With mingled amusement and scorn, I observe my half-sister assessing the people who have crowded into Nevvyn's tiny hut. She smirks confidently at Nevvyn, as if sharing a private joke.

Then she turns her attention to the star-watcher Gorma, who gazes right back at her as placidly as the full moon. Nemanda nods, apparently satisfied with whatever she thinks she sees in Gorma's calm demeanor. She turns next to Fraoch but quickly looks away, dazzled by his half-sidhe glimmer.

Amlaidh and Fenian are the next targets of those searching eyes. By the broadening expanse of her smile, apparently they meet her approval. Aine is next to face Nemanda's gloating grin, which has yet to be returned in kind. Raising an eyebrow, Aine throws me a puzzled glance. I notice that her hand rests uneasily on the hilt of her sword.

Finally Nemanda looks at me as if she can't quite recall where we've met. Tension rises silently in the closeness of the warm room as we glare at each other. Sensing a threat, true or false, Fenian edges closer.

The would-be Rian opens her mouth to speak. Just then the door bursts open! Niamh returns to us from tending the horses. One glance at Nemanda, another glance at me, and Niamh Gabulfota knows. Swift as lightning her sword flashes out, its tip pointing none too gently against Nemanda's pale throat.

In a blink, blades unsheath from every side. Nemanda scarcely flinches. An indignant blush colors her hollow cheeks. Fraoch shakes his head in disbelief. He and I are the only ones whose swords are not in hand, besides Nevvyn and Gorma, who are unarmed.

"Nemanda!" I spit out her name like a bite of bitter fruit. "I thought you were dead."

I was too young to remember. But rumors followed me all of my life, whispers that my mother birthed another child just a year after I was born. This one was fathered by a charming itinerant bard whose name was quickly forgotten. No one could keep secrets from me, stubborn lass that I was. I pried, pushed and probed until the story was told. This roving bard, it was said, demanded permanent patronage when Nemanda was born but by then his charms had worn thin. My mother was head over heels in love with Eldrich the Bard of Leinster, and would have no other. In a fit of anger, Nemanda's father took her away with him and they were never heard of again - until last summer when a messenger came and quietly delivered news to me that they had both been slaughtered in a raid.

No, instead she is very much alive, and calling on Nevvyn, my own father, to support her silly claims.

I reach out to put one hand on Niamh's sword arm, another on Fenian's shoulder, drawing them back from Nemanda. "Rest easy, all of you. This poor demented woman is no threat to anyone but herself. She is my half-sister, that much is true. Her father was a mongrel dog of a poet to whom my mother took a brief fancy one winter. That is the whole of this sorry tale."