“They left us these,” the Lady said, gesturing at the piles. “Taunting us … for only rockfolk, they said, had the stone-wit to know how to place them and bind them in stone so they would stay if I stood on them. Can you repair what full-born elves cannot?”

“Yes,” Arian said, once more surprising herself. Was she that sure? It must be the dragon’s aid. “But Lady, you must be prepared to return this place to those who made it and those who gave you stone-right.”

“I cannot!” the Lady said. “It is the elfane taig!”

“It is only elfane taig where the Lady can sense the taig and wear the elvenhome as a cloak,” Arian said. “Here, under stone, is not your domain.” She pointed to the ceiling. “There—where the taig longs for your return—is your domain and your duty.”

Arian could feel the other elves’ astonishment and dismay.

“You lecture me on my duty? You, whose father—”

“I have fought the fire you did not even know was burning,” Arian said. “Where were you when the scathefire came, when the king needed your aid? Here, under stone—not in the real elfane taig. You did not even know the taig was in peril. Did not the First Singer charge the Sinyi with its protection?”

Shocked silence answered her. The Lady, after a long moment, bowed her head.

Arian said no more, but turned to the problem at hand. The scarred stone was no longer a circle but a rough oblong. Arian took one of her arrows and—fixing the pattern in her mind—set its point to the rock and began to trace the outline of the pattern. She paid no attention to the gasps of surprise as the arrow, its tip glowing, sank into the stone and behind its motion a groove opened. She concentrated on the pattern until she had completed it. As the dragon had first shown it to her, it had been only dark lines on gray stone, but now she felt an urge to give it color: she did not know why.

The others did not move or speak as she went back and forth, colored chips flowing through her hands, each to the place she knew was right. The light and dark blue, the bright and dark red, the single green, the rare touches of gold and silver. Moved by another impulse, she drew her sword and traced the now-colored lines in a different order than she had originally drawn the pattern. Now the colored chips flowed together, and the pattern lay fresh, unbroken.

When she looked again at the Lady, tears marked the queen’s face. The Lady met Arian’s gaze; Arian saw great sorrow there. Then the Lady turned to her entourage. “If a half-elf can do here what we full elves cannot, it is indeed not our place. We must give it up. The blame is mine; I wasted your time, brothers and sisters, long ago and once again, and offended those to whom the Singer gave the dominion of stone. I swear to you, I did so with good intent, but good intent does not excuse ill results. We must now return to the Ladysforest and do what we may for the taig, but afterward, if it is your will, another may challenge for my place.”