Holder of Lightning

by S L Farrell

  She could sense O’Deoradháin in the tangle of woods huddled against the steep bank. Jenna shivered and wrapped herself tighter in her clóca, one hand grasping the stone on its chain, ready to open it fully and strike the man down at need. “You could have at least picked a warm place to meet,” she called out to where he hid.

  There was a rustle of dry brush and leaves, and O’Deora dháin stepped out. One arm was in a sling, but there was a knife at his belt, and Jenna watched his free hand carefully, knowing how quickly he could move with that weapon. She stayed ready to strike if his fingers strayed near the hilt. “If it were summer, the midges would be out. Would you rather be cold or bitten to death?”

  The seal out in the water gave a coughing roar, and Jenna glanced again at the creature. It was a large bull, its head up and alert and staring back at them. Its coat was coal-black, yet deep blue highlights gleamed within it, like sparks struck from a flint and steel. O’Deoradháin looked toward the seal as well. “There aren’t usually seals in Lough Lár,” he said. “Sometimes in Lough Dubh, aye, but they don’t usually come up the Duán this far.”

  “For an Inishlander, you know a lot about Tuath Gabair.”

  “I’ve been here a long time now,” O’Deoradháin answered, turning away from the seal and looking back at Jenna. “Ever since the Order decided that Lámh Shábhála might be in Gabair. Almost two years now.”

  Jenna cocked her head at that. “And how did you know that Lámh Shábhála was here before the mage-lights came?”

  O’Deoradháin shrugged, grimacing as his bandaged shoulder moved. “Some in the Order know the magics of earth and water, the slow eternal spells. I know a bit of them myself. Ordinarily, that means little, but as the Filleadh approached and the mage-lights started to strengthen even though none of us could see them yet, those with the skill could feel the resonance through their own spells. They knew and they started to search, and they realized that Lámh Shábhála had once been on Inishfeirm and that they had lost the cloch. It wasn’t hard, then, to know who had taken it—your great-da. What took time was discovering where he had gone and what had happened to him.”

  “So they sent you? Alone?” Jenna scoffed. “Why didn’t they send everyone? Why isn’t Gabair filled with people from the Order?”

  O’Deoradháin gazed back placidly into her mocking stance. “If all of Inishfeirm suddenly came here, then everyone would suspect why and everyone would have been searching for the cloch. And there are only a few who are capable of being the Holder of Lámh Shábhála.”

  The way he said it lifted the hairs on Jenna’s arms with a sudden chill that was not the cold air. “A few like you?” she asked.

  O’Deoradháin nodded. “That’s what I was trained to do.” Jenna took a step back from him. “Jenna,” he said. “Use the stone. Look at me. I’m not a threat to you. 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. But I won’t harm you to become the Holder.”

  That might have been true; she could feel no danger to herself emanating from him. Yet . . . “I don’t know that,” she said. “Even with the cloch.”

  O’Deoradháin smiled, which softened his rugged face. “You’re right. You don’t know that, and I’ll tell you that there are ways to hide yourself from a cloch na thintrí, even Lámh Shábhála.”

  “And you know them.”

  “I do.”

  “Then I can’t trust you.”

  “Perhaps not,” he answered. “But you can’t survive alone. Not for long, and not with what you hold.”

  “I have those I can trust,” Jenna replied with some heat, and—strangely—O’Deoradháin chuckled at that.

  “Who? Mac Ard? The Rí and Banrion? That self-centered boy from your old village?”

  “He’s not—” Jenna began heatedly, then stopped, clenching her jaw as O’Deoradháin studied her, as the seal out in the river gave another moaning wail as if calling for a mate. “What did you want of me, O’Deoradháin?”

  “Only what I told you: to bring you to Inishfeirm, so you can learn to use the power you hold.”

  “I have learned,” she retorted. “I wouldn’t be talking to you now if I hadn’t. Three times someone has tried to kill me and three times I’ve killed them instead. I can see with the cloch, see what people are feeling toward me. I can tell whether a person holds a true cloch or a worthless stone. I can draw the mage-lights down to me and fill the stone with their energy.”

  “And did you need to kill them or even want to? Do you know that you see truth through the cloch? Do you know all Lámh Shábhála wants to do with that power or all it can do? Do you know how to deal with the pain, Jenna?” She must have shown something in her face, unwillingly, for he nodded. “Aye, that we can help you learn. But you must come with me back to Inishfeirm.”

  “I don’t trust you,” Jenna said again.

  “I know you don’t. But you’re trusting the wrong people now.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Unfortunately, I do,” he answered calmly. “But I also know that you must learn things yourself to believe them. Let me start you on that path. I’ve done some investigation myself. Go to Night Mist Alley, just off Callaghan Street. Walk down to the third door on the left, the red one, and knock. And after you’ve been there and returned to the keep, use the cloch. Look at the ones you haven’t bothered to examine yet because you trust them. And when you’re done, if you think you might begin to believe me, then come to du Val again. He can tell you where to find me.”

  O’Deoradháin started to walk away; as if startled by his movement, the seal out in the river roared a last time and dove into the water with a soft splash. “O’Deoradháin, wait.”

