Stoplar lay in a sun-drenched bowl scooped out of the snow-covered black mountains towering around it. In the centre lay a vast stretch of rich brown earth tilled into low ridges. This was patrolled by children who waved and called to each other as they passed. Several also walked around a wall that divided the plain from slopes of lush grass dotted with plump sheep and small black cows. Here and there stood farms, and behind them, reaching right to the boundary of the mountains, were orchards of apples, pears, cherries and other trees Tia didn’t recognise. On the far side of the bowl was the town. It was as strange and beautiful as the rest of this sunny land in the middle of the cold mountains. Brightly painted houses filled rows of terraces that rose in steps up the steep foothills, while above them was a shining white building with hundreds of windows. It was so dazzling in the sunshine that Tia had to shade her eyes. As she squinted through laced fingers she thought, It must be Luona’s castle but it’s more like a palace – there aren’t any fortifications or gates.
