IN THE DAYS that followed while the others rested and Aunt Pol nursed Belgarath back to health, Garion and his cousin spent every waking moment together. From the time he had been a very small child he had believed that Aunt Pol was his only family. Later, he had discovered that Mister Wolf-Belgarath - was also a relative, though infinitely far removed. But Adara was different. She was nearly his own age, for one thing, and she seemed immediately to fill that void that had always been there. She became at once all those sisters and cousins and younger aunts that others seemed to have but that he did not.

She showed him the Algar Stronghold from top to bottom. As they wandered together down long, empty corridors, they frequently held each others' hands. Most of the time, however, they talked. They sat together in out-of the-way places with their heads close together, talking, laughing, exchanging confidences and opening their hearts to each other. Garion discovered a hunger for talk in himself that he had not suspected. The circumstances of the past year had made him reticent, and now all that flood of words broke loose. Because he loved his tall, beautiful cousin, he told her things he would not have told any other living soul.

Adara responded to his affection with a love of her own that seemed as deep, and she listened to his outpourings with an attention that made him reveal himself even more.

"Can you really do that?" she asked when, one bright winter afternoon, they sat together in an embrasure high up in the fortress wall with a window behind them overlooking the vast sea of winter-brown grass stretching to the horizon. "Are you really a sorcerer?"

"I'm afraid so," he replied.

"Afraid?"

"There are some pretty awful things involved in it, Adara. At first I didn't want to believe it, but things kept happening because I wanted them to happen, It finally reached the point where I couldn't doubt it any more."

"Show me," she urged him.

He looked around a bit nervously. "I don't really think I should," he apologized. "It makes a certain kind of noise, you see, and Aunt Pol can hear it. For some reason I don't think she'd approve if I just did it to show off."

"You're not afraid of her, are you?"