The ground opened up and swallowed them. It seemed a long way down its gullet. Siofra shut her eyes and felt Pol's arm tighten around her middle like steel. With her eyes shut, she couldn't tell whether or not they were really falling.

And if she couldn't tell... maybe they weren't.

It was nonsensical. The world was the world. It couldn't just dissolve around them, unless someone willed it so. And if that were the case, then someone whose will was stronger would just have to will it back. Siofra's eyes stayed shut, tight shut, the lids squeezed closed until light sparked off the insides of her lashes. The little pouch around her neck bounced, and she caught it tightly. Inside, the strange seed pressed hard as rock.

"Pol," Siofra cried. "That pouch you have, the one from Siobhan, use it now!" He didn't say anything, but she could feel him fumbling for it with his free hand. Siofra almost laughed, though the breath caught in her throat. She was already tearing at the leather thong that held the seed about her neck.

Pol's pouch was filled with dirt, special dirt, though he could not remember its qualities. All he recalled was that Siobhan had thought it important. It was just as well he did have it, he soon saw, for his love seemed to wish to wish to plant a seed right now.

The warrior held out the pouch full of dirt, and Siofra thrust Siobhan's seed into it. She had been worried about what to do for water, but no longer. The soil was moist. Now was the moment when she could wish for soil like what she had been shown in Manuan's hall. Soil that could make a seed spring up its head in seconds, not weeks. Perhaps, as they had been told, it took no more than will. Well, Siofra had will aplenty now. A desperate lot of will

"Grow!" she demanded of the seed. She clung to Pol and ignored the rush of the dying world around them. Her thoughts focused on the seed, on what it would need to know to come alive. She was a farmer, after all. She knew the way of the land. The hard shell softening, until the pale shoots within could stretch and crack it open. The roots pulling down, tasting the earth and the water. The first leaves lifting their heads to drink the sunlight. The rush of sap within the veins, like wine. Siofra could almost feel it herself in the springtime. She needed to feel it now. "Grow!"