The air on the alien world was still, holding its breath under the five silent moons. Lucy stood across from her father, the pale dust of the ground cool beneath her bare feet. Alistair had changed out of his traveler's clothes into simpler, darker garments that seemed to absorb the strange light.
"Your power isn't like your brother's," he began, his voice calm and measured, the way she remembered from childhood lessons. "Lucian bends what is already there—space, distance. Your bloodline… our bloodline… interacts with energy itself. Not creating it, not destroying it, but… persuading it."
He held up his hand, palm open. A tiny, brilliant point of light appeared above it, no bigger than a pebble. It wasn't fire. It was pure, condensed light, humming with a gentle energy. "All light is a conversation. All energy is a flow. You just have to learn how to listen, and then how to speak back."
Lucy watched, fascinated and terrified. "How?"
