Holder of Lightning (23 page)

Jenna didn’t see Coelin after his singing. She heard through Aoife that he’d left the keep late that evening, and that he had asked after her. She thought he might send word the next day; he didn’t. The mage-lights came again that night, and after taking in their power, she was too exhausted to care about anything but fixing a brew of the andúilleaf to blunt the pain. At least, that was what she told herself.

More Riocha were arriving at the Keep each day as word spread that Lámh Shábhála had a Holder and that she was in Lár Bhaile. Most of them wore the green and brown of Tuath Gabair, though there were a few with the red and white of Tuath Airgialla, or the blue and black of Tuath Locha Lein. None wore Tuath Connachta’s blue and gold. They were men, mostly, and a few women, with rich clothes and rich accents and bright jewels around their necks, and some of those jewels, aye, were clochs na thintrí. She was introduced to them and as quickly forgot their names and titles, though she could feel them watching her as she wandered about the keep, staring at her, whispering about her, and pointing at her bandaged arm.

Waiting. Waiting for Jenna to give them the power they wanted.

“Jenna . . .”

She heard Cianna’s voice as she walked along one of the deserted upper hallways, trying to avoid the eyes. Jenna stopped and turned: the Banrion stood at the end of the hall, with two of her ladies. Jenna curtsied and dropped her gaze as she’d seen the Riocha do in the woman’s presence. “Banrion,” she said. “Good morning.”

“Please, no courtesies here. Not between us.
Is
it a good morning for you, or are you simply being polite?” Cianna asked. She cleared her throat, a phlegm-rattled sound. “None of them seem good to me lately. I think the new healer’s a fraud, like all the rest.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Banrion.”

Cianna laughed, a sound that ended in a series of coughs. “It’s what I expected, my dear. I’m not quite as stupid and self-involved as some would have you believe. I know that I’m deluding myself—I don’t think any healer can cure what’s inside me. But I feel I have to try. Maybe, maybe one of them . . .” The Banrion’s eyes glittered with sudden moisture, and she caught her lower lip between her teeth. She sniffed and shook her head, and the mood seemed to pass. She waved her hand at her attendants.

“Leave me,” she told them. They scurried away, glancing at Jenna. “They’re supposed to be here to help me, but they’re really just the Rí’s eyes,” Cianna said to Jenna, her voice dropping to a husky whisper. “They tell him everything they see. Come with me for a few moments, before they rush back to tell me that the Rí insisted they return. We should speak somewhere where no eyes watch or ears listen.”

Cianna took Jenna’s arm. The Banrion seemed to weigh nothing; her hand looked that of a skeleton, poking from under the lace of her léine. She led Jenna along the hall and down a corridor, through a door and up a small flight of stairs. Taking a torch from one the sconces, she opened the door at the top of the stair, which led into a musty-smelling gallery. There were shelves along the gallery, and on them were items, most covered in gray layers of dust. Their feet left marks in the film of it covering the floor, and cloudlets rose wherever they stepped. Jenna sneezed. “Banrion, this can’t be good for your lungs.”

“Hush,” Cianna answered, tempering the word with a smile. “Do you know where we are?” Jenna shook her head. “This is the Hall of Memories,” Cianna continued. “These are artifacts from the long history of Lár Bhaile. Not many come here—my husband isn’t one for sentiment and history. He dismissed the Warden of the Hall, whose task it was to preserve these things and clean them, and since then the hall hasn’t been opened in years. Previous Rís, though, were rather proud of it and brought visitors here so they could view the artifacts.”

“Remembering the past is important.” She said it politely, wondering why Cianna had brought her here.

“Is that something you believe?” Cianna asked. “Is it true, Holder, that you can bring the dead Holders of that cloch back to life and speak with them? That’s what Tiarna Mac Ard tells me. He said he thought you had done it once, with an old Bunús Muintir Holder.”

