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so hoped you would arrive in time to wish me well before I left.’
    I was confused by his words, of course. He had gone off many times, and we had never said goodbye before. Where could he be going that would require a goodbye?
    I asked him where he was off to this time, and why he was lying down if he was getting ready for a trip. He told me that he was going to die. Rah had allowed him many, many years, but it was time to be moving on.
    Die? I didn’t understand what he’d meant. Animals died. Plants died. He and I lived forever, unless we died at the hands of another. Old age was not something that affected us.
    ‘I am not a dragon, Brin’du Drak’Tir. I was never meant to go on forever,’ he said to me. ‘There is so much I should have told you, but I always assumed we had more time, and now it is too late for long tales. You must leave here, and make your way to the fairies.’
    ‘The fairies? What have they to do with me?’ I asked him.
    ‘I’m not entirely sure,’ he responded, but Rah has a plan, and you are most certainly a part of it.’
    I thought he had lost his mind. Rah had a plan for me? That didn’t seem likely. Tolah had told me nothing, and so, in my mind, that was all that mattered. Who even knew where to find the fairies? They were secretive and hid away from the rest of the realms. I had only met a handful in my lifetime, and I didn’t like any of them. They could hear my thoughts, which I found extremely intrusive and annoying. They were respectful enough about it, but having them answer a question I had not asked aloud was irritating.
    “You poor thing,” Dearra said, rolling her eyes.
    Well, that’s neither here nor there, Brin said sourly. The point is, I didn’t exactly warm to them, certainly not to the point where I would want to seek them out.
    I asked Oke to explain himself, but he did not respond. I saw that he was no longer breathing. I felt a strange pain deep in my chest, and I was concerned that whatever had taken Oke might also be affecting me. It was a horrible feeling, and it only got worse with each passing second. I backed away from the cottage, and I tried to take slow breaths, but there was no relief. A moment later, and I was overcome with a trembling in my legs, and I found that I could no longer stand. I was certain, at this point, that I was the victim of some horrible spell, or perhaps I had been poisoned.
    There was a splash of water in front of me, which I couldn’t believe—first I was poisoned, and now it was going to rain on me, and I hate the rain. As the shower progressed, I realized it fell only under my head and nowhere else. I looked up and searched the sky, but the few clouds that had drifted overhead were white and billowy, giving no sign they had been the source of the shower, and I didn’t understand.
    “You were crying, weren’t you, Brin?”
    Yes, Dearra, I was crying. It was the first time it had ever happened to me. I can’t say I felt relieved once I’d figured it out—understanding that I was shedding tears over the loss of my friend only seemed to intensify my pain.
    I stayed at his side for days, unable to leave him. I took some of the books with me, but I couldn’t carry many, so I only selected a few. The oldest ones. The ones Oke treasured most. Some of the books were dangerous, and I didn’t think he would want them to fall into the wrong hands. Also, I couldn’t just leave his body there to be defiled by animals or the elements, so, in the end, I burned the cottage.
    After that, I wasn’t sure where to go, except I knew it was definitely not going to be in the direction of any fairies. As I said, I hated rain, and I thought that someplace nice and dry, with good caves and very few trees, might be nice. A desert seemed like a good choice. The forest reminded me too much of Oke, besides, and the fairies loved forests as well, so there were two good reasons to avoid them. Eventually, I ended up in the Breken desert, and…