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meeting on Danar, when he and she had walked together under the blossoming haeli trees. Ixelion squatted before her, lifting one of her limp hands and brushing the cold fingertips with his own.
    â€œFalia,” he ordered quietly, “come here.” She did not move, and he repeated the words slowly, emphatically, still holding her hand. Her feet were covered with a thin film of dust, and dust lay also on her shoulders and her head. “Come,” he said a third time. “Ixelion is here. He wishes to speak with you.” After a long time her hand trembled, and she withdrew it from his grasp. Then she took a deep, uneven breath and blinked. Her head rolled back against the carved support of the chair, her shoulders slumped, and the hand that he had held fluttered anxiously over the box in her lap as though she feared it would no longer be there. Ixelion rose and stood looking down on her, giving her time to take the last steps into the present, and then he spoke. “Falia, get up. Come to the window.”
    She gathered the box to her breast and rose stiffly, turning to face him, and even in the brooding dimness he could see the glow of a happier, more innocent time dying slowly behind her green eyes, struggling against this day, this hour.
    â€œIxelion,” she said, “how dark it is! Is it night?” As she looked at him the gentle fire went out of her face, and her eyes widened. “No, no,” she whispered. “Not yet. I must rest a little more. I am weary.”
    He took her arm and drew her to the window. “Look down,” he commanded harshly, “and see what you have done.” His grip tightened, and reluctantly she put one hand upon the stone casing and leaned out, the other hand still clutching the fragrant box. Far below, down on the floor of the world, the dreary land stretched away into an infinity of cold dimness. The sky was so dark that the stars shone faintly, their light stronger than the frail rays of the exhausted sun. Ixelion knew that if he had led her to the opposite window, he could have shown her the devastation of her warring mortals: fire devouring the pastures and murder, suspicion, and despair stalking unchallenged among the armies. But here there was peace of a kind, unquestioning, accepting, the peace of defeat. For a long time she looked and then she drew back. “I did not do this,” she said. “How can you accuse me of such a thing? I am not like Kallar or Mallan. I did not surrender to black fire, I did not bow.”
    â€œBut neither did you fight. You went away, Falia, you retreated into your mind. You did not even send us word, and we did not suspect. Where have you been?”
    She put a hand over her eyes. “I have been walking alone on the hills, under my sun, in the time before the Worldmaker shaped mortal men.” The hand passed over her face and fell once more to the box. “Ah, Ixelion! How much simpler existence was then, when the worlds were whole, when he loved what he had made. …”
    â€œHush!” he said sharply. “Not here.”
    She smiled painfully, and Ixelion noticed that in the short time they had been speaking tiny lines had begun to inch through the skin that since the beginning had been smooth and beautiful. The silver hair now had a metallic dullness, the long neck held a hint of slackness about the jaw, and around the grass-green eyes and the soft mouth the flesh had begun to pouch. He resisted the urge to step away from her and glanced out at her sun. She followed his gaze and then abruptly sat again in the chair, cradling the box.
    â€œTell me, Ixelion,” she said haltingly, “what year is it?”
    He was glad that he stood behind her. “I do not know,” he replied steadily. “How did you allow this to happen to you? How long has it been since you looked out?”
    She answered him in a low, hurried voice, her eyes on the stone wall in front of her.