S Farrell - Holder of Lightning

"Shut up!" Jenna screamed at him. Light flared from her fisted hand, and shadows moved over the buildings around them. Someone shouted in alarm, and the curious crowd that had begun to gather around the encounter suddenly vanished. "No!

Don’t you dare say it. Who arranged this, Coelin? None of this was an accident, was it? Who made certain I’d find you, who told you to seduce me?" When Coelin said nothing, Jenna stamped her foot, the light flaring yet brighter. "Tell me!"

"Tiarna Mac Ard," Coelin sputtered. "He… he sent word that I should come here, said that you needed someone familiar, that I could help him help you. ." He stopped. His hands lifted toward Jenna, then went to his sides. "Jenna, I didn’t mean. ."

She wanted to kill him. She wanted to hear Coelin scream in agony as the lightnings tore him apart.

She wanted him to feel the pain and hurt that was coursing through her now. Her hand trembled around Lamh Shabhala but she held back the energy that wanted to surge outward. "Did you marry her?" she asked.

A nod. "Aye. When Tara realized that Ellia was with child, she came to me. What else was I to do, Jenna? At that time, I thought you were dead, and your mam and Tiarna Mac Ard, too."

"Do you tell Ellia you love her, too? Did you come to her after you’d been with me and snuggle down alongside her and give her the same words you give me?"

"Jenna-"

She spat at his feet. "I never want to see you again," she told him. "If I do, I swear to you that I’ll use Lamh Shabhala to strike you down. Stand before me again, and I will leave Ellia a widow and your child fatherless. Go, Coelin. Go and find some way to tell Ellia about this. Maybe she’ll keep you; maybe she’ll even find the love in her to forgive you." She lifted her chin, her eyes narrowing. "But I won’t," she told him. "I never will, and I am your enemy from this moment. Do you understand me, Coelin?"

He nodded, mute. He looked as if he were about to speak again, but Jenna tightened her fist around the cloch, and-wide-eyed-he turned and fled, walking then running back the way he’d come. Her breath fast and painful in her chest, Jenna relaxed her grip

on Lamh Shabhala, and the stone's brilliance faded.

The street around them was empty and silent except for the ragged sound of her breath. "Come," she told the maids. "It's time we returned to the keep." They started down the lane toward where the carriage waited. As they walked, a man stepped out from between two houses and stood in the narrow street, barring their way. One of the chambermaids screamed at the sudden confrontation, but the man ignored her. One arm was in a sling, and he no longer seemed quite as dangerous. He looked at Jenna.

"Now you know," he said. "I'm sorry, Jenna."

"You could have told me, O'Deoradhain. Or did you get a perverse pleasure out of knowing I'd be humiliated?"

His head moved slowly in denial. "I took no pleasure in it, Holder. I would have preferred to tell you myself, but you wouldn't have believed me," he answered. "You know that, if you look inside."

She wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of a response. Her head was pounding, her arm ached, and there was a fury inside burning to be unleashed. "Fine. Now get out of my way. I'm going back to the keep."

"Holder. ." He held out his hands, as if in supplication. "This isn't the way. You're angry, and you have reason to be. But you don't know the cloch well enough yet. There are too many people there, too many to confront."

Jenna coughed a single, bitter chuckle. "I thought you told me to go back and use the cloch."

"Not the way you're thinking of using it right now." He gestured to the tower of the keep, which could be seen rising above the rooftops. "I wanted you to know that the Riocha up there can't be trusted, that's all. I wanted you to use the cloch to see the truth in them."

"And you can teach me how to do that."

Aye." He said it firmly. "1 can. Come with me. Come with me now."

Her pulse pounded against the sides of her skull like a hammer; her arm seemed to be sculpted from ice. She couldn't think. She needed to get home.

Needed to get anduilleaf. Needed to think. Needed to find a way to vent this rage before it consumed her entirely.

Get out of my way, O’Deoradhain." Jenna started walking toward him.

She intended to push him out of the way, not caring about his size or the knife at his belt, ready to blast him dead with the cloch if she needed to do so. But as she reached him, he stood aside and let her pass, the two maids scrambling quickly after her.

"Holder, this is madness!" he called after her. "Please don’t do this. Jenna, I can be your ally in this if you’ll let me."

She didn’t answer.

Chapter 27: Bridges Burned

HER fury had gone cold and flintlike before the carriage reached the keep. Through the headache, through the agony in her hand and arm, the events of the last few months kept roiling in her mind and she could make no sense of it. They were all trying to use her; they were all lying to her: the Ri Gabair, the Tainise Rig, Mac Ard, the Connachtans, Tiarna Aheron, even O’Deoradhain by his own admission.

They all had their agendas. She could understand that, yet it left unan-swered the question of who was actively trying to kill her. Why would Mac Ard try to assassinate her and at the same time send Coelin to her? In any case, he could have taken the cloch easily before she knew what she possessed. What would the Tanaise Rig gain by her death when he believed he could have Lamh Shabhala for his use by marrying her? Would Ri Gabair be willing to risk the enmity of the Ri Ard and those of the other tuatha by killing her?

I’d take the stone from you if you gave it to me, aye. If you’d died the other day in my room, I’d have taken it then, too. In that, certainly, O’Deoradhain was no different. Mac Ard might not strike against her, but Jenna had no doubt that her mam’s lover would race to pluck Lamh Shabhala from her neck if she fell. Or the Ri or the Tanaise Rig or Aheron or any of the tiarna.

Yet both assassination attempts required that someone know the keep, that they know the details of the society behind the massive walls, that they know Jenna's movements. Who had known her and the keep that well? Who would have had the connections and the money to hire an assassin, to buy the loyalty of the gardai?

Jenna's next breath was a gasp as the carriage wheels struck the cobbled surface of Deer Creek Bridge. A suspicion started to grow, one that left her feeling breathless and sick. By the time Jenna stepped down at the High Gates with an admonition to her chambermaids (that she knew would be useless) to say nothing about what they had witnessed, she had already made a decision. And after you've been there and returned to the keep, use the cloch, O'Deoradhain had told her.

She would do that, then. She would do exactly that.

She hurried to her rooms.

"Jenna, what's the mat-" her mam asked as she rushed into the apart-ment, but Jenna hurried to her bedroom and slammed the door shut. She locked it, then went to the door leading to the servants' hall and locked that one as well.

Her mam knocked and called, but Jenna ignored her. She set water to boiling for the anduilleaf and dug under the clothes in her chest until she found the torc of Sinna. She placed it around her neck and let Lamh Shabhala open…

. . and there Sinna was again, the old woman with the plait of gray hair, dressed in her leine and cloca, the fireplace blazing with a remem-bered fire, the walls of the room overlaid with its older structure. Sinna turned as if surprised and Jenna opened her mind to her, letting her see what Jenna wished her to see. "Ah, Jenna," Sinna said, her voice quavering with age, "so I've met you before." A sad smile. "But of course I don't remember. I'm just a ghost."