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 Lar Bhaile’s Keep?'
'No,' Jenna answered. 'And they won’t marry me against my will. I won’t allow it.'
Sinna laughed at that, her voice husky. 'Then you do live in a different age. In my time, you were
fortunate if you married for love. I was lucky enough to have loved once: my dear, poor Ailen, who gave me this.' She lifted the cloch, and at the same time, Jenna felt Lamh Shabhala pulse on her own chest, as if the cloch remembered the touch. 'But the second time. . Well, a Holder is a political prize, and Teador Mac Ard was Rl.'
It gave Jenna a strange satisfaction to learn that Sinna hadn't fallen in love with Teador, as Padraic had told them, that it had only been a mar-riage of convenience. 'You were the Holder of Lamh Shabhala. How could they make you marry him?'
Sinna shrugged. 'I suppose they couldn't, not if I utterly refused. But a Holder who is a woman must also know how to play the game, if she wishes to stay the Holder. A Banrion is a powerful thing, too, and to be both Holder and Banrion. .' Sinna smiled. 'Teador and I found love elsewhere, but we were well suited to be Ri and Banrion. What we had wasn't love, but we understood each other well enough, and for the most part we both wanted the same things. That was enough. And when my daughter was old enough, we used her to strengthen an alliance.' She sighed and smiled inwardly, then her gaze focused on Jenna, who saw hat one eye was cloudy and white with a cataract. 'Why did you call me back First Holder? What is it you wanted to ask me? Ask, and let this ghost go back to sleep.'
Jenna flipped away the bed quilts. Suppressing a shiver as the cold air touched her, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and walked to where the old woman stood. 'I'm First, as you said. And the other cloch na thintri aren't yet opened. I want… I want to know what will happen when Lamh Shabhala is full and wakes the other stones.'
'No one has told you?'
'They hint, but they don't say. Or perhaps they truly don't know,' Jenna answered. 'I've even talked to the Ald here. He says he doesn't know-it's been so long since the mage-lights came that the knowledge is lost.'
Sinna sighed. Her hand lifted as if she were about to touch Jenna, then dropped back. 'So they do use you,' she said. Her voice was soft. 'Your time isn't so much different, then. I wasn't a First, Daughter. When I held Lamh Shabhala, the clochs had been active for generations and genera-tions, nearly all the way back to when the first Daoine came to this
land. I can’t help you with that…' She stopped, turning slightly from Jenna and holding her hands out to the image of the fire, as if warming them. 'Tell me, did I give the cloch to Bryth, or did someone else take it?'
'No,' Jenna answered. 'Bryth was the next Holder, and her son after that, your grandson.'
Sinna nodded, firelight reflecting on her wrinkled skin and over the coarse gray hair. 'That’s good to know,' she said. 'It’s a comfort, even though I’ll forget as soon as you release me. I’m going to Tuath Infochla in a fortnight to meet her, and I intend to pass it to her then. So it seems I manage to do so.'
'Another Mac Ard would like to hold Lamh Shabhala now,' Jenna said, and with that Sinna turned back to her. 'Ahh. .' she breathed. 'So the line continues.'
’Not Bryth’s,' Jenna told her. 'Your son’s. Slevin.'
Her face changed with that, as if she’d tasted sour fruit. 'Slevin,' she said, and the word sounded harsh and bitter. 'Strange how distant we can become from our own children. .' She stopped. 'Jenna, do you feel that?'
'What?'
Sinna turned, her half-blind eyes peering toward the south window of the room. 'Perhaps I can teach you something after all. See with the cloch, Jenna. Imagine. . imagine that your skin is alive with its power, that it’s like a shell around you, expanding, and you can feel everything that it touches, can see the shape of it as the power within you wraps around it. Can you do that?'
'Aye. .' Jenna breathed. 'I can.' Perhaps it was because Lamh Shabhala remembered Sinna’s touch, perhaps it was because Sinna’s mind and hers were open to each other, but Jenna could feel her presence expand, filling the room so that in her mind she could see everything in it as clearly as if it were day. She let it expand farther, moving her awareness outward.
And stopped with a gasp.
'Aye,' Sinna said. 'Even the dead can feel that threat.'
Outside, on the wall, a dark form crept upward in
the night, hands already on the balcony and death lurking in his heart. The intruder pulled himself silently over the rail-with her eyes, Jenna saw nothing but the closed doors leading to the balcony, shut against the night and the cold air. But with the cloch, she saw the man crouch, then stand, and she saw the small crossbow in his hand and the quarrel smeared with brown poison.
'You see,' Sinna said softly. 'Lamh Shabhala can do more than throw lightnings. Watch; let me use the cloch. .'
One of the balcony doors swung open, and a night-wrapped form slipped in with a breath of cold wind. At the same time, Jenna felt the stone around her neck respond as the ghost of Sinna moved forward, her body changing as Lamh Shabhala’s energy surged through her, her shape suddenly that of Jenna herself, young and brown-haired, the torc gleam-ing around her neck. 'You!' