The elven king frowned. “I will consider it. And for now we will leave open the patterns your people have used to go back and forth. Only you must bring them away as soon as you can.”

“How can I tell you when we are all gone?”

“We will know. We are watching.”

That was all he would say; the elves bowed courteously enough and then went back to the High Lord’s Hall, stepped onto the transfer pattern, and disappeared.

“I wonder if it’s their fault,” Marshal Pedar said. “Whatever they’re doing to close the rock—could that be what’s waking magery?”

“Or was it our first expedition out there?” Arianya wondered. “It seemed so reasonable, with the scrolls of Luap Paksenarrion brought to us … a joint expedition of humans, elves, dwarves, just to find out what happened.”

“So … Paksenarrion started it?”

Arianya shook her head. “I acquit her of that: whatever it was started long ago, before even Gird. But her finding those scrolls … that might be the shove that starts a boulder downhill.”

“What now?”

“I don’t know. We cannot wake those enchanted magelords; that, I’m sure of. I don’t know why the combined skills of the Elders will not wake them … what enchantment could be stronger than theirs?”

“A dragon’s?”

“Perhaps, but … why would a dragon cast embattled magelords into enchanted sleep?” She rubbed her temples. “I thought the return of magery more than enough challenge for the Fellowship. I suppose I had best write the letters to both kings and also Duke Verrakai. I doubt they will know any better than I what to do, but at least they must know what the problem is.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Arian left Vérella with relief she carefully concealed from the king and court. They had been cordial; they had done everything they could think of—but to be surrounded by buildings and walls in spring, of all seasons—to be so distant from trees—stifled her. Besides, she had information Kieri needed, which she had not trusted to a courier, since at least one had disappeared between Chaya and Vérella.

Riding east with only her own Squires, her heart lifted with every league covered. Flowering trees, flowering hedges, drifts of flowers in some fields … Their perfume filled the air, and the various shades of spring green looked edible. It felt like a holiday—all the strain of trying to uphold Lyonyan honor in a foreign court past, and any duties to come days away.

At the border, the taig welcomed her, the sense of that living grace rising from the ground. Even riding up the scathefire track toward Chaya … Though the scar remained, ferns and flowers already grew along the margins where only natural fire had burned.