to validate his obvious dislike and refuel his campaign to keep me from my seat. He had let his protests drop once Janis had backed me, but he had never disguised the fact that he didn't want me here.

Chelis Marsh, faithful puppet of Rellic, stared downward at the large knife he was using to clean his nails, at which he was having surprisingly little luck.

Aaliyah Versen stared downward also, one gracefully pointed ear visible as it caught the light, her eyes on something beyond the camera's scope. As a representative of the Elvaren people from the far reaches, she was a mystery to me. As was Thoris Gazen, whose tattoos were barely visible between the thick ropelike braids of his beard. As if in contrast, the hair on his head was shaved except for a strip down the middle, which stood on end nearly a full two-hands high, kept stiff and upright by some way I knew not. In spite of that, beneath all of his armor and battlements, his face managed to exude a sense of kindness and good will.

The last councilor indicator flashed green.

"Councilor Rill, you are the final attendee."

Rill Patterin was two years my senior, but looked younger than my seventeen cycles. Several sets of eyes cast in his direction as Janis opened the session. His face, as usual, flushed a shade of red that highlighted his unfortunate complexion like stars on a burgundy backdrop.

"Councilors, most of you already know why we are here today."

There were some nods and most eyes were already grave with the shared knowledge of what had happened. Their advisors would have let them know why session had been called, as Saka had.

"We have suffered another grave loss." Janis looked into her monitor, her silver-gray eyes drilling into each of us. "Senator Moss has been attacked, and his granddaughter Aria taken."

There were gasps. Councilor Wella covered her mouth with her hand.

"She was seven cycles. Senator Moss tells us they had just discovered she was a prism a few weeks ago. No one outside the Senator's own household even knew."

Acid boiled in my gut.

Someone knew.

Either a traitor was in their midst, or the enemy had a way of detecting prisms from afar. Neither was a very welcome prospect.

"This marks the fourth prism to be abducted within the last half cycle."

Four!

I knew there had been more, but I had no idea the numbers had gone up so high.

"We must assume that every prism is now at risk."

The others nodded in agreement.

"We must protect them at all costs." Her eyes were twin blades of steel. "We must not lose our most precious resource."

What plan did she have to protect them?

We were all frozen, poised at the edge of our seats to hear her pronouncement. This was the real reason the session had been called. My body tensed. Acid bubbled up from my gut to fill my throat. The weight of the moment hung suspended in the air, pregnant with import.

Then Janis spoke the words that cut it loose.

"We must raise the shielding."