S Farrell - Holder of Lightning

Cianna picked up the torc from the shelf, brushing away the dust with a hand and pursing her lips to blow away the rest, though the effort cost her another fit of coughing. She held out the golden artifact to Jenna, though Jenna only looked at it, puzzled. "We have nothing of Rowan’s or of Bryth’s, but this torc was Sinna Mac Ard’s, great-mam of Rowan Beirne. I don’t know if she could give you answers to the questions you might have, but you may try. Take it, use it if you can."

"Banrion, I can't. ."

"If anyone asks why you have it, tell them to come to me. That's all you need say. Keep it." She gestured around her, at the gray-covered shelves, at the dim recesses filled with hundreds of unseen items. "You can see how much the past is revered here." She reached out and touched the cloch where it rested between Jenna's breasts. "But they will grab for what they see as the future," she said. "And some of them are quite willing to kill anyone who would get in their way."

Chapter 19: An Assassin's Fate

SHE could feel the strong tingling of a presence when she held the torc, and she knew that Cianna had spoken true-this had once 'been a Holder's beloved possession. But even though she found herself alone in the apartment when she returned, Jenna didn't let the cloch call the pres-ence forth. The experience with Riata had been frightening at first yet ultimately rewarding, but the ghost of Eilis had scared and nearly killed her and as for her da… seeing him hurt too much and left her unsatisfied and feeling more alone than ever.

She doubted that Sinna's specter could help her at all.

She placed the torc among her clothes where Aoife was unlikely to find it, thinking that she might use it that evening. But the mage-lights came again and she went to them, and afterward Jenna was in too much pain for anything but anduilleaf and bed.

After Maeve had fussed over her for a bit (with Mac Ard hanging in the background at the door of the room, staring at her, Jenna thought, strangely), she lay in her bed, holding the cloch in her hand and staring into the darkness of the ceiling, seeing not the room but Lamh Shabhala. She gazed into the crystalline matrix of the cloch, seeing the nodes gleaming and sparking with the stored power of the mage-lights, flickering tongues of blue-white lightning arcing between the facets. She let herself drop deeper into Lamh Shabhala's depths toward

the seething well at its heart, and she seemed to stand on a precipice, looking down into a maelstrom, a thunderstorm so bright that it nearly blinded her. The well was nearly full now-no more than three or four more nights, and it would overflow, filling the cloch. .then. .

She knew what was supposed to happen, knew that Lamh Shabhala was to "open the other clochs na thintri." But she didn't know how, didn't know what that would do to her, how it might feel or how it might hurt her or what it would be like afterward. She wondered if Tiarna Mac Ard might know, but she couldn't-or wouldn't-ask him. She was grateful to him for what he'd done to save her and her mam, and she knew that Maeve loved the man and seemed to be loved in return, yet she found herself holding back when she might speak to him. There was no one she trusted enough to ask that question who would know the answer.

There were the dead Holders, of course. Riata she might ask, but she had nothing of his to bring him back; Eilis was too fey. Her da she'd already asked, but he had never held Lamh Shabhala while it was alive-he knew less than she did.

She trembled, looking down into the depths, at the raging energy trapped there. She ached to know, she needed to know, if only to steel herself for the ordeal.

She let go of the cloch, and the image of it faded in her mind, leaving only the darkness of her room.

She threw aside the bedclothes, shivering in the cold, and went quickly to the chest holding her clothing, pulling out the tore Cianna had given her. Her hands tingled with the feeling of the presence within it, and she thought she heard her name called, a yearning summons. They feel you just as you feel them. .

She went back to her bed, wrapping the quilts around her and snug-gling her toes under the heated plate of cotton-wrapped iron Aoife had placed beneath the covers to warm the bed. She placed the torc around her own neck, grimacing as the cold, burnished metal touched her skin.

Sinna. .?

Torchlight swam in the darkness.

Sinna, come to me. .

Jenna trembled, tugging the blankets tightly around her. She was in her room, but the portion in front of her was overlaid with a hazy image of another time. There, the fireplace was roaring; torches were set in their sconces along the walls, and embroidered hangings covered stone walls no longer plastered and painted. In the shadows, someone moved, a woman with plaited, long gray hair, wearing a leine of yellow under a long cloca of green. Around her neck was the torc Jenna wore and from Under the gold a fine chain held Lamh Shabhala. She stepped forward into the firelight, and Jenna saw that her movements were slow, her pos-ture stooped, her face lined with the furrows of age. Her right arm was marked to the elbow with swirling curves of scars, in the pattern Jenna knew all too well.

"Ahh," the specter said, looking around. "I remember this room, though it’s much changed. So it’s happening to me, now-new Holders are calling me back." The smile was bittersweet. "I’m to be used as I once used others." Jenna felt the touch of the woman’s mind on her own, and at the same time Jenna reached into her. "You’re Jenna. . and a First."

"Aye. And you’re Sinna."

The woman nodded. "Aye. And long dead, it would seem. Nothing more than dust and a memory. Have you called me back before?"

Jenna shook her head, and the apparition sighed. "Good," she said. "At least I’m not replaying an old scene. I always hated that, myself, having to explain again who I was and what I knew. No wonder the dead are often so angry and dangerous. You’ve already learned to keep most of your mind closed off, so I assume at least one of us has given you a nasty fright before. And the cacophony of voices within the cloch…" She shivered and yawned. "It’s summer here, and I’m still cold, and every joint in my body is aching. Being old is worse than being dead…" She shook herself out of her reverie and peered at Jenna again. "You’re young, though-have they married you off yet, Jenna? Is that why you’re here in Lar Bhaile’s Keep?"

"No," Jenna answered. "And they won’t marry me against my will. I won’t allow it."

Sinna laughed at that, her voice husky. "Then you do live in a different age. In my time, you were

fortunate if you married for love. I was lucky enough to have loved once: my dear, poor Ailen, who gave me this." She lifted the cloch, and at the same time, Jenna felt Lamh Shabhala pulse on her own chest, as if the cloch remembered the touch. "But the second time. . Well, a Holder is a political prize, and Teador Mac Ard was Rl."

It gave Jenna a strange satisfaction to learn that Sinna hadn't fallen in love with Teador, as Padraic had told them, that it had only been a mar-riage of convenience. "You were the Holder of Lamh Shabhala. How could they make you marry him?"

Sinna shrugged. "I suppose they couldn't, not if I utterly refused. But a Holder who is a woman must also know how to play the game, if she wishes to stay the Holder. A Banrion is a powerful thing, too, and to be both Holder and Banrion. ." Sinna smiled. "Teador and I found love elsewhere, but we were well suited to be Ri and Banrion. What we had wasn't love, but we understood each other well enough, and for the most part we both wanted the same things. That was enough. And when my daughter was old enough, we used her to strengthen an alliance." She sighed and smiled inwardly, then her gaze focused on Jenna, who saw hat one eye was cloudy and white with a cataract. "Why did you call me back First Holder? What is it you wanted to ask me? Ask, and let this ghost go back to sleep."