Elgin stared glumly out of the frosty window, leaving ghosts of his breath on the panes. The moonlight danced on the sheet of ice covering Avaron River and slowing the lifeblood of the elves of Varon to a trickle. They tended to go into a sort of hibernation, sleeping eighteen hours of the day, waking only to eat a light meal and perform the most basic of housekeeping tasks - and the most necessary of natural functions. Councils, usually held fortnightly, were called only twice in the three winter months.

Elgin couldn't sleep. Every night of the past month, he'd tossed and turned on his soft reed pallet for hours before dropping into an uneasy sleep, drenched with sweat despite the winter chill. Tonight he could not even do that; his head was so full of swirling thoughts threatening to erupt - childhood memories, fears for his future, terrifying visions of the River bursting its banks and sweeping him away, anything and everything. Everything… except Sabin Cedarberry.

On restless nights like these, Elgin would silently slink, catlike, down the stairs of the wooden stilted cabin he shared with his mother and walk in the moonlight to the window of his best and only friend Marina Aspen. Her blue eyes saw through his projected persona and her acerbic observations kept his self-pity in check. But tonight the pelting sludge falling from the sky in almost solid chunks kept him trapped inside, alone and miserable with his thoughts.

He remembered the first time he'd met Marina, when they became Divining Apprentices together. At age thirteen all elves became Apprentices in one of the three River crafts - boat-making, fishing and Divining. Unwilling to dirty his hands in the rougher crafts, Elgin applied to be a Diviner. It was a craft usually practiced by women, but Mistress Katrina the Head Diviner accepted anyone she thought had the Gift - and a few she thought were lost souls in need of guidance.

It had been four years ago, their first day as Apprentices and the second official day of summer after the Great Council. They were down in the tree groves on the east bank of the River, and there was still an icy nip on the wind. For some reason, all of Elgin's important memories came with a weather report.

Varon's Diviners were a hybrid between mages and healers, and the first task the excitable new recruits were given was to use witch hazel dowsing rods to find underground sources of water that would be needed in winter, or in times of drought.

Elgin was nervous, still unsure of whether he'd made the right choice of Apprenticeship, and as Mistress Katrina said, "The rods pick up on your emotions. If you can't clear your head, you can't find water."

He held the L-shaped rods in his outstretched fists, and took a few steps forward between the trees. They swung shakily from side to side, completely unlike the smooth outward swing Mistress Katrina had demonstrated. He looked around to check the progress of the other Apprentices. A giggly, blonde elf hadn't fared much better and instead was admiring her shiny beaded bracelets in the sunlight, but next to her Sabin was skipping off purposefully, following wooden rods that behaved perfectly. Elgin peered down intently at the soft, new plants covering the ground and redoubled his efforts, but the rods had a mind of their own, and the more he tried, the less they cooperated.

One by one all twenty-four of Elgin's classmates found water, even Fillona Hawthorn, the blonde with the bracelets, until he was the only person whose rods were still jumping around without direction. Unsettled by being in such a crowd, and unused to failing at anything, his usual calm exterior became increasingly ruffled, reaching almost full blown panic. Mistress Katrina clucked around him, her iron grey hair fluffing out from the bun at the base of her neck, but all her efforts to get him to relax had proved useless.

The girls all hovered around him, predatory and feline, making snide remarks about men not being meant to be Diviners, unfairly, since Sabin and Logan Sprucewood, the only other males in the class, had been among the first to find water.

Sabin. Sabin…

Elgin thrust the thought of Sabin and the vibrant freckled intensity that followed him, to the very darkest, dustiest corner of his mind. He was not going to go there. Not tonight.

What had he been thinking about? Oh yes, Divining. He had been ready to give up and climb the hill to the village to find out if it was too late to sign up for the boat-making Apprentices when someone spoke up from the fringe of the group of onlookers.

"Mistress Katrina, might I help?"

"What? Yes, of course, Marina. Please."

An unusually tall elf stepped forward, followed by a cloud of messy, brown hair. As she moved closer she reached out her hands until they rested on his shoulders. She stood at least a head taller than Elgin.

The close presence of a woman generally made Elgin uncomfortable, akin to seasickness, but this Marina had an almost calming effect on him.

"Don't fight the rods, work with them. Close your eyes. Now breathe in and as you breathe, think of the sound of flowing water. Call it to you." There was an insistence in her voice that he found impossible to disobey. She added softly, "Unlike Fillona Hawthorn's brain, it wants to be found. Go on."

Slowly he relaxed, laughing at her jokes about Fillona and her gaudy, clinking jewellery. It still took him nearly a quarter of an hour to find water, but Marina patiently followed, holding his arm until he did. Mistress Katrina waddled over to offer a quiet word of congratulation. It was only then, when he looked up to thank Marina, that he saw her blue eyes.

"Lady Avaron! You're bl…" He stopped, feeling tactless.

She laughed, a curious splashing, like water pouring. "A bit slow, aren't we? Yes, I'm blind."

All elves were born blind, but those with blue eyes remained so for the rest of their lives. In the past, blue-eyed elflings had been drowned. In the last two hundred years this practice had fallen away after it was discovered that blind elves generally were strongly blessed with the Gift.

