ambiguity

found... finally... Kei's Gift by Ann Somerville

I looked, and no that's not it. The story I'm looking for is completely made up (no historical context at all)... it's just that the one culture is reminiscent of Roman society in how it is organized/described. Also, I don't think the story was actually on any mass e-reading sites like this. I think it was a site the author made for his/her writing. I could be wrong on that point though. I don't remember it being on any of the usual sites (awesomedude, gay authors, nifty, etc) though. And yeah, I've been trying tonnes of google searches, but I can't remember exact names or anything like that, so I haven't been able to find anything. I do remember there being quite a bit of drawn art online back when I read this of the two main characters (the fair skinned/haired officer from the Roman-like society, and the dark hair/tan skinned young man from the native-like society. If I could rememnber their names I could probably find the story, but I'm drawing a blank and it's killing me.

Hey guys... I know there are a tonne of avid readers around here and I'm hoping this rings a bell for one of you. There was a story I read some time back that I sort of wanted to read through again, but I've lost the link. I scoured the internet all last night and couldn't come up with anything, which was VERY frustrating. The story is s a fantasy where one of the cultures is somewhat Roman-like and the other is sort of native-like. The Roman culture is very militaristic and is in the process of conquering the native culture. Within the native culture there are people with "gifts". Some only have very weak powers and some pretty much limitless (power to control water, fire, mind stuff, etc). Anyway, the main character is a boy from the native culture who is captured and taken as a hostage back to the roman-type civilizations island and sent to live with an officer in the army (as are many other children/young adults in the form of hostages to different homes). I don't want to give away too much in case I do find it and someone here actually wants to read it or something... but hopefully someone around here has read this book and has a link or something that they can shoot my way. Thanks a lot.