Amadia awoke to the feeling of grass on her cheek. With some difficultly she rose and took in her surroundings. She stood in a large meadow, dotted with flowers. A small creek ran through it and on all sides were tall oaks marching in orderly rows until the disappeared in mist. Beyond the mist stood a line of pale blue mountains capped with ice which sparkled like diamonds in the midday sun. It was a serene place, but despite herself Amadia shiver, there was something wrong about it. The colors seemed too bright, the grass was too perfect to be real, and the creek was too clear. Amadia searched her mind, trying to remember where she was but all she remembered was darkness and the feeling of falling, endless falling. Then she remembered one word, Toa, and with it all her memories came back. Her being stabbed with the infected dagger. Fleeing with her brother and his friends, growing weaker every day, Shadow riding for a healer, Lonis telling her to stay awake, shadows face when he realized he had come back too late, Lonis shouting at her and slapping her face in an attempt to keep her awake, and then the falling, endless falling. Amadia began to run. She did not know why, or where she would go but she knew she had to leave the meadow. She ran through the afternoon and into the night, and when she at last fell from fatigue she was in the rolling foothills of the mountain she had seen from the meadow. She slept where she fell, and though the wolves circled her and eagle s wheeled above her hoping she would die and provide them fresh meat. But when the sun peered over the mountains and enfolded her in its golden cloak, she awoke.