“Long before I was old enough to perform this dance myself,” I said, thinking how complicated was the web of family sorrows and joys and shared experience, “I discovered the gods had a particular path in mind for me. Up until then, I don’t believe the rest of my family knew how differently I saw the world. My eyes should have given it away. My sisters have green eyes, but mine, as you see, are a light blue-gray. Such eyes are shared only by those members of my family with a powerful seer’s gift.” I paused, an image of my little brother in my mind, with his tangle of dark hair and his clear, unswerving stare. At four years old, Finbar had the manner of a wise hermit, which was more than a little disconcerting. His eyes were like those of his namesake, the man with the swan’s wing; and they were like mine. “Such a gift manifests itself in many of my kin. Some are able to speak mind to mind, without words. Some have prophetic dreams. Some are gifted in the interpretation of signs and portents. In a few of us the gift is . . . more powerful. Perilous, if not well governed.

“I knew quite early that I was not like my sisters. I never wanted to race about and play and make lots of noise. I preferred to sit quietly, watching and thinking. I had a thirst for learning; I was pestering Father’s scribe to teach me reading and writing before I was three years old. I found that creatures trusted me. Observing them, I discovered I could feel, inside myself, the ways their bodies worked, their different manners of seeing and hearing, their small secrets. I did not like to be cooped up indoors too long; I needed the earth beneath my feet and the wind in my hair. But all of those things could have meant simply that I was a thoughtful, scholarly, quiet sort of child. Then, when I was five years old, I saw her.”

I had learned the art of storytelling in the nemetons, and I let the silence draw out. He did understand, surely; how could such an intent expression mean anything else?

“I was alone on the rocks by the lake, close to home,” I went on. “The others had gone to gather cress at the mouth of a stream. I was looking into the water, wondering why it was I always saw something that I knew couldn’t really be there—a ship on the sea, a crowd of strange, small creatures, a tower with a banner at the top—when someone spoke behind me. ‘Sibeal. Turn around, child.’