‘What are you two talking about that is making Cinda so dewy eyed?’ Elkar enquired, coming to join us.

Cinda insisted on recounting the story in fingertalk as we made our way to the Healing Hall, and when she had got to the end, Elkar looked at me and said aloud, ‘I hope he finds her safe and that they are able to be together at last. Many sorrows and hardships are bearable if you can have your beloved at the last. The saddest thing would be to long for someone and strive for them, and yet never to be allowed to be with them.’

Cinda gave him an exasperated look and flicked her fingers at him, and he laughed and shook his head at her. We had reached the Healing Hall now, where Roland was waiting with several boxes of herbs as well as some small bags. He greeted us all and then told the Norselanders, ‘Two healers have volunteered to go back with you to Herder Isle to work with Sover. You need not worry about them taking up space in the wagons. They have gone to ask horses to carry them as far as the lowlands. They both have secondary Talents as empaths and Millen has a weak coercive Talent as well, which Sover might put to good use. They will stay till the spring and then return. By the way, I advise you to think about changing the name of the place. Those wretched Herders do not deserve to have an island named after them,’ he added grouchily.

Elkar said diplomatically that the matter of renaming Herder Isle had been under discussion ever since the Faction had collapsed. Then he and Cinda began to examine the herbs. I took the time to ask the Healer guildmaster quietly how the twins fared.

He shook his head, his expression at once grim and weary. Since my probe was still bedded in Cinda’s mind, she felt my grief and regret and asked if she might go with me to see the twins, of whom she had heard much talk. When I conveyed her request, Roland glared at her but she only looked back at him with her wide, gentle grey eyes until his expression softened. He led us to the chamber where the twins lay and Cinda looked down on them with pity and wonder.

‘It is as if they are a prince and princess under a wicked spell of power like that storysong you showed me,’ she said.

‘If only there was magic strong enough to break the spell that binds them,’ I said, and thought of Angina in shining spirit-form, begging me to help them. Use the black sword, he had said.

‘What is the black sword?’ Cinda asked.

‘It was only something in a dream,’ I sent, though saying it, I found myself wondering if this were true.

‘It is often so with twins,’ Elkar murmured after Cinda had told him about them. ‘There is a goddess bond between them and none may sever that.’