Branna had stopped weeping. She pulled a handful of grass and blew her nose, then got up, wiping her face on her sleeve.

“My apologies.” Branna’s voice sounded thick with recent tears, but she was smiling. “I just had the strangest feeling, that at last I’d paid back some sort of debt.”

The icy cold of recognition ran down Dallandra’s spine. “Then most likely you have, and you should discuss that with Grallezar when she gets here. At the moment, we need to go explain things to the others.”

The day after Dallandra and Branna had left them, the royal alar and the Cerr Cawnen folk had met up at last. Under Prince Dar’s leadership, they continued their slow march eastward toward the Melyn River Valley. Every morning Valandario scried the surrounding terrain for Horsekin raiders. Once she did see a small squad, but they were heading north. At odd moments during the day, she followed them in vision until they disappeared into the broken tablelands.

“It looks to me,” she told Dar that evening, “like they were cut off from some larger body, and they’re desperate to get back to safety.”

“Good,” Dar said. “We’ve got no time to worry about them now. Do you think this good weather will hold?”

“Yes, for a few more days at least. Which reminds me. Where is the alar going to winter this year?”

“Down on the coast as usual. I’ve been consulting with Chief Speaker Jahdo. The townsfolk are going to need the rest of the year to mark out their farmland, plant their grain, build shelters and the like. They won’t have the leisure to worry about us and our bargain till the spring. The same holds for Gerran. He’ll get his dun once our people have gotten themselves settled and reasonably secure. They’ll need to take care of themselves before they can take Gerran’s money for building it. If there’s nothing to eat, the coin won’t do them one cursed bit of good.”

Our people. Dar’s choice of words struck Valandario as somehow momentous, as if they echoed down a long tunnel of years.

“Why?” Dar continued. “Do you want to winter with us or in Mandra?”

Val was about to answer when she felt Dallandra’s mind tugging at hers. She muttered a quick excuse to the prince, then trotted off to seek a scrying focus. The sun was hanging low in the cloudless sky, but not far from camp a small stream ran over rocks. She concentrated on its swirling water and sent her mind out to Dallandra. The image built up fast of her fellow dweomermaster grinning in sheer delight.

“Where are you?” Val said.

“On the shore of the Lake of the Leaping Trout,” Dallandra said.

“What, by all the gods, are you doing there?”

“Studying the walls of Haen Marn, for one thing.”

All at once Valandario understood. “You’ve done it,” she said. “You’ve moved the island!”