S Farrell - Holder of Lightning

"You say that now."

"I'll put it in writing, if you wish."

Jenna could feel her hands trembling. She placed her right hand over her left, trying to conceal the

nervousness. In the three days since the Banrion had made the suggestion back in Inishfeirm, she had agonized over this. The night the Banrion had come, she’d gone to the harbor and called Thraisha, but no matter how wide she cast the vision of Lamh Shabhala, she couldn’t find her. The Holders within the cloch na thintri had been useless, yammering contradictory advice. She had found Riata in the babble and spoken with him, but he had only sighed. "The Daoine way isn’t ours," he said, more than once, and didn’t seem to be able to comprehend the implications, so foreign to his culture. She’d called her da from the carving of the blue seal, and he had listened sympathetically, but in the end all he could tell her was to do what she thought best. She wished more than once that she could talk with her mam again-she wondered what Maeve’s advice might be, caught up as she was in the same snare-but her mam was with Mac Ard. She closed her eyes every night and called to Ennis’ spirit, trying to bring him to her to tell her what to do… but the only answer had been the wind and the steady, relentless sound of the surf against the rocks.

"You are the only one who can make the decision," Riata had said finally. "You are the one who has to live it."

"Write it, then," Jenna said. "And we will marry, Kyle MacEagan."

"Please leave us, Keira," MacEagan said to Jenna’s attendant. The young woman-no older than Jenna herself-lowered her gaze, curtsied quickly, and vanished, closing the door to the bedchamber behind her. MacEagan smiled at Jenna, sitting on the edge of the bed and pulling her night robe tightly around her neck. He held a bottle of wine and two goblets.

"I thought I would come and say good night, Jenna," he said. He re-mained standing at the door. He nodded toward the polished wood be-hind him. "You can trust her. Keira’s been with me since she was twelve; she knows how to keep her mouth shut and eyes averted when they need to be. Or if you have someone else you feel you can trust more. .

?"

Jenna shook her head, mute. MacEagan-my husband, she thought. I Wonder if I will ever stop shivering when I hear that-continued to smile.

" ’Bantiarna Jenna MacEagan of Be an Mhuilinn,

Holder of Lamh Shabhala.' I imagine that will sound strange to you for a while."

"I think it may always sound strange," Jenna answered.

"If asked, Keira will swear that I spent our wedding night here in the chamber," MacEagan said. "But Alby has put together a room for me m across the hall. I thought. ." He lifted the wine and gold-rimmed goblets "We should at least share a drink together first. I would like that, if you're willing. It's been a long and tiring day for both of us."

That was certainly true enough. Banrion Aithne had given Jenna a cloca of finest white silk that had come all the way from Thall Mor-roinn. Jenna had let Keira and the other attendants dress her, feeling numb and some-how detached, as if she were watching this happen to someone else. The wedding had been in the Great Hall of Dun Kiil Keep; she entered the hall to find the Ri and Banrion, the entire Comhairle, Moister Cleurach and several of the Brathairs of the Order, and many of the minor Riocha of the city in attendance. The dripping of the stones punctuated the droning voice of the Draiodoir brought from the Mother-Creator's temple to con-duct the ceremony. Jenna stood next to MacEagan, not truly hearing the words, and when the Draiodoir handed her the traditional oaken branch to break, symbolizing her departure from her previous family, the dry crack of the stick had sounded impossibly loud and she had dropped the half she was to give to MacEagan, startled. The party afterward had been interminable. A singer had begun the Song of Mael Armagh, his baritone voice so much like Coelin's that Jenna felt her breath go shallow for a moment. The food in front of her seemed to taste of ashes and paper. A seemingly eternal line of well-wishers passed their table. Jenna had won-dered what they were thinking behind their carefully smiling faces, their choreographed movements, their polite and empty words. .

MacEagan poured the wine and handed one of the goblets to Jenna. She took it, but stared down into the well of purple liquid without drink-ing. She felt as if she wanted to cry, but her eyes were almost painfully dry. "I don't feel much like celebrating," she said.

"I'm sorry you feel that way, Jenna. Truthfully."

She glanced up; there was genuine empathy in his face, a distress that carved deeper the lines around his eyes. "I realize I can’t ever fill the void Ennis left in you, perhaps one day someone will. But I do promise that in the meantime won’t make the emptiness larger."

"What does that mean?"

He sat on the bed near her, leaving a hand’s width between them-When she moved away, he remained where he was. "It means that stand with you even if others won’t. The truth is, when the time comes finally choose sides-and it’s coming sooner than anyone except perhaps Aithne, Kianna, and I believe-neither you nor I know where the final lines will be drawn and who will stand where. People do strange things when they think it’s to their advantage, or when it seems to be the only course they can take."

"Like marrying someone they barely know."

The corner of his lips twitched; it might have been a smile. "That’s one example, aye. You began a new age when you woke the clochs na thintri, Jenna. We still don’t know the rules of it yet, or how it will change us. We only know that it will change us." He lifted his goblet. "So would you drink with me? To the future beyond the Filleadh."

Jenna felt the infant stir within her, a fluttering deep in her stomach. She wondered what kind of world the child would be coming into. Not one I thought a child of mine would have a year ago, nor one I would have chosen. .

"To the future," she said.

The clink of the goblets touching gilded rims seemed as loud as the crash of a closing door.

"I'M so scared," she'd admitted to MacEagan that morning. "1 don't know if we can stop them." She didn't mention Thraisha's dream, which had haunted her more and more in the last few weeks: the images of death and loss. She hadn't mentioned that to anyone, but she felt the certainty of it, more firmly each day. She felt as if she were walking a path that was already set for her, unable to turn aside or change it. Part of her, at least, was already reconciled to the inevitability of failure.

The first signs of the coming battle were the white sails on the horizon beyond the arms of the Inner Harbor, well out in Dun Kiil Bay.

They knew the armada was coming from Falcarragh-their own fast scout ships had come scurrying back as soon as the fleet had been sighted. The first battle of the war had already been fought and lost: the much smaller fleet of Inish Thuaidh had engaged the enemy as soon as it rounded Falcarragh Head and turned west toward the island. The tattered remnants of the Inish fleet-five ships of twelve oars, one of twenty: their rams broken, their single sails torn, the hulls dark with smoke and blood-had landed at the end of An Ceann Caol a week ago; an exhausted courier had staggered into the keep with the news two nights afterward.

And now the sails could be seen in the morning light.

Jenna stood in the golden dawn with MacEagan, Aithne, Kianna Ciomhsog, and Ri MacBradaigh.

They gathered on the south tower, gazing out over the town, the bay, and the sea. The wind was laden with the scent o salt and fish. Soon, Jenna suspected, the primary smell would be the cop-pery odor of death.

The sails. . Jenna could count at least twenty of them; more seemed to appear every few minutes. "Forty oars, at least two hundred troops on each," MacEagan said, answering the unasked question. "Perhaps a few less than they started out with, if our ships were at all successful in ram-ming and sinking theirs. But I imagine that we’re looking at a force of up to ten thousand men."