In the early hours of the morning, we set off for the Sharlet woods, but just after lunch we set up camp so Valja could start my first lesson.
"Again, Jay," Valja rumbled, her voice firm. "Reach for it. Don't demand. Ask."
I sighed, angrily. Asking a rock to move seemed so stupid to me.
Valja sat cross-legged on a mossy boulder, looking over my lesson while her mate prepared dinner on the open fire.
Sunlight dappled through the canopy above us, painting shifting patterns on the forest floor, and the mountain itself loomed behind us, a silent, grey-green titan observing my rather undignified struggle.
My own struggle involved a rather innocuous-looking stone the size of a head. Valja, had placed it there and sat down on her boulder.
"Your task," She'd stated, a glint of mischief in h
