Dorrin frowned; that made no sense. “I do not think I know you,” she said. “My name is Dorrin—”
“Verrakai, yes.” His smile widened. “And you know me better than you think. As I know you and have long known you.”
Dorrin searched her memory but found nothing. “Do you know where I am?” she asked.
“Here with me,” he said at once, as if that were a full explanation. “Do you know where you are?”
“No,” Dorrin said. “And—forgive me, ser—I have no memory of you.”
“Do you not?” Amusement danced in his eyes, lighting them from dark brown to amber. “Then tell me, Daughter, what is it you lack?”
Lack? Everything … or … she was alive, so not lacking life. What she lacked was knowledge. “I do not know where I am,” she said. “Or which way to go to find my home. Or where to find water, or food, or—” She pointed at her ripped boot. “—a cobbler or anything to pay the cobbler.”
“It is knowledge you lack,” he said. “And perhaps I can aid you. Where you are—as I said—is with me. For the time being, that is all you need to know. To guide you to your way home will require some time and conversation. But as for water … consider where you stand.”
Dorrin looked. The outcrop she had come around … another two or three boulders as tall as she. Here on the side of the slope, more than halfway down, they formed a cleft. She would not have been surprised to see a trickle of water coming out from under one of them—a spring made sense here. But there was no spring, only a fringe of dry, brown fern leaves.
“A spring was there,” she said. “But it’s not there now.” She looked back at the man. He nodded, saying nothing. “It’s dry,” she said. He still said nothing. What he might mean seeped into her mind. If he knew—but how could he know?—that she had once had water magery— “I’m not the same,” she said. “That’s all gone.”
“Is it?” he asked. “Do you not think the land honors those who heal it?”
Dorrin frowned again. “I was certain …”
This time he laughed aloud, and a breeze sprang up, shaking the leaves of trees and shrubs alike, as if they also laughed. “Daughter,” he said, his voice still amused, “you might at least ask the water’s grace.”
Moved by an impulse she did not understand, Dorrin turned, found a sprig of pale blue flowers on the aromatic shrub, and stooped to lay it in the mouth of the opening below the higher stone. She put her hand on the rock. “May the gods bless this spring,” she said, “and may water nourish the land.”
“Eshea valush,” the man said.
Dorrin stared. A tongue of clear water flowed from beneath the rock; as it moistened the fern fronds, they lifted, greening even as she watched. It spread, wetting the soil outside the rock’s shade, overflowing the lip of the ferns. More water emerged from under the other rocks; the trickles joined, and the little stream ran off downhill.
“Thank you,” Dorrin said.
“Eshea valush,” the man said again. Then, to Dorrin, “You are thirsty, Daughter. Drink.”
“You are my elder,” Dorrin said. “Please—drink first.”
The man bowed, as one who has been taught grace, and knelt by the little stream now running clear between them. He put his hand down, let the water fill it, and lifted it to his mouth. Twice he drank as Dorrin watched—noting the scarred, callused hands, the signs of age and poverty on his feet as well. “And now you,” the man said, rising.
Dorrin knelt and let the water fill her hand. It tingled with life, as Arian had taught her to feel it, as her own magery felt it. She drank one handful and then another. Cold, clean … joy filled her with the water, as if it sparkled in her veins. She looked up at the man, who stood watching her with a mix of pride and amusement. All at once she knew who this was. “Lord Falk,” Dorrin said. Her voice failed for awe; she could say nothing more.
He nodded. “Yes, Daughter … you are correct in your surmise. This is the form in which I choose to appear.” He reached across the rivulet, offering her his hand. “Come, now. You and I should walk together this day; there are questions to be asked and answered.”
Dorrin stood and took his hand. Warm, dry, the strength of his grip no more than companionable … and she was on the other side of the rivulet, where the game path ran on downhill into the shade of the trees. “I didn’t know …” she managed to say.
He shrugged. “It is no matter. Now you do.”