Sira is captured and forced to live her forgotten memories, while the Clan sympathetic to her work with the Drapsk to bring their planet into the m’hir and Morgan tries to rescue his love while helping a friend.

I wasn’t fully engrossed in the story until more than halfway through, but then it got exciting, before losing me for a bit near the end. It had a lot of shifts in tone, and a lot of Clan politics that I had trouble grasping at times, so I just went with it. I think this trilogy would be best read back-to-back, and a second time, as I think I now understand what’s going on from the start. I’m sure there are many details hidden that only a second read would reveal. As usual, I was very impressed with the alien-ness of the aliens in this series, especially the Drapsk, who were both hilarious and frustrating at the same time. I was frustrated, though, that Sira is captured yet again, for the third time in three books, and her great power was hampered throughout –I love when she was at full strength at the end of the last book, and would have liked to see her like that again. Morgan’s point of view was more practical, though self-indulgent, while Huido, Barac and Rael had a lot of fun moments with the Drapsk and others. Strange that I look forward to the sequel trilogy, hoping to return to the old world with very cool aliens.

This trilogy is full of high concepts in politics and mating, culture of the Clan and their refusal to change after they’ve backed themselves into a corner. It’s interesting in that sense, but it took some time to get back into it. I think it would have been better to read the three books back-to-back to avoid losing track of it all. Only the books didn’t interest me enough to do that.

I still think Sira is unfortunately not all that interesting as a character. My favorite points of view were from Huido (truly alien) and Barac, who I think is a much better representative of the Mhiray as a species.

Sira spends most of the book in captivity, yet again. This is the third time in three books that this has happened. Despite being the most powerful Clan member in history, she’s overwhelmed at each turn. In this book, she’s sideswiped by –what exactly? I’m not even sure at this point. Was it the Singer from inside the m’hir? Even Symons seemed shocked to see her, but took advantage of her weakness when she suddenly appeared.

Her captivity in the stasis chamber served to show us what she’d locked away in terms of memories and personality, as well as giving us (finally) a lesson in how the Clan creates pathways to distant parts of the galaxy, their maturation to Chooser, and why they are dying as a race, though some of this was covered in the previous book, Ties of Power. The stronger the divide between mother and child, the faster and longer the connection could be when established, as the young are always fostered away from home to create this link, a fundamental trait of the species in its current form. Sira’s father was always interested in power, urging her to form the new pathway, and gain advantage from her experiment when it seemed that she was too powerful for any male. We see Sira grow older, into her seventies as she hasn’t gone through the Power of Choice, and make the decision to experiment with human telepaths, which leads her to A Thousand Words for Stranger.

Morgan and Sira were on their way to Plexis to try and unravel problems Huido was having due to events in the last couple of books, where he served human to some aliens to get rid of evidence, and the appearance of a human in his freezer. When Bowman shows up telling them about Clan fosterlings being shipped from Acranam, a Clan world that refuses to accept Sira as Speaker, and where she was kidnapped to in the first book, Sira ports directly to Plexis to find one. Right into Symon’s hands.

Meanwhile, Morgan has to stop at Kimmcle, a remote outpost to get his ship fixed, where he has chance encounters with aliens interested in Sira. The Drapsk then show up telling him that Sira is in danger, when they really just want to capture her themselves. This is the Heerii clan, rivals to the Makki that adored her in the last book. They fix Morgan’s ship, and he heads off to Ettler’s planet to save Huido and a fosterling, not knowing that Sira’s stasis chamber is on that same planet.

Huido himself provides some much needed fun, even as he’s in danger throughout the book. He’s an amazingly drawn alien creature who tolerates human behavior because they are good clients, and Morgan because they are blood brothers. His nephew shows up, tries to get to his wives, and takes Huido’s place during the investigation because nobody can tell Carasians apart. He’s taken on a Clan fosterling who was sent to Plexis and abandoned. Ruti has not reached the Power of Choice yet, and is wary of the world, taking information from people’s minds indiscriminately to survive. At Huido’s she takes on the role of a cook, until Symon (under a different name) befriends her. When Sira suddenly shows up, Symon abandons her for the more powerful Clan.

I can’t figure out the geography of the system, but it seems that Plexis and Ettler’s Planet are in the same solar system, because travel between the two is quick and easy, but in other instances, they seem to be orbiting different stars. It doesn’t really matter, but it’s confusing at times. Huido and Ruti follew some religious sect to Ettler’s Planet, where they hide in an old apartment.

It seems that after Sira left the Drapsk homeworld at the end of the last book, she sent Rael and Barac there to help those aliens reconnect their world the m’hir. Barac almost makes it, almost succumbs to the power of the planet in that alternate space. The scenes were the most fun because they had to interact with the ever-helpful but obstinate Drapsk, including the skeptics and their odd culture. The interactions were hilarious, as in the previous book. Even when they want to help, they aren’t very helpful.

Barac senses Ruti’s presence, and goes to Ettler’s planet, where he finds her, recently abandoned as Huido went to hunt Symon and rescue Sira. Barac gets involved in an awesome mental battle with the human telepaths, showing how powerful he is. At this point, it’s obvious that he’ll be the mate for Ruti, who undergoes the Power of Choice before the end. They hide in Morgan’s old safe house, and Barac is willing to give in, to die in the m’hir because he can’t leave Ruti. Being another super-powerful Chooser, she would overwhelm him. But because he’s been through so much as a scout, with Morgan, with Sira and the Drapsk, he survives. This interaction was probably my favorite of the book.

Sira is rescued by the Heerii clan, but imprisoned on their ship, with their m’hir dampener. She gets them all into a state of eeopie, turning them into balls and transferring their roles while she is left impotent. When they come back to normal, they transport her to the world of the Rugherans; the Heerii had brought one to the gathering to choose the Sacred One in the last book. Their belief is that Sira must be sacrificed to the Rugherans to reconnect Drapski to the m’hir, as opposed to the path the Makki took. Here, Sira faces her fear of the singer in the m’hir, which has haunted her since her first encounter. It turns out to be Drapski itself, searching for a way to reconnect.

For the Drapsk stole the Rugheran homeworld, and the Rugherans withheld the m’hir from Drapski, while the Drapsk need the m’hir to reproduce. How they either species did all this, I'm not sure. But Sira reconnects them all, and they find baby Drapsk when they return -the Drapski need the m'hir for reproduction.

Morgan, for his part, finds Symon, who had turned on his protégé when he was younger, and perpetrated the kidnapping of Clan members and human telepaths, including Sira, all because a Clan tampered with his mind. It’s a weak plot point, but serves to assuage his guilt when Morgan heals him, and he gives up the last bit of his power to Morgan to get the Silver Fox to the planet of the Rugherans to rescue Sira, dying in the end.

I guess now that it’s been proven that a sud can be Chosen by a di of the Clan, and that Mhiray and humans can breed, that their culture will change. As with the previous books, this aspect interested me less than the way Barac and Morgan interacted with the others. Sira was the main point of view character, but held my interest the least. I’m glad that the book continued with the first person Sira POV separated every chapter with an Interlude that featured the others. It also liked the way that most Interludes started with the same or nearly the same words that ended Sira’s chapters.