That same curiosity ran through his own veins and had driven Vamilion to come to this newly opened land twenty-five years before. And that curiosity had brought Owailion to him and made him a magician before he even knew what that meant. The first Wise One, Owailion, had given him no choice but to touch the Heart Stone, no more than Vamilion had just given to Gailin in her turn. It was cruel to have no choice, but this new nation, the Land and its unbridled magic demanded it. Where there flowed power, there must be some way to harness it or the wild magic would escape and forever scar the Land.
Vamilion wrote carefully, “If you can read this, please write back to me.”
Then he waited, not daring to tap into Gailin's thoughts, to see if she had given in to the prompting and opened the book
