“It"s time,” Aria said. On the saddleback between two mountains, the northern sea visible on one side, the eastern sea on the other, Josh, Alyson, and Aria looked upon the raw diamond. They"d built a cairn to set it on, gathering stones from the meadow. Just a few hundred yards wide, the saddleback meadow was pinched between two mountains soaring a thousand feet above them. Other than a tree or two, the meadow was covered with thick, coarse grass a foot tall, shorn at the top as though by some precise machine. This was where the wild wyrm herd had been spotted, grazing placidly. Their physiology prevented them from bending any further down, leaving foot-tall grass wherever they grazed. Grass that was home to rabbits, squirrels, groundhogs, and snakes, the grass obscuring the movement of

