“And then they broke out of the tree line and she could see the Blue Lakes, the water curving in and out of the great masses of land before disappearing around a bend where she knew it continued for miles more. The mountains seemed to wrap themselves around the water, to form a protective sort of wall so high and strong that Ari had the feeling she could be crushed by their enormity. Instead of wanting to flee, her insignificance shocked her with a strange sense of elation and she thought, for just a moment, that she had never seen anything so tragically beautiful. From where they stood, nearly at the foot of the lake, they were infinitely tiny yet the clouds and the water and the land all mixed together until she was entirely unaware of proportion. Perhaps the lake was an ocean. Perhaps the mountains were only hills.

In a moment, she understood the neat green of the forest and the scattered rocks and the dark of the land. She felt the Zrignigh Mountains breathing, and they were not a collection of dirt and stones but a single entity, a power more terrifying than anything she had ever witnessed. All connected by one beating heart, they swallowed the Blue Lakes whole, envel- oped them, fed off of their fruits, their life. She tried to breathe with them and found herself overwhelmed by their heartbeat.”