"Stop!" Darius screamed. "It's too late for them now! Run!"

Grabbing Aaron by the collar, Darius pulled him away from the oxen. They ran across the field as fast as they could. Aaron ran and ran until he thought his lungs might burst. Only when Darius thought his family was out of danger did they slow. They all turned to look.

The two terrified oxen desperately tried to run from the noise and the searing heat, but they were hindered by the plow, which had buried itself in the ground behind them as they ran. Aaron felt his heart shatter and steeled himself for the worst.

When the burning sphere closed on them, the two terrified animals vaporized instantly. As the fireball continued on its way, burning a deep swath of destruction down the field, all that remained of the oxen was a charred hole in the ground. Gray smoke rose into the late afternoon sky almost as an afterthought.

Running back to the crest of the hill, Aaron watched the sphere go. It was heading directly for Brook Hollow.

The rest of his stunned family came to stand beside him. They cried and held on to one another as they watched their world collapse.

Focused on the unfolding catastrophe, none of them saw the approaching litter with its phalanx of Minion warriors that flew guard alongside.

CHAPTER V

"Hold him!" she ordered the two minion warriors standing obediently by her side. Her voice could barely be heard amid the clamor all around her. "This must be done now, lest he die!"

Duvessa looked hard at the warriors and they grudgingly nodded back. She was well aware that they both outranked her, but as the leader of the Minion healers, she meant to have her way.

With both Traax and the Jin'Sai away, she had decided that the only two persons she would take orders from would be Faegan and Shailiha. Duvessa now knew them personally, and counted both as friends. If Traax wanted to punish her for her insolence to her Minion superiors when he returned, then so be it. But she doubted that would happen, because for the last several weeks she had been Traax's lover.