Regarding the Dragonstone: some scholars now speculate that the stone itself was responsible for Dara Arin's vision. It was, after all, a token of power, and tokens of power have ways of fulfilling their own destinies. In any event, after Arin and her companions gave over the stone to Doriane, it was indeed taken to the deep vaults below and a deadly net of spells was cast about it as it was locked away. And when Rwn was destroyed some three hundred twenty-two years after, the stone was thought lost forever. Yet some eight millennia later, and a half a world away, in the Jinga Sea after an all-day struggle a fisherman in a small boat single-handedly landed a great fish. When he finally got back to his village that night and gutted his dark-eyed catch, in its belly he found a peculiar green stone, egg-shaped and jadelike and the size of a melon. This very same day in Moku, after an all-day travail of labor to give birth, a peasant woman was delivered of a child with a peculiar Dragonlike mark on its forehead. The midwives fell down in worship. Some twenty years passed ere the green stone found its way into the hands of this child… and of course we all know what happened then.

Finally, concerning free will versus predestination: Ferai and Burel never settled their debate… and neither has anyone else.

'The first rule of life is to live."