Zhang Limei was dead.

  Lián Xīng was not there to save her. She was two days late.

  Lián Xīng had traveled through Tellus for one reason only: to learn to heal others.

  But her best friend didn’t tell her she was sick. The thought of ‘if only she knew’ would forever haunt her.

  Tellus was the planet she was abandoned on by the Caretakers, a race of shape-shifting aliens who traveled through different dimensions using Starlight as their fuel. She was an experiment, a failed experiment. She could not shape-shift as they could, and although she had many of their other talents, it was not enough to be valuable. So they picked a planet, gave her information about its fate, and then deposited her on it.

  She would have most likely starved to death in the streets if not for an old gentleman, who had lost all his family to a past war, who saved her from such a fate. He did not ask questions, but there was always a knowing look on his face when he saw her—almost a look of recognition.

  The more she lived on Tellus, the more she came to love it. Its technological advances had led to an era of peace that was rare.

  The old histories of the planet blended with the new technological upgrades seamlessly. The new architecture was built around history instead of taking it away.

  Lián Xīng was worried about the future, worried about what it would mean for her little family.

  The world was going to undergo a drastic change when an infection spread through the populace. Some would remain infected, and others would awaken abilities. Society as it was known would change, and people would come to think of it as an apocalypse.

  Knowing this and doing something about it were two different things.

  What could she do to protect what she had?

  Yes, she was stronger, more agile, more perceptive, and she could heal herself…and that’s when she came up with it. The crazy idea: What if she could train her ability to not only heal herself but also others? Was that even possible?

  Tellus was different from the Earth she originally came from. Deep within its core, it had energies that supported the life on the planet. It was said in the ancient histories that at one point the people all had abilities but over time they ceased arriving in the family lines. They would only awaken again by a huge change.

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  What if Lián Xīng could harness these energies herself to enhance her gifts?

  And so she said goodbye to the man who became her grandfather, she said goodbye to her next-door best friend and she went off to explore the world and find out just that.

  It took ten years. Lián Xīng only came home for her best friend’s main events; like her graduation from college, her engagement party, her wedding, and then the birth of her twins.

  She kept in contact with his sister-in-all-but-blood, Zhang Limei, and she watched through video holograms as the twins first walked and said their first sentences. She never saw her friend’s husband, he was always away on some top-secret business of some sort.

  She kept in contact with her grandfather, who had also become like one for Zhang Limei and her children.

  During those ten years, she met many a ‘Master of Energy’ or ‘Historian of Energy’. They taught her about the planet, she went to sanctuaries and meditated connecting to the planet’s core that hummed if one tried to listen to it.

  She was reminded of Earth’s tales regarding space knights that were guided by the forces of the universe, and those memories helped her to feel the connection in the planet’s energy.

  It was nearly three years after Zhang Limei’s twins were born that she came home to be there with her best friend as she grieved the loss of her absentee husband, who disappeared during a work trip. The two of them hadn’t been close, their marriage arranged by their grandparents before hers passed away, but it was still a shock to her to find herself suddenly a single parent. Zhang Limei’s parents had passed shortly after she’d graduated high school in a transit accident, and she’d been an only child just like her parents had been in their families. Lián Xīng stayed with her for a year, only for her friend to nearly banish her from her home to force her to go back on her hunt for knowledge. “Maybe someday you’ll need to heal myself, the twins, or your grandfather. What you are doing is important, XīngXīng. I don’t want you to grow stagnant staying with us.”

  Despite Lián Xīng arguing to stay she eventually went back to traveling and learning, and when she was finally about to come home she got a video call from her grandfather.

  “I’m sorry, Lián Xīng.”

  “What’s wrong?” She had already booked her way home, just that morning, she would be there in two days.

  There was a pause, and she looked up to see her grandfather have a tear fall down his cheek.

  “Zhang Limei was sick. She thought she was going to get better, so she promised me not to tell you.”

  “I’ll come home right now.” Lián Xīng smiled excitedly. “I did it, Grandpa. I can heal her.”

  A choked sob came from his mouth.

  “I’m so sorry, Lián Xīng, but Zhang Limei died this morning.”