Tris looked soberly down into the valley. She could just see the edge of the shrunken lake far, far below: their road was carrying them to the river that fed it. “I wish I could do something,” she muttered, thumping her leg with her fist. “Back home, I’d have it raining buckets!”

“Could you?” asked Polyam with a laugh. “Could you indeed?”

“She could,” Daja said glumly. “And with as much thought as rolling over in bed.”

Polyam’s laughter died. “You’re serious?”

Tris guided her pony to the outer edge of the roadway. Their route sloped down now, into a wooded cleft where the small, grudging river that filled the lake entered Gold Ridge Valley. “Don’t tell her what all I can do,” she advised Daja. “It might just make her nervous.”

“It might,” Daja admitted. To Polyam she said, “Tris makes me nervous sometimes, and she’s my saati.”

Polyam shook her head. “To hear kaqs called saati—it makes me feel as if the world’s coming all unglued.”

“What else am I supposed to call them?” Daja asked, surprised. “Tris, Briar, Sandry—they’re as close to me as my own blood. It’s been a long summer,” she said, wishing that explained their friendship and knowing it didn’t even come close. “We’ve been through a lot together.”

Yarrun rode up behind them. “You must excuse me for not going farther. I have no interest in glaciers,” he announced. “Their power and mine do not mix. I leave you here.” Clucking to his mount, he turned it toward the closer of the watchtowers that stood on either side of the river where it entered Gold Ridge.

“You might do better if you did have an interest,” Tris muttered. “Whether your power includes them or not.” Yarrun was starting to get on her nerves. He was so sure that everything he did was right and proper. After hearing Rosethorn, and after all the books she had read since beginning her magical education, she had to wonder. She felt the dryness in the valley below. It wasn’t limited to the burning grasslands, the shrinking lake, or the shriveled fields. The ground everywhere was parched. She saw brown at the tips of leaves and needles on all the trees; looking at them made her itch.

That must be Briar’s influence on her, she decided as they followed the river out of the main valley, bypassing the watchtowers. Throughout this trip she’d noticed she was more aware of plants and trees.

Looking ahead, she could see drying brush and grasses on the lesser valley’s sides. Only the riverbanks were green. I’ve just been here a few days, she thought, wiping her forehead on her sleeve. How must it feel to have lived here for three years, with everything drying up?

Their party decided to eat midday a good distance from the glacier, after they discovered the wind that came off the towering wall of ice was cold. Looking around, they chose a broad stretch of sandy earth nearly a thousand yards away, atop a low, flat hillock at the foot of a cliff. Walking to the edge of their picnic ground while the food was set out, Daja stared up at the glacier.

Soaring over it in magical form the day before, she hadn’t appreciated how vast the glacier was. She was impressed again by its noise: the thing filled the air with creaks, snaps, groans, and the babble of melting water. Listening, she began to think what she’d been told was true. The ice sounded as if it did move, however slowly. The long, steep gouges in the rocky walls of this valley could well be the marks of its claws as it shrank back from Gold Ridge.

“Daja,” called Lark. She, Polyam, Briar—who liked to handle food if he couldn’t stuff it into his mouth immediately—and Niko had placed everything neatly on a dropcloth. The meal looked like a king’s feast, spiced with flavors Daja had known almost from the cradle. Now was the time to add her bit to the meal.

“It needs a centerpiece,” she told her companions. Reaching into her saddlebag, she brought out her surprise and plunged it sharp end first through the middle of the dropcloth. There it gleamed in the sun, its inner petals just unfurling: a copper rose. “One of the buds was opening when I got up,” she commented, pleased with the way everyone gaped in shock.

Kneeling, Briar stroked the flower. “I’ll be switched,” he muttered. “It’s warm—I think it’s still alive.”

Polyam dropped to her good knee to examine the copper bloom. To Daja she said, “If you can learn to do this kind of magic on purpose, you’ll be one rich lugsha.”

Daja thought bitterly, I’d rather be a rich Trader, then shrugged. “First I have to learn how to do the magic on purpose, don’t I?”

Once Lark spoke the blessing, no one talked—they were too busy eating—though each of them reached out from time to time to stroke the copper rose. The Trader food sweetened everyone’s moods, once they’d devoured enough of it. The dessert pastries, thick with honey and nuts, made them all pleasantly lazy.

As Lark napped, Tris, Briar, Sandry and Niko went for a closer look at the glacier. Polyam and Daja took a walk on the riverbank. Down here, close to the rampart of ice, the water was deeper and swifter. In the shade the air was cold; they kept to the sun.

For a while they said nothing. Then Polyam misjudged a spot where she stepped with her wooden peg, and the sandy ground crumbled away. She wind-milled, almost going into the water. Daja grabbed her, dragging her back.

“I’m fine,” Polyam growled the moment she was steady.