David Michael Martin
Warleader Delwyn and the all-female crew of Hunter’s Moon orbit above the Singer’s Grove on Bu ta’u wei. There, a deceptive Kidahin conceals traumatic stress flashbacks from the Gracious Mistress of the Singing People as she, Einstika, Tialdrin, and several thousand Eyloni join in pheromonal empathy to participate in the Remembrance of the Song of Hlorrithin ritual. Together, they go back in ritual time to reenact key events during the historic Battle of Withered Trees, a police action fought centuries ago to arrest an extinction-level ecological disaster.While in the ritual past, Kidahin’s traumatic stress-tainted pheromones disrupt the shared scent-linked empathy connecting the Gracious Mistress and her singers with the ritual participants. Accumulating nonhistorical events lead to a hero’s untimely death, altering history and suspending all participants in self¬generating mental visions.Kidahin must escape the recursive vision quest fragments playing in her mind, undo the critical nonhistorical event, and reenact history to its completion before the accumulating changes trap her in a non-existent present.
