S Farrell - Holder of Lightning

Ennis’ eyes widened, and he started to protest, "Urn, Moister. ." But Jenna had already pushed her chair back from the table, the legs screech-ing angrily. She stalked toward the door.

It opened before she reached it.

"Good morning, Holder. I trust you broke your fast satisfactorily." Banrion Aithne stood in the corridor. Next to her was a red-haired giant: her brother. The sight of Aron O Dochartaigh’s surly glower made Jenna’s throat close. She took a step back as the Banrion nodded to her attendants to remain outside, then swept past Jenna into the room. The tiarna en-tered behind her, and Jenna stood well aside. As casually as she could, she mentally opened the cloch at her throat. The wash of emerald energy spread out like a rushing tide and immediately broke on another cloch’s presence, sparkling and foaming.

Aron held a Cloch Mor. He’d also made no attempt to shield the stone from her cloch-vision. It gleamed in Lamh Shabhala’s vision under his leine.

'Moister Cleurach, Ennis, would you leave us for a moment, please?" the Banrion asked. Moister Cleurach bowed to the Banrion and left quickly; Ennis hesitated until Jenna shook her head slightly to him, then walked over to Jenna and embraced her.

“I’ll be just outside," he told her and kissed her, the Banrion watching with an amused expression as Ennis and Aron exchanged stares. After the door closed behind them, she sat in Moister Cleurach’s chair at the table.

^ “I don't believe you actually had a chance to meet Aron, Holder Jenna,"

He said. "I know he was very interested in seeing you."

Jenna let her hand drop from Lamh Shabhala, and the doubled vision of the cloch vanished, leaving the world momentarily washed-out and colorless. She could see hints of Cianna's features in her da's face: he was hearty and full where Banrion Cianna had been sickly and thin, but the sharp, straight nose, the high cheekbones, the set of his mouth echoed that of his daughter, and now that she knew to look for it, she could see it in Aithne as well.

Aron glared, towering over Jenna. His hands were clenched in fists cords of muscle standing out under the sleeves of his tunic. He didn't extend his hand; she would have been afraid to take it. She saw his gaze travel from her face to her right arm. "Did it make the Firs? Holder feel powerful," he asked, "to have Lamh Shabhala crush the life from someone as frail and ill as my daughter?"

The words brought a searing flush to Jenna's face, and for a moment, tears blurred her vision. She blinked angrily. "No," she answered. "It did not. But let me ask, Tiarna, does it make you feel proud to know that Cianna pretended to be my friend while she twice sent others to kill me?"

Now it was Aron whose face burned red. The hatred radiated from him, palpable, and Jenna realized that she'd made a mistake: this was a man who loved his daughter, as blindly and unconditionally as any parent. He would not-he could not-see any evil in her. He would have protected Cianna in life without thought; he would do the same in death. Jenna would forever and always be the cruel murderer who had stolen that love from him.

And he faced her now.

The Banrion's tsk was a torrent of cold water into the heat. Jenna and Aron both turned to her to find her shaking her head. "This won't do," she said.

"The Rl Ard would be laughing himself silly, seeing the Inishlanders at each other's throats as usual. This is exactly what he wants. It's time to set aside your grief, Brother. Are you planning to demand eraic of the First Holder? Well, she has no blood payment to give you and we need her as an ally."

"I don't need her at all, Sister," the man retorted, swinging around to her angrily. "It's you and the fools on the Comhairle who think that. We don't need her. The Rl Ard also knows his history and will recall that every army the Tuatha have sent here has been broken by the Inish. It-and, unlike you, I think it's no certainty, Aithne-the Rl Ard manages to get the tuatha to work as one and come against us, we will break them again-without Lamh Shabhala." His gaze flicked toward Jenna. "And don't trust the Order, which has already failed Inish Thuaidh by losing their clochs to the Tuatha. In fact, Sister, I find it interesting to note that it was within a few weeks after the clochs na thintri were stolen from the Order that the First Holder chose to open them."

"I knew nothing about that, Tiarna," Jenna told him. "And I didn't choose the timing of the Filleadh."

A sniff. The huge man pulled himself up to his full, towering height. "So you say, Holder. Yet if I were the Rl Ard. . how convenient for me that the First Holder would show herself to be a threat to the Riocha; that she would dare to kill a Banrion and destroy a keep; that she would then flee to Inish Thuaidh. Curious, too, that along the way the person sent to pursue her would be the very tiarna who shares a bed with her mam-and she just happens to defeat him publicly in her flight. Wouldn't it be tragic if during the battle Lamh Shabhala suddenly turned against us, as it was intended to do all along."

"This is insane," Jenna protested. "You're concocting a conspiracy where none exists."

Aron ignored Jenna, his voice riding over hers. "Why, if I wanted to create an outside threat to pull the Tuatha together just when they were starting to war among themselves, I could ask for nothing better. What does it cost, after all? Only the death of a sickly woman who would proba-bly die soon anyway of the consumption in her lungs, and whose husband already has the children which were all he ever wanted from her."

"Aron! "The rebuke was sharp. Aithne pushed herself up, the chair scraping back as she confronted him. "This is not why we came here. We were in agreement, we were going to put together a plan… "

Aron towered over his sister: a mountain standing before a wisp of cloud. "I listened to you once before, Sister, when you told me that it would be good for Inish Thuaidh and for Cianna to have her marry Ri Mallaghan. But I do agree with you that there’s a threat to Inish Thuaidh looming." He pointed at Jenna. "The threat stands there. I know that now. I came with you because I wanted to see her. I wanted to listen to her voice. I wanted to look into the eyes of the person who killed my child before I made my final judgment. Well, I’ve looked, and I’m not im-pressed. I see no remorse or sorrow in her gaze, and I tell you, Aithne, that if you go into battle expecting her aid, you will find yourself crushed between the cloudmages of the Tuatha in the front and Lamh Shabhala at your unprotected back-because that’s exactly what they plan for you to do."

Tiarna," Jenna said, her hands wide, "I’m sorry for what I did. Truly. I wish I could undo it, but-"

Aron spat, deliberately and loudly. The globule pooled on the wooden floor a scant fingertip from her feet. "I have no more to say to you, First Holder," he told Jenna. "I’ll give you the warning you were too cowardly to give poor Cianna. From this day forward, I am your enemy. Remember that" The door shivered and trembled on its hinges as it slammed shut be-hind the man. The sound rang in Jenna’s ears for long seconds.

Chapter 44: Juggling Possibilities

THAT evening, Rl MacBradaigh declared that the Feast of First Fruits would take place in three days.

"What," Jenna asked Ennis, "is the Feast of the First Fruits?"

He kissed her throat before replying, and Jenna lifted her chin with a trembling gasp at the touch. His mouth traveled from throat to chin to mouth, and then he pulled slightly away from her, smiling down as he rested on one elbow on the bed, his other hand at the loose collar of her night robe, undoing the satin ribbon tied there. "The Feast of First Fruits. . Have you seen the blackberry vines on the columns of the Temple of the Mother-Creator?" When Jenna shrugged, he continued, his fingers slipping under the cloth of her gown. "Traditionally, the Feast takes place close to the Great Festival of Meitha, when the Dralodoiri who keep the temple first see that the vines show ripened berries. In truth, though, the Dralodoiri are sometimes told by the Comhairle that now would be a good time to proclaim the feast, regardless of the state of the vines-a few green berries can easily be dyed to provide justification."