Nessa could not gather up the broken pieces of the Kin Stone; they were too heavy. This work of healing must come later. She took up a tiny fragment, perhaps part of the sea-beast’s strange tangle of limbs and tail, perhaps not, and put it in the little pouch that held her moon charms. She found she could not chant the solemn vow she had intended. Somewhere inside her there was an anguished wailing, a wild lament that refused to be set free. The cold calm that had come over her as she settled the lost men of the Folk for their long sleep had banished tears and muted her voice. That mattered little. The ancestors hear even a whisper, and an oath can be stone-sworn even when the sacred stone itself is shattered, for the truth can never be destroyed. Nessa looked to the east, down over the ruins of the settlement, and knelt to lay her hand on the head of the brave carven king. Receive our poor broken ones, gentle earth; cradle their spirits sweetly; give them rest. She stood, turning to face the west, and the sun laid her shadow long and straight across the earth to touch the farthest margin of the isles. Great ocean, bear their song of courage west and east and north and south, to all the corners of the world. Let it not be forgotten, what the Folk were.