Rescued from her home, she faces change, life and losing everything she thought she was, to rise from sorrow.

Salika has grown up on her own with her sand dog, Saluk, at her side. Foraging in the sands and stealing in the city, she finally gets caught and pays the penalty. Death.

Thrown into the sand pit, she faces a certain demise until her sand dog comes to her rescue.

She finds the only stranger on her world who can take her away and demonstrates her ability to move sand. As a talent, she is just what the recruiter is looking for.

Salika is as surprised as everyone around her when her talent turns out to be electrical in nature and entirely under her control.

Excerpt:

She fought the hands that held her, commanding Saluk to remain in their quarters. “No! You can’t!”

“Street trash, you are a disgrace and you have broken the laws of our people. You have stolen food and clothing. The penalty is death.”

She bucked as the priests pulled her toward the pit. The crowd of townsfolk jeered at her, and she finally slumped, accepting that they were going to toss her in and that nothing would stop them, aside from a fatality.

She didn’t want to kill her people. She didn’t want to die. It was a problem that was about to be taken out of her hands.

Without further ceremony, they threw her into the pit dug into the sand.

Salika stood, and the lid was lowered. She was in the dark, and soon, the sand was shovelled onto the lid of the box.

Buried alive. It was the desert dweller’s worst nightmare. She listened to the thudding of shovels and the hissing cascade of sand.

It normally took an hour to bury the condemned completely. Salika crouched and made her way to a corner of the box she was in, and she sat while the heated air seemed to grow thick and it made her dizzy.

She focused on keeping calm and listening to the impact of sand above her. They would watch for any signs of her trying to burrow out for another hour. After that, they would return to the city, and she could try and escape.

Salika just had to remain alive long enough to make it out of the pit.