Mistress Of The Wind — E. Rose Sabin

Windspeaker Kyla Cren gathers news from the wind and passes on to her village its warnings about mindstealers, creatures that rob human minds, leaving their victims insensible and helpless. Because Kyla's parents were victims of mindstealers, the need for revenge consumes her. She attacks two mindstealers and rescues their victim, but gets no satisfaction from the act. The ungrateful victim, a powerful mage, thrusts upon her the care of Claid, who appears to be an appealing young child. He's not a child, the Mage Alair declares, and challenges her to discover what Claid really is. That challenge sends her from her native village on a journey of discovery that takes her into the wider world beyond her isolated valley, a world in which machines have replaced magic. Harrowing experiences teach her more about herself than about Claid and eventually bring her back to Mage Alair, whom she joins in a scheme to destroy the mindstealers, a plan which might result in tragedy but which could also lead Kyla to the full truth about Claid's nature and her own.