9
The accursed tarn glistened with the faint sunlight of early morning, as if the entire surface were steel, tempered to a wartime edge. The Fang towering over it was bathed in a fiery, orange light on the sun side, but was hooded in deep purple on the shadow side. Wafting on the gusting wind was a hint of lavender. Voran remembered that there had been fields of it growing wild nearby. The memory was tinted with loss, because the smell had once been like a punch in the face. Now, it was like the glancing touch of a feather on the nostril.
On the other side of the tarn, the rocky plain extended half a mile toward the next rise of tundra rock, which had always made Rogned think, Voran remembered, of a frozen wave of ocean water. Not that either Rogned or Voran had ever seen the ocean—only