  “No, Holder. There’s nothing more to say. Go and see things for yourself and ask the questions you need to ask. When you need me again, I’ll find you.” He smiled at her. “I wanted to be the Holder, aye,” he said. “But I think Lámh Shábhála has chosen wisely on its own.” With a wave, he slid back into the undergrowth again, and she heard the sound of his retreat.

  Out in the water, a dark shape slid away toward the lough.

  Night Mist Alley was a dirt lane in the Low Town area. Even in the sunlight, it was dim, with the houses staring at each other across a muddy strip down which two people could barely walk abreast. Children were screeching and chasing each other through the puddles, filthy and snot-faced, and the adults Jenna saw stared at the sight of an obvious Riocha and her two chambermaids out where the royalty rarely walked.

  The third door on the left was indeed red though the paint was scratched and peeling, and the door itself appeared to have been kicked, the lower panel cracked and bowed in. Jenna motioned to the maids to remain in the alley as she went to the door and knocked. There was no immediate answer. She knocked again. “Just a moment . . .” a woman’s voice answered, and a few seconds later, the door opened. A woman blinked into the sunlight. “By the Mother—Jenna?”

  Ellia, Tara’s daughter, stood there. Jenna nearly didn’t recognize her. She was heavy with child, one hand under the rounded bulk of her belly, her face and fingers swollen. After her initial surprise, she smiled at Jenna. “By the Mother-Creator, look at you,” she said. “Don’t you look wonderful! Oh, Jenna, it’s so good to see you! Everyone thought you’d died when those horrible soldiers came. And to think you came here, like us.”

  “Us?” A feeling of dread was filling Jenna. She wanted to rage, wanted to take Lámh Shábhála and bring a storm of lightning down on this house and this town and leave everything in flames.

  “Aye.” A possessive, triumphant smile lifted Ellia’s lips. She turned slightly to call back into the darkness of the room. “Darling, come and see who’s come to visit us. You’re not going to believe this.”

  A sleepy grunt came from the interior. Jenna heard the sound of shuffling feet, then a man’s form showed behind Ellia as she opened the door wider. The man took a
step into the light. She knew who it was before she saw him, knew from the leaden stone that filled her stomach, knew because of the blackness that threatened to take her vision. Her world was suddenly shattered, crashing in crystalline shards around her.

  Coelin.

  Ellia’s arm snaked possessively around Coelin’s waist as he gaped at Jenna. “Look, love—it’s Jenna! Back from the dead! Jenna, did you know that Coelin has sung for the Rí himself ... ?”

  Ellia must have continued to speak, but Jenna heard none of it. She stared at Coelin. He stared back, slack-jawed, rubbing at his eyes as if trying to rid them of a sudden nightmare. “Jenna, I . . .” he stammered, but Jenna shouted back at him in fury.

  “You bastard! You damned lying bastard!” Jenna turned and ran from the alleyway, her maids hurrying after her with wide-eyed glances behind.

  “Jenna!” she heard Coelin shouting behind her, and Ellia’s now-shrill voice asking him what was happening. Jenna fled, helpless tears hot on her cheeks, unheeding of the people around her, staring. She only wanted to be away before the temptation to use the cloch grew too strong, before she gave in to the temptation to get revenge for this awful deception. It’s your own fault! she railed inside. You’re so stupid. So naive and stupid . . .

  “Jenna!” A hand touched her shoulder and she whirled around with a cry, her right hand going to the stone around her neck, the radiance of Lámh Shábhála between her fiingers already brighter than the sun. Coelin, panting, took a step backward from Jenna, his eyes wide. He was shoeless and half-dressed, his feet muddy, his legs bare under his tunic. His breath was a white cloud around him in the cold air. He spread his hands wide, as if to ward off a blow. “Jenna, listen to me . . .”

  Her chambermaids flanking her, Jenna chopped at the air with her left hand. “You have nothing to say to me!” she shouted back at him. “Nothing! You disgust me, Coelin Singer. And I’m ashamed of myself for letting you . . .” She couldn’t say the words. Fury obliterated them.

  “Jenna, let me explain!”

  “Explain what? Is that your child Ellia’s carrying? Tell me now—is it?” Coelin started to shake his head, started to speak, and Jenna lifted the cloch. “Don’t you dare lie to me again, Coelin, or I swear it’s the last words you’ll ever speak.”

  Coelin gulped and hung his head. “Aye,” he said, his voice a whisper. “ ’Tis mine.” Then his head came up, and his green eyes gazed at her imploringly. “But, Jenna, I love you . . . ”

  “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 Lámh Sháb hála 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 Lámh Sháb hála 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 Lámh Shábhála, 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’Deoradháin. 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. “I 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 andúilleaf. Needed to think. Needed to find a way to vent this rage before it consumed her entirely.

  “Get out of my way, O’Deoradháin.” 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.

  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 Rí Gabair, the Tainise Ríg, Mac Ard, the Connachtans, Tiarna Aheron, even O’Deoradháin by his own admission.

  They all had their agendas. She could understand that, yet it left unanswered 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 Ríg gain by her death when he be lieved he could
have Lámh Shábhála for his use by marrying her? Would Rí Gabair be willing to risk the enmity of the Rí 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’Deoradháin was no different. Mac Ard might not strike against her, but Jenna had no doubt that her mam’s lover would race to pluck Lámh Shábhála from her neck if she fell. Or the Rí or the Tanaise Ríg 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’Deoradháin 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 apartment, 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.