‘Maybe what you have in Thalesia’s just a creature you call an Ogre,’ Oscagne said dubiously.

‘Twelve feet tall? Horns? Fangs? Claws for fingers? That’s an Ogre, isn’t it?’

‘Well –’

‘That’s what we’ve got in Thalesia. If they aren’t Ogres, we’ll settle for them until you can find us some real ones.’

Oscagne stared at him.

‘They aren’t all that bad, your Excellency. The Trolls give us more trouble – probably because they’re meat eaters. Ogres eat anything. Actually, they prefer trees for dinner over people. They’re particularly fond of maple trees for some reason – probably because they’re sweet. A hungry Ogre will kick his way right through your house to get at a maple tree you’ve got growing in your backyard.’

‘Is he actually serious?’ Oscagne appealed to the others. Ulath sometimes had that effect on people.

Tynian reached over and rapped the Ogre-horns on Ulath’s helmet with his knuckles. These feel fairly serious to me, your Excellency,’ he said. ‘And that raises some other questions. If Ogres are real, we might want to re-think our positions on vampires, werewolves and these Shining Ones as well. Under the circumstances, we might consider discarding the word “impossible” for the time being.’

‘But you are, Mirtai,’ Princess Danae insisted.

‘It’s a different kind of thing, Danae,’ the Atana told her. ‘It’s symbolic in my case.’

‘Everything’s symbolic, Mirtai,’ Danae told her. ‘Everything we do means something else. There are symbols all around us. No matter how you want to look at it, though, we have the same mother, and that makes us sisters.’ It seemed very important to her for some reason. Sparhawk was sitting with Sephrenia in the corner of a large room of King Androl’s house. His daughter was busy asserting her kinship with Mirtai as Baroness Melidere and Ehlana’s maid looked on.

Mirtai smiled gently. ‘All right, Danae,’ she gave in, ‘if you want to think so, we’re sisters.’

Danae gave a little squeal of delight, jumped into Mirtai’s arms and smothered her with kisses.

‘Isn’t she a little darling?’ Baroness Melidere laughed.

‘Yes, Baroness,’ Alean murmured. Then a small frown creased the girl’s brow. ‘I’ll never understand that,’ she said. ‘No matter how closely I watch her, she always manages to get her feet dirty.’ She pointed at Danae’s grass-stained feet. ‘Sometimes I almost think she’s got a boxful of grass hidden among her toys, and she shuffles her feet in it when my back’s turned just to torment me.’

Melidere smiled. ‘She just likes to run barefoot, Alean,’ she said. ‘Don’t you ever want to take off your shoes and run through the grass?’

Alean sighed. ‘I’m in service, Baroness,’ she replied. ‘I’m not supposed to give in to that sort of whim.’

‘You’re so very proper, Alean,’ the honey-eyed Baroness said. ‘If a girl doesn’t give in to her whims now and then, she’ll never have any fun.’

‘I’m not here to have fun, Baroness. I’m here to serve. My first employer made that very clear to me.’ She crossed the room to the two ‘sisters’ and touched Danae’s shoulder. ‘Time for your bath, Princess,’ she said.

‘Do I have to?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s such a bother. I’ll just get dirty again, you know.’

‘We’re supposed to make an effort to stay ahead of it, your Highness.’

‘Do as she tells you, Danae,’ Mirtai said.

‘Yes, sister dear,’ Danae sighed.

‘That was an interesting exchange, wasn’t it?’ Sparhawk murmured to Sephrenia.

‘Yes,’ the small woman agreed. ‘Has she been letting things slip that way very often?’

‘I didn’t quite follow that.’

‘She’s not really supposed to talk about symbols the way she just did when she’s around pagans.’

‘I wish you wouldn’t use that word to describe us, Sephrenia.’

‘Well, aren’t you?’

‘It sort of depends on your perspective. What’s so important about symbols that she’s supposed to hide them?’

‘It’s not the symbols themselves, Sparhawk. It’s what talking about them that way reveals.’

‘Oh? What’s that?’

‘The fact that she doesn’t look at the world or think about it in the same way we do. There are meanings in the world for her that we can’t even begin to comprehend.’

‘I’ll take your word for it. Are you and Mirtai sisters now, too? I mean, if she’s Danae’s sister and you are too, wouldn’t you almost have to be?’

‘All women are sisters, Sparhawk.’

‘That’s a generalisation, Sephrenia.’

‘How perceptive of you to have noticed.’

Vanion entered the room. ‘Where’s Ehlana?’ he asked.

‘She and Betuana are conferring,’ Sparhawk replied.

‘Who’s translating for them?’

‘One of Engessa’s girls from Darsas. What did you want to talk with her about?’

‘I think we’ll be leaving tomorrow. Engessa, Oscagne and I talked with King Androl. Oscagne feels that we should press on to Matherion. He doesn’t want to keep the emperor waiting. Engessa’s sending his legions back to Darsas, he’ll be going on with us, largely because he speaks Elenic better than most Atans.’

‘That doesn’t disappoint me,’ Mirtai said. ‘He’s my father now, and we really ought to get to know each other better.’

‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you, Vanion?’ Sephrenia said it half-accusingly.

‘I’ve missed it,’ he admitted. ‘I’ve been at the centre of things for most of my life. I don’t think I was meant to sit on the back shelf.’

‘Weren’t you happy when there were just the two of us?’

‘Of course I was. I’d have been perfectly content to spend the rest of my life alone with you, but we’re not alone any more. The world’s intruding upon us, Sephrenia, and we both have responsibilities. We still have time for each other, though.’

‘Are you sure, Vanion?’

‘I’ll make sure, love.’