“There is a necklace,” Dorrin said to the jewels. “It is not here; it was stolen long ago and stolen again last year. One who saw you and that necklace both thought it belonged with you. Do you know?”

Yes.

“Who made you?”

Ask the right questions in the right order.

“I do not know the right order,” Dorrin said. “Let me tell you what I do know. Long and long ago, men came to the south from farther south, from over the sea. Once that land was green, but then it became sand, so men sailed a sea and came north.”

Silence as heavy as gold filled the room.

“I believe you came with those men,” Dorrin said. “And I believe you remember.”

Into her mind a flood of images: men, ships, women, children, waves of green water edged with foam and waves of sand edged with … blood. Dorrin shuddered. “Ibbirun,” she said. “The Sandlord? And … invasion? Blood?”

No.

“Is that the old story about the Sandlord having sent waves of sand into Aarenis, making it a desert?” the king asked.

“That’s what I always heard,” Dorrin said with a sigh. “The fall of Aare was caused by the Sandlord, Ibbirun, a servant of the Unmaker. But that’s not what I’m getting here.”

“Perhaps they did not know how to care for farmland,” High Marshal Seklis said. “Perhaps they—” He paused suddenly, scowling. “In the west, in Kolobia, the former magelords turned farmer. And while that settlement prospered, they turned rock and sand into farmland. According to the records we found there, they brought in soil from Fintha and multiplied it by magery.”

“Multiplied it?”

“So it was written.”

“I have no idea how they did that,” Dorrin said.

“What I’m thinking is … good farmers make the land better. Bad farmers make the land worse. What if there were bad farmers in Aare who ruined the land? Then they might have blamed the Sandlord rather than themselves.”

“But if that’s so, how could they be good farmers here in the north?”

“They learned from the old humans, those who were already here,” Seklis said.

“I suppose.” Dorrin looked down at the crown she held, its jewels no longer flashing brightly, though they still shone. “Did they ruin the land?” she asked the crown.

No. Light filled the room again, shimmering once more as if under water. Not land. Water.

“They did something to the water,” Dorrin said, looking up to meet the king’s eyes. “That’s what it told me.”

“Something to the water?” Mikeli frowned. “What could they do to water? Foul a spring, I suppose, but—water as element—it’s too much.”

“In Gird’s war we have the tale of a magelord named Grahlin,” Seklis said. “He could make water disappear or reappear; he took a river’s water and diverted it to a well, making the well burst. Gird’s friend Cob was lamed for life by that.”