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Part II: The Storm Breaking

She knew she could find her way to where the stone-spawn were. If she knew who her enemies were, she could find them. That had often been an immensely useful gift in the wars. Aia skimmed across dense mounds of treetops rocking in the wind, fields of tall grass that rippled under her, reeds by riverbanks where herons and geese glanced up at the strange human creature.

In the days when she was used to doing this, she would have done it easily and probably enjoyed it. It was not without some thrill now, but the effort quickly became a strain, and soon a painful one. Yet she forced herself to keep up at the same speed, knowing that if she reached her goal too late it would all have been for nothing. When she finally allowed herself to rest, amid some boulders near the edge of a ravine, it was because she knew, even without seeing it, that the stone-spawn were on the other side.

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Part I: The Storm Brewing

The day of the great change came in autumn, when the green wooded mountains were beginning to burn with golden and orange and crimson, and the apples were hanging ripe, and the sunflowers were heavy laden with black seeds, and the wind grew strong again. The wind was strong that day, heaving the branches in waves, scattering bright leaves, strewing dirt and bits of plants up from Aia’s garden.

Aia wasn’t expecting a change that day, but she was wishing for one, as she pulled weeds out of the rows of carrots and squash and beans. Fiercely she tugged at the weeds, ripping out tough, thick roots with firm jerks. Old as she was, she was more than equal to the work—though this, she thought grimly, was a poor way for her to test her strength.

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