The healers on Inis án Ghaill are very young. The wars have called the more experienced, older men and women elsewhere—in the larger villages, and close to the front of fighting. Of course, Saoirse knows why she was brought to this center, because they believed her old warrior’s body is too old and tired to give anything for the healers to cling too. Saoirse is here so she won’t suffer in her decline. These young women are not even masters of the art, their tenure here is an apprenticeship of sorts, but they know about the treatment of pain. The old warrior sees the pity in these young eyes that although they have ways of taking away the constant pain, they have no remedy for the source of it.

The Golden Warrior, Auntie Freedom has seen sixty-or-so summers, and fought in many a battle. She has known the love of many a man, both during her impetuous youth and in the warmth of her golden years. She bore three fine children, although she’s already outlived two of them—strong Dubhglas with so much of her fighting spirit and sensitive, kind Arwen, the daughter she only knew at the very end. And her triplet brother as well, mad and wise Suibhne, finally succumbing to exposure one winter night, a smile frozen on his face.

She hasn’t talked with her remaining triplet sister, Siobhan, nor her only living son, Brandubh, in years, although she knows both live and thrive in whatever it is they would do. If Saoirse ever had any tiny inkling of her father’s magick, it was the tenuous bond she shared with her sister, and if anything happened to Brandubh or her sister, she would know immediately.

Saoirse believes her son still held contempt for her for the onetime struggle for the rulership of the Crannog lands. She was certain the rian would marry her son, Brandubh, and sealing the rights to her throne by his blood, but Ehlana ultimately would have none of the arranged marriage. What happened after is uncertain, whether the younger Saoirse, the red-haired woman with her name and nobody’s claim, actually stayed around to claim it.

Oh, her memory is weak—Saoirse can't recall any longer whether the Crannog is still in her clan’s hands, or whether some other tribe—the Beag?—held onto it…or was that Rahoon that they wrested from her tribe.

“Auntie Freedom, let me bring you something more to help you back to sleep.” the young healer's voice startles her from her reverie. She looks into the face of a girl whose name she couldn't remember.“You need your rest. Are you feeling the pain, Mam?” Saoirse can't remember anyone's name she's met since she came here.

“I dinna feel no pain, lass nor do I wanna sleep. I jes want to go home.” Saoirse means the Crannog, or somewhere that people she whose names she doesn’t know aren't doting on her. She has no desire to die just yet, every fiber in her body wants her to have a sword in her hand. She's been to the mists beyond the pale once before, and has no particular desire to return.

What she truly wishes is that someone would come to visit her.