They were married in the fall, and John Ford took his wife home just as the first snows of the winter came. And it was their daughter who walked, a Dwarf beside her, twenty-five springs after her parents had been brought together, towards the shores of a lake in another world, to meet her own destiny.

The path to the lake where Ysanne lived twisted north and west through a shallow valley flanked by gentle hills, a landscape that would have been lovely in any proper season. But Kim and Matt were walking through a country scorched and barren—and the thirst of the land seemed to knife into Kim, twisting like anguish inside her. Her face hurt, the bones seeming taut and difficult within her. Movement was becoming painful, and everywhere she looked, her eyes flinched away.

“It’s dying,” she said.

Matt looked at her with his one eye. “You feel it?”

She nodded stiflly. “I don’t understand.”

The Dwarf’s expression was grim. “The gift is not without its darkness. I do not envy you.”

“Envy me what, Matt?” Kim’s brow furrowed. “What do I have?”

Matt Sören’s voice was soft. “Power. Memory. Truly, I am not sure. If the hurt of the land reaches so deeply…”

“It’s easier in the palace. I’m blocked there from all this.”

“We can go back.”

For one moment, sharp and almost bitter, Kim did want to turn back—all the way back. Not just to Paras Derval, but home. Where the ruin of the grass and the dead stalks of flowers by the path did not burn her so. But then she remembered the eyes of the Seer as they had looked into hers, and she heard again the voice, drumming in her veins: I have awaited you.

“No,” she said. “How much farther?”

“Around the curve. We’ll see the lake soon. But hold, let me give you something—I should have thought of it sooner.” And the Dwarf held out towards her a bracelet of silver workmanship, in which was set a green stone.

“What is it?”

“A vellin stone. It is very precious; there are few left, and the secret of fashioning them died with Ginserat. The stone is a shield from magic. Put it on.”

With wonder in her eyes, Kimberly placed it upon her wrist, and as she did, the pain was gone, the hurt, the ache, the burning, all were gone. She was aware of them, but distantly, for the vellin was her shield and she felt it guarding her. She cried out in wonder.

But the relief in her face was not mirrored in that of the Dwarf. “Ah,” said Matt Sören, grimly, “so I was right. There are dark threads shuttling on the Loom. The Weaver grant that Loren comes back soon.”

“Why?” Kim asked. “What does this mean?”

“If the vellin guards you from the land’s pain, then that pain is not natural. And if there is a power strong enough to do this to the whole of the High Kingdom, then there is a fear in me. I begin to wonder about the old tales of Mörnir’s Tree, and the pact the Founder made with the God. And if not that, then I dare not think what. Come,” said the Dwarf, “it is time I took you to Ysanne.”