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water that reflected nearby trees with budding leaves and a puffy white cloud that transgressed the sapphire sky above.  Birds, oblivious to his presence, chirped freely and swirled about one another in a ritual of spring as old as life itself.  The place was so alive with wildlife and foliage, yet so calming, he had to dismount and stay for a while.
                  He watered his horse at the pool then let the animal wander a little ways to find fresh grass while he sat with his back resting against the trunk of a tree.  The sun was warm on his face.  The wind, warm compared to what it was like further north, ruffled his short hair.  He closed his eyes and tried to sense what was around him. 
                  Master Gelarus taught that there was power in nature, a power that was a part of everything.  The wind, the earth, life, water, people, even a grain of sand was part of that power.  It was further taught that some people could use that power, some more, some less.  In every town you could find someone with an uncanny ability to predict the weather, or a healer who made near miraculous cures at one time or another.  Gelarus said that they were the people who didn’t believe, themselves, that they had any power.  They would never learn the full extent of who they were.  Then there were those who believed.  Far fewer in number, they were trained by someone skilled in the arts of using Naturus.  That’s what Gelarus called the power.  Those people usually went to Herrinhall, a city far to the north, where the wizards studied.  Gelarus told him that wizard wasn’t the proper term since he considered himself a student of nature and far from wise, but nobody was fooled by the man’s modesty.  Gelarus seemed to know something about everything.              
                  Coran sat under the tree’s limbs and tried to touch that power, to sense something beyond what his normal senses could perceive.  He could feel a rabbit test the air for danger with its nose and he knew a mosquito hovered above the surface of the pond.  A hawk flew high above, its wings spread as it rode the winds searching for any movement on the ground with its keen eyesight.  He realized those things were there and what they did, but that was as far as he usually got.  He could sense nothing beyond a certain point, maybe ten yards or so.  Gelarus informed him that very few people could sense that much, and insisted that Coran could learn more no matter how many times he had failed.  For the first time he did see something else.  It was elusive but he got the impression of a woman’s face.  It wasn’t the woman who occupied his dreams though, this one was different.  Then it was gone.
                  He opened his eyes.  One look to the sky told him that more time had passed than he thought.  He rose to his feet and brushed himself off before retrieving his mount.  He led the animal to the pool for a last drink before leaving.  As the horse drank he thought of the two faces in his mind.  The one that had been in his dreams was a faceless shape.  He knew it was a woman, but that was all.  Whenever he tried to look at it more closely the dream ended and he woke.  The face he saw today was clear, yet the image had been brief.  Too brief to remember anything besides the fact that he didn’t recognize her.  The horse’s whicker brought him out of his thoughts.                
                  He rode until the last light of the sun faded from the sky, then made a simple camp under the stars.  He thought he should reach Summerhall by midmorning.  Because of his eagerness it was quite a while before he was able to sleep.
     
                  Katelyn Sundarrion dressed for the day in a simple blue dress.  It was long sleeved and had a high neckline in the conservative fashion of Midia.  She held back her black hair with