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THE MINDSTONES were the only reason anyone lived on - or more accurately, in - the planet Styx. An unthinkable ice world, Styx only survived as an underground mining colony because of the discovery of the beautiful jewel called Cyrilite, a crystalline stone with unique mind-altering properties.

But to Kayla John Reed, Styx was all the home she'd ever knownuntil her parents were killed in a tragic mining accident. Claiming her father's Guild seat, the extraordinarily gifted young empathy was forced to flee the planet when she tangled with the Kellers, the wealthiest and most important psi family in the colony.

On the run in a galaxy wary of anyone with mind powers and all too willing to turn her in for the bounty on her head, Kayla found an unexpected haven aboard Falstaff, a "merchant" spaceship that stretched the limits of legal shipping beyond the breaking point. But there were those among the crew with a far more treacherous agenda than simple privateering, and Kayla was soon caught in a planets-spanning struggle between two deadly forces ready to sacrifice anyone who got in their way and determined to use any weapon - even the power of Kayla's mind - to secure total victory...

With Pelleas and Yates out to put an end to the Free Traders, the starship Falstaff was no longer a safe refuge for renegade empath Kayla John Reed. Now her survival--and that of the rebel troops, the War Minstrels--hinged upon Kayla's finding the Mindstar, a legendary source of infinite power that would suck the life out of anyone who tried to master it and failed.

Empath Kayla John Reed's rebel forces, the War Minstrels, had struck a crucial blow at the heart of Yates Keller's empire, conquering the Alliance capital, Vardalia. It should have been Kayla's moment of triumph. But Vardalia was a shambles, and not only had Yates himself escaped, he claimed to have her friends and shipmates in his clutches.

Kayla had no choice but to agree to the terms he'd left in a holographic message. Meet him on their home world, the mining colony Styx, surrender the fabled Mindstone to him, and Keller would release her friends. Yet even as she set off for the rendezvous point, trouble was brewing among the War Minstrels--trouble that could transform their successful revolution into the deadliest kind of anarchy if she didn't make it back in time. And what Kayla had no way of know foreseeing was that Styx itself hid a peril far greater than any trap Keller had planned for her...