Shadow's Son by Shirley Meier, S.M. Stirling and Karen Wehrstein ...

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Megan recoiled inwardly, her own memory of the drug so recent.To hear what's going to cause your
country's enslavement, kill your people by the thousand, coming out of your own mouth that way .
… It would be as bad as anything on a Mahid table, or worse. His torture scars, she realized, he'd got in
Arko, not occupied Yeola-e.
"So. You offer more services than your knife-arm, Megan, I understand. What can you do, that might be
useful to us? I want to see the trick with light."
Shkai'ra began a laugh, hid it with a cough and one hand; he flashed her a bemused glance. "Tricks, you
haven'tseen tricks until you move to F'talezon," she said. "Show him, love."
Pull in to the center, look inside me and reach for the manrauq. She took hold of the brightness she
saw in her mind and brought it out with her, watching it bloom golden between her hands, pulling her
palms apart slowly so that the light thinned to a twisting coil writhing between them. She held it for a
second only, to save her strength. The next "trick" would be a lot harder.
Thesemanakraseye blinked and shook his head as if to get water out of his eyes, then leaned forward,
elbows on knees; the gaze she'd thought intense before was nothing to this.Hah , she thought, catching
her breath by the tail; the mental exertion ofmanrauq was as hard as any physical.I, Megan Whitlock,
have impressed the Invincible, Infallible, Imperturbable Fourth Chevenga .
"Can you cast it? How far? How much can you make? Is it hot? I forgot to feel. Can you do other
things?" Like Fehinnan crossbow bolts the questions flew. Suddenly, under the studied calm of
command, she could imagine him on the edge of a circus ring, a boy with huge brown thrilled eyes.
"The light I can only throw when it's tied to something, like a knife," she said, forcing torn-cloth
raggedness out of her voice. "Especially if I've touched it. My own knives are sensitive to me and would
glow. It's not hot. I have to be seeing them to maintain it. And yes, I can do other things." He took it all in
like a briefing on an armed unit's strengths.
"You said you can do assassin and thief-work: I take it that means you are good at moving unseen in the
dark?" By the glint in his eyes, he was already making plans. She chortled inwardly. "What other things
can you do?"
Breathe deep, calm. You've done it before. "Something a bit more elaborate. I can make people see
what I imagine."
"Anything?"
"Within reason."
"Could you make someone see—adimas?" A quick study, Ivann said that … "A large, ugly, hairy,
scaly, blood-thirstydimas . From an Arkan's nightmares. As horrible as you can imagine!"
You don't know how horrible I can imagine. She centered again.My hands are shaking —wrong
thought. Think of power flowing, a sea breaking on you as if you were the shore, hear the sound
of the wind in your veins… She pulled in, crushing outside thought and stretching as if she could soak
up the power-sea through her skin. She put one hand on the ground in front of her, then the other, and
saw in her mind the boar's bristles sprout from her skin as it changed to a greenish, leathery hide; heard
the crack as her back ripped open, muscles tearing free. Her lower jaw creaked as the bone stretched
and grew, extending foot-long fangs as she raised her head to the ceiling, and grew, and grew. She could