"How much can actually be done with sorcery, Garion?" she asked after a long silence.

He shrugged. "It depends on who's doing it. Some people are very powerful; others can hardly do anything at all."

"Could you-" She hesitated. "Could you make this bush bloom?" She went on quickly, and he knew that was not the question she had originally intended to ask. "Right now, I mean, in the middle of wintertime," she added.

Garion looked at the dry, scrubby bit of gorse, putting the sequence of what he'd have to do together. "I suppose I could," he replied, "but if I did that in the wrong season, the bush wouldn't have any defense against the cold, and it would die."

"It's only a bush, Garion."

"Why kill it?"

She avoided his eyes. "Could you make something happen for me, Garion?" she asked. "Some small thing. I need something to believe in very much just now."

"I can try, I guess." He did not understand her suddenly somber mood. "How about something like this?" He picked up a twig and turned it over in his hands, looking carefully at it. Then he wrapped several strands of dry grass around it and studied it again until he had what he wanted to do firmly in his mind. When he released his will on it, he did not do it all at once, so the change was gradual. Adara's eyes widened as the sorry-looking clump of twig and dry grass was transmuted before her.

It really wasn't much of a flower. It was a kind of pale lavender color, and it was distinctly lopsided. It was quite small, and its petals were not very firmly attached. Its fragrance, however, was sweet with all the promise of summer. Garion felt very strange as he wordlessly handed the flower to his cousin. The sound of it had not been that rushing noise he'd always associated with sorcery, but rather was very much like the bell-tone he'd heard in the glowing cave when he'd given life to the colt. And when he had begun to focus his will, he had not drawn anything from his surroundings. It had all come from within him, and there had been a deep and peculiar love in it.

"lt's lovely," Adara said, holding the little flower gently in her cupped hands and inhaling its fragrance. Her dark hair fell across her cheek, hiding her face from him. Then she lifted her chin, and Garion saw that her eyes were filled with tears. "It seems to help," she said, "for a little while, anyway "

"What's wrong, Adara?"

She did not answer, but looked out across the dun-brown plain.

"Who's Ce'Nedra?" she asked suddenly. "I've heard the others mention her "

"Ce'Nedra? She's an Imperial Princess - the daughter of Itan Horune of Tolnedra."

"What's she like?"