Free The Last of the Ageless by Traci Loudin

Wizard knowing how much his use of the amplifier affected him. “That’s also how your thoughts seem to me, probably because of your shifting ages.”
    “But he’s not shifting.” The Wizard dropped the amplifier to his lap, and his frustration floated over. Caetl tapped his thoughts and saw his jealousy at Caetl’s ability to pin everyone’s thoughts down. The amplifier allowed the Wizard to read the minds of each of his wearers... except the mystic’s.
    Caetl turned away to hide his surprise. The Wizard completely misunderstood mystic powers if he imagined he could use Caetl’s powers against himself.
    Caetl answered his unspoken question. “You Ageless are constantly shifting, just to stay in place. A normal person’s age always advances in tandem with time, moment by moment. But because you control your age, time flows around you while you remain rigid. Relative to time, you are shifting even now.”
    The Wizard wrenched his mind closed. Caetl let him imagine he could shut him out, but those tricks only worked on young, inexperienced mystics.
    “Hello,” Gryid said from behind the force field. “I can hear you, you know.” He struggled to pull the artifact up over his head.
    “Fine.” The Wizard smiled and held up the amplifier. “Let’s get to work. Gryid, the device you now wear puts you under my control.”
    Caetl rolled his eyes. It wasn’t true, but the Wizard would get what he wanted, regardless.
    “If you answer my questions, no harm will come to you.”
    Gryid’s eyes widened. “What have you done? The Prophet entrusted the K’inTesh communication devices to me!”
    Caetl leaned forward, hoping to learn more about the Ageless, the strangest Changelings he’d ever encountered. The Wizard had kept their history out of mind at all times, even when Caetl steered conversations in that direction.
    Caetl tapped Gryid’s mind and experienced his memories of a man, the Prophet, who lectured Gryid and several others, saying, “They didn’t come as invaders. If we treat them as such, if we flail about like frightened children, the outcome will be unfortunate for both us and them. We’re talking about catastrophic devastation. It’ll be the end game.”
    As Caetl struggled to understand the context of the Prophet’s lecture in Gryid’s memory, the Wizard’s words interrupted. “Ehhh… I don’t want to go against his Mandate any more than you do, Gryid. The problem is, someone is out there killing us off. My friend Rollick is dead, and for all I know, you may have been the one to kill him—”
    “For all I know, you killed Rollick, you crazy maniac!” Gryid slammed his hands against the force field, a solid but translucent wall. “Let me out of here! Look, I won’t tell the others about this.”
    Caetl held his breath, trying to sort out Gryid’s crisscrossing thoughts of the past, the present, and what-may-have-been.
    The Wizard stood. “Rollick was my friend. Even from before.”
    Caetl’s mind reeled at the possibility that the Wizard meant from before the Catastrophe, but Gryid interpreted it differently. “You knew him from before they gathered us together?” Gryid’s memories blazed, but Caetl couldn’t make sense of all the images he saw.
    “Yes.”
    “Who’s doing this?” Gryid asked, his voice low.
    The Wizard glanced at Caetl. He nodded to indicate Gryid’s sincerity. The Wizard lowered his voice to match. “That’s what I want to find out.”
    Gryid threw himself down on the cot, de-aging a few years. The Wizard looked at Caetl again, but Caetl didn’t know what he wanted. The amplifier blocked his mystic powers, rendering him as clueless as a Purebreed.
    The sound of Gryid’s fists pounding the wall got the Wizard’s attention, and he asked, “Why did you stay trapped in an age where you were injured? I’d never torture myself that way.” The Wizard took a seat on the other stool.
    Gryid’s eyes lit up. “The Prophet also gifted me with medicines and