“No,” he said, so soft she could scarcely hear his voice. Then, not waiting for an answer, “Who are you? Where are we going?” She had been struggling a long time, and she was tired. Sharra did not struggle, not then, though she knew she should.

“You are weak,” he said, “and night is coming. “Easy,” a mellow voice said, and she saw a face dimly through gathering mist, a man’s face, long and somehow gentle. But the arms just tightened and held her still. She woke to arms around her, strong arms that lifted her easily to carry her somewhere, and she woke struggling. Then, as the purple sun dipped lower behind the ridge, she crawled away from the water to a sheltered spot among the trees and fell into exhausted sleep. She drank, washed her arm as best she could in the strange and doubtful water, and bound her injuries with bandages ripped from her clothes. No way to tell if it was safe, but Sharra was weak and thirsty. The water, for all its swiftness, was a dark and murky green. She appeared by the side of the stream, shaking, and she threw a quick, wary glance about her before she knelt to dress her wounds. And her left arm, bare and slender, still bled from three long wounds. She wore a plain white dress, now stained and sweaty, and a heavy fur cloak that had been half-ripped from her back. Then, through a gate unseen, Sharra came tired and bloodied to the world of Laren Dorr. The only sounds were the cries of the mourning-birds coming out for the night, and the swift rush of water in the rocky stream that cut the woods.

The setting sun hung fat and violet on the ridge above, and its rays slanted down silently into a dense forest whose trees had shiny black trunks and colorless ghostly leaves.

One moment there was only the valley, caught in twilight. A small tale within the greater, of one world where Sharra paused, and of the lonely singer Laren Dorr and how they briefly touched. We have only the middle, or rather a piece of that middle, the smallest part of the legend, a mere fragment of the quest. The end? The end is not yet, and when it comes we shall not know it. The beginning of her story is lost to us, with the memory of the world from which she sprang. She wears about her brow a circlet of burnished metal, a dark crown that holds her hair in place and sometimes puts shadows in her eyes. She is gray-eyed and pale of skin, or so the story goes, and her hair is a coal-black waterfall with half-seen hints of red. There is a girl who goes between the worlds.

Lonely light game of thrones