Iola’s mouth opened wide, her face wrought in a rictus of abject fright.

She felt cold, so immensely cold, worse than she had ever experienced.

Worse even than the cold of the frozen lands north of the River Plains in the peak of winter.

Kadar was dying, and she was in his mind, her frazzled senses and vulnerable emotions entwined with his.

His pain, his fear, and his imploring desperation hit her from all sides, making her body shiver and convulse from the sheer agony he was experiencing.

“No!” Iola barely managed to whisper. “No... I must... free myself... of him... aaannnhhh!”

Death was something she never thought she would ever experience.

At least not at her young age.

She would have to fight her way out, but Kadar’s fear-addled mind had somehow managed to hold her in thrall, as much as a drowning man or woman would frantically hold on to anything or anyone near.

Iola struggled hard, her inner demons having a field day with her.

Release, she had to find release and break away from his grasping fear, from his desperate plea for help.

She felt torn inside, there was nothing she could do to help the man. Worse than that, Iola sensed that she could lose her own life trapped within Kadar’s mind like this.

With a psyche-shattering effort that she would remember forevermore,

Iola broke free of the confining manacles of Kadar’s death throes. She gasped as one would for air after a long underwater swim.

Her overextended consciousness was rattled; she didn’t know which way to go, not even to find a way back to herself far away.