Following Dernhelm
Aouda Kirby's world seems empty and hypocritical of late. She isn't sure what has changed and hopes she's just experiencing the normal teenager moodiness¸ but she's finding the sort of tasks her adopted parents expect of her harder and harder to do. A time is coming for her to make a decision¸ and it will take her in a direction she couldn't have imagined before.
These events take place starting roughly ten years before the events in the Semester Starts novel.