A good end to the Trilogy. This one was a bit more Darkover than its predecessor, which makes me wonder how much MZB worked on each. It has a stereotypical for saga fantasies sad ending, which I found a bit emo, and wondered if it was a recent addition and then I sat back and thought about the other Darkovan books and realized that, on the whole, EVERY book in the grand series was a bit dark and sad, even when the ending was a "happy" one.