S Farrell - Holder of Lightning

The Banrion tucked the gem back under her leine and leaned over to hold Jenna's hand. "I promise you that all that can be done is being done. Get yourself well again-that's the best you can do for him right now." With that, the Banrion left the room in a rustle of linen and a whiff of musk oil.

"She'll do as she promises," Moister Cleurach said. "I know that much."

"I hope you're right." Jenna pulled herself up on the bed, grimacing as freshly-closed wounds pulled. "I should have been able to stop it. I should have been stronger."

Moister Cleurach sniffed. "There were three Clochs Mor set against you. I think you did as well as anyone could have. I could read you the histories, or you could listen to the Holders' voices inside Lamh Shabhala. There have been Holders who have fallen against two clochs, or even one that surprised and overwhelmed them before they could react.

You fought three, and you might have beaten them

had they stayed to play it out. But I don’t think they truly expected to defeat Lamh Shabhala. They would have taken that gift if it had happened, but I wonder if all along the real target wasn’t you, but Ennis."

"Why? Why would Aron want Ennis?"

"Do you love Ennis?"

The question made Jenna blink. "Aye," she answered, feeling the truth in the gaping wound inside her, one that no Healer could cure. "I do."

Moister Cleurach’s mouth tightened; his eyes narrowed. "And Aron O Dochartaigh loved his daughter," he said.

She knew he was right, knew it even as she shook her head in reflexive disagreement. The tiarna wanted to hurt Jenna as she had hurt him, and that realization was a sword blade in her gut, ripping and tearing at her soul. "No. ." she whispered, and the word was not so much a denial as a plea.

The light shifted in the room, a wavering brightness that dimmed for a moment the yellow glow of the candles. Outside, the mage-lights touched the sky, wrapping around the moon and calling to her. Jenna flung aside the covers.

"You can’t," Moister Cleurach said. He rose, as if to guide her back down. "You’re too weak and it will hurt too much. The lights will come again tomorrow or the next day."

Jenna pushed his hands away. "So might the next attack or the chance to help Ennis. I need Lamh Shabhala full. Lamh Shabhala wants to be full." Biting her lips to keep from crying out, she swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Moister Cleurach, without saying anything, brought a woolen shawl and draped it over her shoulders. He helped her up, held her as she walked across the room and pushed open the doors to the balcony. The cold night air bit into her and she shivered. The snage-lights crawled and sparked from horizon to horizon between the shreds of clouds. Everywhere, she knew, the cloudmages were lifting their clochs to sky. That’s what Aron would be doing, she was certain, and the other two who had been with him.

She took Lamh Shabhala in her right hand. The mage-lights curled and swayed above her in response. She lifted it to the tendrils of light snaking down from above, closing her eyes as the icy touch burned along her hand and wrist and arm and Lamh Shabhala greedily sucked in the power.

She had drained the cloch nearly dry. When it was full again, when the mage-lights reluctantly drew away from her, she would have fallen if Moister Cleurach had not been there to catch her. "Get the Holder a solution of kala bark for the pain," he snapped at the healer as they came back into the chamber. He helped her onto the bed and patted her forehead with a warm, wet towel. He took her cold right hand between his gnarled fingers and rubbed life back into it. "Come back with me to Inishfeirm, Jenna. There are still things I need to teach you. There's nothing you can do about Ennis now-it's out of your hands. You can help him most by being as strong as you can."

She shook her head.

"Why not? You can't be seriously thinking of doing what the Banrion has suggested. Jenna, you-" He stopped, and she saw suspicion widen his gray, sad eyes. "You intend to go to Thall Coill." He invoked the name as if it were a curse.

She grimaced as pain rippled through her arm, her hand tightening into a fist. "You said it best, Moister," she told him. "I can help Ennis most by being as strong as I can possibly be the Comhdail Comhairle, the Conference of the Comhairle, was as bois-terous and loud as Jenna had been led to believe it would be. Ri MacBradaigh sat in his chair at the head, his pallid face propped on a hand as he listened, his eyes so close-lidded that Jenna wondered if he wasn't dozing. The Comhairle was arrayed down either side of the massive oaken table, much scarred and discolored from years of use. There were six chairs down the right side, seven down the left. One chair on the left side-Aron

o Dochartaigh's chair-sat vacant. Jenna and Moister Cleurach were seated at the far end of the table, facing the Rl and the tiarna. This after-noon, the hall was also crowded with the minor tiarna and the ceil giallnai, standing behind Jenna.

Even though the sun shone beyond the great, tall stained glass win-dows behind the Rl, the keep still dripped, a sullen plop-plop-plop that could be heard whenever the Comhdail Comhairle lapsed into silence.

That was not often. It seemed that everyone

wanted their chance to speak. Jenna decided that the falling water was less the tears of those slaughtered on Croc a Scroilm and more the gods weeping for the waste of words. Most of the tiarna railed against Aron O Dochartaigh’s audacity in ruining the Feast of First Fruits, the destruction and loss of life-over a dozen bodies had been pulled from the burning, charred rubble of the lane-and the temerity in taking Cloudmage Ennis as a hostage. But as the Banrion had predicted, once the indictment had been made, they all stopped short of calling for concerted action against him. Despite the loud and brave talk, they were content with the verbal condemnation of Aron, and no one wanted to pursue him once he was in his own land.

". .we know that a tiarna’s land is his own, and if Tiarna O Dochartaigh is back in Rubha na Scarbh, there will be no pulling him out." That was Kyle MacEagan, looking sour and irritated as he glanced up and down the table. "The Ri should issue a warrant, but then we must wait. Tiarna

0 Dochartaigh will send word, and soon, as to his intentions. Do you not

agree, Banrion? You know Aron better than any of us."

Banrion Aithne rose, nodding to MacEagan and her husband, the Ri. "I do know Aron," she said, "and even though we share the same blood, I agree with those who say that we must condemn this action with the strongest terms possible. And I also agree with Tiarna MacEagan: though

I speak in the Comhairle for my husband’s townland of Dun Kiil, Rubha na Scarbh was my home, and I know it and its clans well. Aron won’t be found if he doesn’t wish to be found. I believe-"

There was a crash as the doors to the hall were thrown open. Everyone turned, and even the Ri looked up sleepily. A bedraggled garda entered, looking travel-stained and tired. He held up a leather pouch toward the Comhairle. "For the First Holder," he said. The Banrion gestured for the man to come forward; a moment later, the Ri did the same. He moved through the press of tiarna, who stepped aside, and placed the package in front of Jenna. "We followed Tiarna O Dochartaigh’s path from Dun Kiil," he said. "He had a dozen riders with him, at least. They stopped at Nealmhar Ford to water their horses. We found this hanging on a tree branch at the crossing, with a note that it was to go to you, Holder." He gestured at the bag. "I rode here as quickly as I could. None of us opened it." He said that last sentence quickly, as if he feared that Jenna would

strike him down with Lamh Shabhala.

"Thank you," she told him, as gently as she could. The Comhairle was staring at the pouch, knotted shut with a leather cord. Jenna untied the cord and opened the flap. She turned the pouch and a necklace slid out along with a sheet of parchment on which she could see the black scrawl of words. The necklace was silver and a cage of fine silver wire hung from one end. The cage was empty, but Jenna knew what had once sat there: Ennis' cloch, the one she had taken from Mac Ard.