I tried to offer a comforting response, but in the unseasonably chilling morning, I found my lips numbed by the cold water I had drunk. A warming smile was beyond me. I empathized for the clearly strong woman who had come from those much more forgiving and verdant lowlands to the east. Headstrong though she might be, her parched and dying land was clearly on the verge of breaking her resolve. That her husband had not returned from his journey ease could not have helped.

“I do not blame you alone, Magister Amberglass,” Galeata added. “The three previous wizards, who deigned to pass through, were clear in their assertions this land was beyond help, the stones were without strength. My husband he… he held out hope. Perhaps one in the east could revive them, he claimed. And that he still had allies who could find a way to assist us. The wizards told him it was a fool’s errand. As did I. But he went.”

She glanced to the eastern window where the morning sun shone through.

“And had I been here, I may have well offered the same advice,” I told her, attempting to lighten her despair. “But as you shared with me, he did have allies in the eastern kingdoms and old favors he believed could be exchanged. One must always hold out hope.”

It was a phrase Arcory had often repeated, even when all had seemed lost.

The Margravine offered back a noise of disgust. A purely marchlander reaction to be sure. A Donlander born, but not any more.

“If we have more seasons like this,” she began resolutely, then fell to uncertainty, open worry. “Then I will have to hold out that very faint hope my family in the Garrick Donlands will accept me back, for whatever place or duties they demand.”

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“Again, you have my sympathy,” I replied sincerely

She turned from me. I thought for a moment it was to avoid an open display of distress. I was wrong. She strode across the hall to a cabinet and from it withdrew a rolled parchment.

“I need you to find my husband,” she told me, and crossing back to me held the parchment out. “And return him to me. Please.”

I glanced at scroll, then back up into her demanding eyes. I did not want to disappoint her, but...

“I am on a mission for Council,” I felt compelled to say. I would have preferred to have been proven mistaken but, “I cannot spare the time to search for your husband. I have started late as it is. Perhaps your family…?”

The Margravine continued to hold out the roll to me. I could see there was a mark on it. One that was quite familiar.

“That is your sign,” she told me, “Is it not?”

I took the parchment from her hand, unrolled it. It bore my sign, not to mention my handwriting. And the words written on it could not have been plainer.

One of the problems of living so long, of having traveled so far, and of having taken so many risks; there are always those who you owe your life to, old debts which need to be paid, titles which in war are inspiring, but in peacetime can be rather embarrassing. I knew what was coming.

“You promised my grandmother, she or any of her family could ask of you one deed,” the Margravine stated. “I know you are traveling east. As was my husband. I know you are to see, speak with others of your kind. As was my husband. And I know you will have to return this way. You may not have the power to restore this land. But my husband is just a man. Is it to much to ask you find him and ensure he comes back to his home, to me? Is that too great a deed to ask of you of all wizards, Greyslan Amberglass, slayer of dragons, binder of demons, splitter of worlds. Tell me, is it?”