Alive Souls: Inception

Alive Souls: Inception, Elena Yulkina, Amazon Digital Services, Inc., 2015

Maya is your average teenager, but not really. She can read minds, and she can control fire with her mind. She knows that she is not like her classmates in school. One night, she asks, out loud, who is she and where did she come from. Then she gets the answer.

Maya suddenly finds herself in a well-lit ballroom with lots of expensive-looking paintings on the walls. It is also full of people. She is suddenly hugged by a younger man who treats her like his long-lost daughter, which she is. It seems that Maya is a real princess who was sent to Earth to get her out of the way. All of the inhabited worlds have been fighting a long-running war against the Darkness. They have been holding it off, as best they can, while waiting for Maya to become old enough, and powerful enough, to fight the Darkness single-handedly (scripture says so).

Maya can't go back to Earth, because there is too much chance of her being found by the Darkness. Her twin sister, Varvara, takes her place. She can't stay where she is, on a planet called Zabir, for the same reason. Maya is sent to another world, called Udas. A young man named Mayvert volunteers to go with her, as her bodyguard, but he does not do a very good job of it. There are several narrow escapes, including Maya being burned at the stake as some sort of monster, and walking out of the flames, totally unhurt. Did I mention that Maya and Mayvert are able to grow actual, working wings? Does the Darkness come to Udas to find Maya?

This is a short novel, less than 100 pages, but it is surprisingly good. It works as a teen/young adult tale. It also works as a fantasy story, with interesting possibilities for future stories. It's well worth reading.