“I followed her voice, along the freezing stone and up to the very edge of that precipice. And on the other side of the river, back across the freezing Volta, I saw her on the shoreline. Just a pale shadow in the frail dawning, face framed by long locks of midnight. A beauty spot beside dark lips, one eyebrow arched as always. She stood among the snow-clad boughs and the ruins of a once-green kingdom, watching me. And she spoke then, lips moving, her voice a warm whisper in my mind. “‘My lion.’ “‘My life,’ I sighed. ‘How did you—’ “‘Always, Gabriel. I will always find you.’
