It felt as if some great force was thrusting her up, up, through the rock and out of Uluru and high into the sky. The entire world spread out before her. She travelled with the flow, surfing the coursing channels of earth energy at the speed of thought. Everything was visible, felt more than seen . . .

Something raw rubbed at her psyche. The tracker. The Chinese scientists had created a machine that could interact with the currents of qi, but there was no grace or finesse to it, the device instead stabbing a hook into the other world to cling on like a parasite. Nina brought her attention to the unpleasant interloper. Could she use it to will the impending disaster to stop?

No. The machine might now be part of the network of energy, but it did not control it. Even with the boost it provided, it could only reshape what was already there.

But she could sense what was there: the ever-building eruption Sidona had brought into being, directing several flows into a single spot as she had in Xinengyuan, but on a far greater scale.

Sidona had built it – so now Nina had to tear it down.

If she could.

She reached into the flow, imaginary hands sweeping one line of energy away from the confluence, then another. Even with the tracker’s aid, it was almost a physical strain, her entire mind focused upon the task. What little perception remained of her immediate surroundings vanished. All she could now see was the churning, seething mass of power rising up beneath her home. Little by little, she redirected the channels of force feeding it . . .

She couldn’t do it fast enough. The confluence had reached critical mass, becoming a black hole that drew more and more energy into its vortex.

She couldn’t stop the approaching cataclysm.

Below her, the crystal chamber was silent – until a gasp cut through the air.

Eyes closed for millennia snapped open. The warrior whose resurrection had begun earlier drew air into his long-unused lungs. His stasis had left him perfectly preserved, not a single cell decayed since the People of the Tree had forced him into his crystal prison. His last waking memory was still fresh, his captors watching impassively as darkness swallowed him. He looked around in anger. Where were they?

Nobody was there. Only his people, now greater in number, trapped as he had been.

He clumsily freed himself from the recess. What was going on? Why was he awake, and no one else? He slowly stood—

And saw bodies upon the floor of the great chamber.

A woman had been torn apart by some force more savage than a baraka. A priestess? More captives nearby had suffered the same fate, their tormented sleep brought to a cruel and abrupt end.

But there was another woman there – one he knew.

Sidona.