As he ambled his way back to the village, lagging behind the giggling flock of Apprentices, Elgin never wanted to go back. He wanted to hide in his bedroom forever and paint the sky and trees and River that he saw out of his window and never have to hear the careless laughter of the other Apprentices again. A cold wind blew up and he pulled his green cloak tighter around him.

When he came in sight of the raised wooden huts of the village clustered like mushrooms, he headed to the last hut on the left, smaller than the others, with hanging plants trailing from the balcony. He could hear singing coming from the kitchen. His mother must be home.

"Loyira andair/ sui folia boum/ veinto coura/ freyai sair."

It was a mournful old folk song, from before the elves had begun to live in Varon, and Elgin often caught his mother singing it when she thought that he wasn't around. Now he padded up the stairs as silently as he could. He couldn't face an interrogation into the day's failure. He managed to open the door without a sound and was halfway into the hall before his mother stopped singing.

"Hello, Elgin, how was your day?"

She stood over the scarred oak table without turning around, her dress and her calloused hands covered in flour. Elgin could see more flour adding to the streaks of grey in her red hair.

"It was okay."

"No, it wasn't. I can smell your frustration."

Elgin hated when his mother did this. Chana Alderbirch had been one of the best Diviners in her day, and her talent had been clairscentience, sensing people's emotions through smell. It seemed like a wonderful ability - until she turned it on him.

"My day was fine. But I'm not going back."

"That bad, eh? Darling, everyone hates their first day in their Apprenticeship. Even my first day with the Diviners was a nightmare." She still hadn't moved from the kitchen table.

"I don't want to talk about it, madyi," he said, turning in the direction of his room.

A while later there was a knock at his door. Elgin looked up from his easel.

"El, there's someone here to see you. It's a girl," his mother said with a teasing look.

"I'm not here." Who could it be?

"I'm not going to lie for you, my elfling. She's waiting in the living room. You can't hide forever."

Probably Fillona or one of her friends come to tell him what a rubbish Diviner he'd make. That Marina girl surely wouldn't come over after he'd put his pointy foot in it so badly back in the forest.

He reluctantly put his paintbrush into a jar of water with a dramatic sigh, the type only achievable by teenagers of all races everywhere. As he did his weary, 'I'm-doing-this-under-serious-duress' slink past his mother, she reached out and wiped a smudge of paint off his cheek. He pulled away.

Solidly occupying one of the battered cane chairs in the lounge was Marina, counting stitches under her breath as she knitted. Elgin stopped in the doorway. Typical, wasn't it? Just the person he didn't want to see. Lady Avaron, why do you hate me!

"Hello Elgin," Marina broke the silence, still knitting.

How the…? "Uh, hi." Heavens, this is awkward!

"You're pretty noisy for someone who isn't here."

Cringe. "You heard that?"

"I hear a lot of things I shouldn't. It comes with the territory."

What do I say? Do I laugh?

"It's okay, you can say the words. I'm blind. The sooner you get over it, the sooner we can have a decent talk. And sit down, it'll make you feel better."

Elgin still didn't know what to say, but he sat down. Marina seemed to sense his discomfort and carried on.

"I wanted to talk to you after the lesson today, but you evaporated pretty fast. And then Logan Sprucewood tried to be a gentleman and walk me home."

Elgin laughed as he pictured Logan's open face, handsome in an unmodelled sort of way, but so overwhelmingly earnest. Trying to walk the blind girl home was precisely the sort of thing he would do.

"You're relaxing. Good. Now I can get some conversation out of you."

"Don't get your hopes up. I don't talk much." Elgin watched Marina's deft brown fingers as they moved wool around the needles.

"I noticed. Don't worry, I talk enough for the both of us. I suppose you're wondering why I'm here."

That's an understatement. "Yes."

"It's about our Apprenticeship. I thought you…"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"I'm sure you don't. But what you want is irrelevant. Because you're going back with me, like it or not."

"No." Elgin was firm on this point. "I'm not."

"I can't last five years with those girls. I'll go mad. You're my only hope. Please." Elgin thought it didn't really sound like she was asking.

"What about Sabin? Or Logan?" he added with a twinkle in his eye.

"They're alright. But they haven't got any spark. Sabin's just a scared, little rabbit. And Logan, well he's just Logan."

More laughter. "I know what you mean. But the answer is still no. I'll never be a Diviner, let's face it."

"If you quit the Diviners, I'm coming with you to the boat-makers. And imagine me with a hammer. Do you want to be responsible for that?" Marina was suddenly serious. "Come on. I'll help you."

That was precisely the wrong thing to say. "Who says I want your help?" He got up angrily.

As he left the room, Marina called after him, "Okay. Sulk all you want. But I'll be here to pick you up tomorrow morning."

She was. And the day after that too. Almost every day for four years, Marina met him at his house and they walked to their Apprenticeship together. As promised, she helped him, and even though he never showed a flair for any branch of Divining, he never disgraced himself like he had on his first day. And now there was only a year left of his Apprenticeship, and then he'd have to face Mistress Katrina's 'real world.'

Elgin's mind seeped back into consciousness, and angle of the sun glittering weakly off the ice told him it was past nine o'clock. His eyelashes were gummed with sleep and his neck ached from lying on the window sill, but the dreamy cobwebs were dusted from his mind in an instant as he realised what day it was.