"Cecelia Holland moves through history like a sorceress with a time machine." – Richmond Times Dispatch
They were one soul in two bodies, Corban and Mav, twins born to the
lord of a Irish coastal farmstead. Mav had the Second Sight, and was
her father's delight; Corban, though, was a deep disappointment,
finally exiled for refusing his father's command to go and take up a
sword for the High King.
But on the night of Corban's exile, as
he slept in the woods and brooded on injustice, the dreadful dragon
ships of the Vikings bore down on his home with fire and the sword. The
farm was plundered and burned; all the people were slain, save the
young women – they were raped and dragged off to a life of slavery.
From
the coast of Ireland to the occupied village of Dublin, across the
Irish Sea to a Viking stronghold in Britain, and then across the sea to
the Kingdom of the Danes, Corban is drawn in the track of his ravaged
sister, fighting for his own life and to earn the influence and money
he will need to buy her freedom. His quest is not hopeless, for Mav's
second sight, made stronger by the dreadful fate that has befallen her,
has brought her to the attention of the Lady of Hedeby. The Lady,
wealthy and influential in the Kingdom of the Danes, has bought Mav;
she intends to use the twins, and their link with each other, to extend
that influence far beyond Hedeby.
