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Prologue

ARROWS

Mercury was a cult That hat everyone said at the start The Psy laughed at Catherine and Arif Adelaja's clai able to free their people from insanity and murderous fury

To be Psy was to court the edges of madness

It was accepted It was accepted

There was no cure

But then Mercury produced two graduates of their early version of the Silence Protocol - the Adelajas' oin sons Tendaji and Naee of anger or madnessfor a while The experiment eventually failed The dark side of emotion rushed back into the Adelaja twins in an avalanche, and, sixteen years after being heralded as the harbingers of a new future, they co one, killed Naeem then himself There was no doubt that it had been a mutual decision

They left a note

We are an aboue that will kill our people from within Silence ive us

Their words were never heard, their terror never understood Found by acolytes of Mercury, they were buried in a hidden grave, their deaths ter a second generation, i the tools hich to excise unwanted emotion from the heart and e was the quietest - this time, they had the cautious support of the leaders of their people, the Psy Council

But they also needed support of another kind, the kind that would catch any other lapses and mistakes before they made it to the public domainand to the ears of the still-skeptical Council If the Councilors had found out about the continuing deaths, they would have pulled back And the Adelajas could not bear the thought of their vision being consigned to the trash heap of history Because, though shattered by the deaths of their twin sons, Catherine and Arif never lost faith in Silence Neither did their eldest son - Zaid

Zaid was a cardinal telepath with a furious ability in mental co adult, not a child Still, he believed The Protocol had given him peace froift of peace, to quiet the tor up theaway those who broke under the experi their lives as efficiently as he buried their bodies

Catherine called him her Martial Arrow

Soon, Zaid recruited others like him Others who believed They were loners, unknown shadows, darker than the darkness,that ht threaten the successful realization of Catherine and Arif's lifelong dream

Time passed Years Decades Zaid Adelaja ashed from this Earth, but the torch of the Arrows continued to be handed from one acolyte to the nextuntil there was nohailed as visionaries