“Aye, that’s true, Banrion,” she told Cianna. She’d never told Mac Ard or her mam about the others: the Lady of the Falls and her own da. She still had Eilís’ ring and Niall’s carved seal back in her room. She’d never tried to bring Eilís back again, but she had talked to her da several times. It had been disappointing, for he stared at her as if he’d never seen her before, and she had to explain all over again who she was. The dead, it seemed, did not retain the mem ory of being dragged back into this existence by Lámh Shábhála. “If I’m near to where a Holder rests, or if I touch something that was once theirs I can speak with their shade. At least that’s what I’ve been told.”

“Then come here . . .” Cianna gestured at one of the shelves. On it was a torc, the hammered gold incised with swirling lines that made Jenna glance at her bandaged arm. “Do you know why my husband chose to have that singer give the
Lay of Rowan
two nights ago?” Jenna shook her head. Cianna started to speak, then coughed a few times, patting at her mouth with a lace handkerchief. Jenna could see spots of blood on the ivory cloth. “This cough . . . it gets worse. Damn that healer. This is the way it is for us, Jenna. They let us suffer, me because I’ve already given the Rí what he wanted and now he no longer cares; you because they think you’re weak and they can take what they want from you later, when it’s less dangerous.” She coughed again, nearly doubling over with the racking spasms.

“Maybe we should leave this room, Banrion,” Jenna suggested, but Cianna drew herself up, her haunted, umber-circled eyes widening.

“No. Listen to me, Jenna. There is talk. I hear it, though they think I don’t listen or care. But I do. They want you for one thing, Jenna, and one thing only: to open the other clochs to the mage-lights. They know that the First Holder always suffers more than the Holders who follow—they’re content to let you take that pain for now, even though some of them intend to take the cloch you hold, once you’ve opened the others.”

“Who?” Jenna asked. “Who wants it?”

“Some I know for certain,” the Banrion answered. “Nevan O Liathain, the Rí Ard’s son, covets Lámh Shábhála—he’s made no secret of that. My husband does, as well; he’s more ambitious than you might think. Galen Aheron, the tiarna from Infochla who arrived a few days ago, has said things that make me suspect he would try for it as well. And even Padraic Mac Ard . . .”

“You’ve heard
him
talking?” Jenna asked, her eyes narrowing. “Tiarna Mac Ard?”

Cianna shook her head. “No, in truth, though I think that’s why the Rí called for the song, because he knew that Mac Ard had said nothing to you regarding his ancestors’ history with Lámh Shábhála. The Rí is always careful with Mac Ard, because he knows that a Mac Ard was once Rí and that Padraic could contend for the throne of Tuath Gabair. My husband and Padraic aren’t enemies, but they also aren’t entirely allies. Mac Ard’s said nothing against you that I’ve heard, but when he rode away from the keep weeks ago, when the mage-lights first came, I know he was eager to find the cloch. And if you were . . .” Cianna paused. Coughed. “. . . no longer the Holder, aye, I believe he would try for the cloch himself.”

Jenna’s right hand, the fingers stiff and painful to move, closed around Lámh Shábhála on its necklace. Cianna noticed the gesture, and her fingers touched Jenna’s. “Your skin there is so cold and so hard, like the scales of a snake.” She touched her cheek. “And so warm and smooth here.” The Banrion smiled gently. “You’re so young to carry such a burden, Jenna. But I was a cycle and more younger when I was sent to marry the Rí and was a mam by the time I was your age. Women often carry their burdens early.” She smiled again. “And long.”

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.”

19

An Assassin’s Fate

S
HE 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 presence forth. The experience with Riata had been frightening at first yet ultimately rewarding, but the ghost of Eilís 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 andúilleaf 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 Lámh Shábhála. 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 Lámh Shábhála’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 Lámh Shábhála was to “open the other clochs na thintrí.” 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; Eilís was too fey. Her da she’d already asked, but he had never held Lámh Shábhála 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 torc 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 snuggling 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 léine of yellow under a long clóca of green. Around her neck was the torc Jenna wore and from under the gold a fine chain held Lámh Shábhála. She stepped forward into the firelight, and Jenna saw that her movements were slow, her posture 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 Lár Bhaile’s Keep?”