The dawn of hope rises. From the dirt of the tree’s roots will arise a sleeper of ages. She will be braver than many men, stronger than myriad warriors. Her age is not counted in years, but in the bitter days of pain and loss. Her death will bring forth life. Her sleep will make Living Water flow again in the wasteland…
—From “The Prophecy of Llun” (The Sayings, Book XXIII, 5:8-10)
CHAPTER THREE
MirodaraLlun hardly remembered the way he took back to his smithy. It didn’t help that most of Vasyllia was hidden in fog, dropping the early summer temperatures down to what they had been in late spring. The kind of weather that obscured one’s thoughts and deadened one’s limbs.
Bacon. The smell shocked him back to awareness. He was nearly home, and the bacon-smell, to his amazement, was not co
