Aleisha is one of my main characters in my first book in the Khekarian series, an untrained psychic (although not in the supernatural look-I’ll-find-a-shortcut-to-the-answers sort of way – not even much of a seer, actually, she’s more a channel for bad experiences such as murder or suicide) – I wrote it this way for several reasons and one of them was in order to have advanced civilizations recognize and utilize an aspect of our nature that has been seen, used, worshipped, demonized and ignored in regular cycles ever since Mankind climbed down out of the trees – and I wanted this utilized in a no nonsense down-to-Earth manner because when you take all the bells and whistles off, psychic awareness is a natural phenomenon, it is not outside the norm.

Some have argued that this makes the series a fantasy rather than science fiction, but that only speaks of the belief system of the individuals who say so. No problem there, everyone is entitled to their opinion. Anyhow, so my science fiction has seers in it? So what? So does Star Wars.

I made Aleisha primarily clairsentient (psychic touch and feelings) and less clairvoyant (psychic seeing) because I wanted to bring in a new and interesting aspect of psychic experience not often covered in books and films.

The point I want to make today is that Aleisha is not the hero in this story. She’s the character whose story we are following, and she is psychic because that gives a reason for Sturn (lead Bad Guy) to want her by his side when he goes back to the Khekarian Core, the aggressive Empire he stems from.

Very simply I wanted these two characters cemented together without the cause being lust or love. Take away lust and love, the strongest inducement remaining is power. Food, sex and power are strong drives – clearly food isn’t an issue here (Sturn is quite well fed, is not a vampire and isn’t likely to draw nourishment from her). So, power it has to be – and just what power can a seventeen year-old have that an exiled Khekarian prince would want?

Right! You see what I mean.

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