Compendium Excerpt

Even balled into tight fists, she was sure that her shaking hands betrayed her fear and rage. Mia Jayne stood before the representatives of the Order of Vis Firmitas, her eyes taking in the rough-hewn walls of the chamber, the dim yellowy glow of the gourds resting in their sconces, the somber, coarse robes, craggy faces and the multitude of inscrutable eyes boring into her from the dais directly in front of her. She was sure those eyes were examining every speck of detail she presented to them, and Mia felt exposed at their gaze even as she knew it was pointless to hazard a guess as to what they might think of her slight figure, pale as a ghost birch and dressed in her tropics garb of gauzy layers, her auburn, wavy hair plaited down her back and her bright blue-green eyes glimmering with gold flecks.  This entire enterprise had been a horrible mistake, and she had known it so before she even arrived at the cavernous mountain way flanked by imposing hardwoods she could not name. Mia h…