The Mirage on the Brink of Oblivion (The Epic of Aravinda Book 3) Read Online Free PDF Page B

you’ll meet anyone else on this planet and learn more about us.”
    Behind her, Asha saw a tall man walking toward them, wearing a single piece jumpsuit not unlike the graphite one that her father used to wear. Flecks of dark hair poked out of the cap he was wearing, and his face was warm. Yet Asha could sense that he also had a sharpness to him, a drive.
    “Good day, my dear!”
    Jyana whipped around, her eyes widening in surprise. “Torin? You came down ? You didn’t have to do that. I was going to test the visitors and then catch up with you afterward.” She smirked. “You missed me too much, didn’t you?”
    “It’s not every day we receive long-lost family, and I’d been meaning to check the emergency supply vaults, anyway.” Torin embraced Jyana before turning back around to Asha and offering his open hand. “An honor to meet you. I’m Torin.”
    Asha shook his hand. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Asha.” She gestured over to Zahn beside her, still admiring the living color below. “And this is Zahn.”
    Torin took a step forward. “Pretty remarkable, isn’t it?” A sharp smirk spread across his face. “Too bad you may never get to see what it all does.”
    “Torin!” Jyana said. “Please be polite to our guests. Just because he isn’t a Tavisian doesn’t mean you should be rude.”
    “Asha and I have been through more than you know,” Zahn said, his expression hardening. “If you trust her, you trust me.”
    Asha turned and took Zahn’s hand. “He’s right.”
    Torin backed away. “Hey! I’m sorry. That came out wrong. It was only meant as a warning that our laws are complex, Zahn. Just don’t expect everyone to treat you the same way Asha will be treated. She is a citizen , after all.”
    “Really?” Zahn raised his eyebrows. “After all this time?”
    “Yes,” Jyana added and turned to Torin. “But it pays to be polite. And Asha has vouched for Zahn. If he passes the tests, he is allowed to join us in the Mirage, as long as Asha is with him.”
    Torin shook his head and walked over to the edge of the vista, leaning on the low balcony wall.
    “Good, because I want him by my side.” Asha’s gaze narrowed onto Jyana. “And what is this about a test?”
    Jyana took a deep breath. “Well, we should probably start at the beginning. What do you think, Torin?”
    Torin didn’t turn around, his gaze affixed toward the field of colorful cubic buildings below. “You know what, tell them whatever you want.” His voice was muffled now. “I’m not in the mood to debate our laws in front of the visitors.”
    “We don’t want to break any of your rules,” Zahn said. “We just want to work together.”
    “Good, because the Empress can be rather… harsh.”
    “But why do you have to test us?” Asha asked.
    Jyana sighed. “The destruction rendered by the scourge was global, and entire habitats vanished. Our food supply dwindled, and we struggle to survive. With every long range spacecraft having already been used to evacuate most citizens, we were stuck here.”
    “That sounds terrible,” Zahn said.
    “And then something extraordinary happened,” she continued. “Once the scourge had left, our people began to have dreams in which they would wake up in midair and see themselves sleeping on their bed below. We soon realized that these were more than mere dreams.”
    “People were leaving their bodies, weren’t they?” Zahn said.
    “Precisely,” Jyana said. “After hundreds of experiments involving long-distance reconnaissance and messages hidden in locked compartments, we realized the only logical conclusion: our people were having spontaneous out-of-body experiences, and some were able to have them at will. Since then, we’ve come to find that most people have out-of-body experiences at least once per night, even during controlled studies where we were trying to avoid contact with the Mirage.”
    “So your consciousness was leaving your body,” Asha said, “and you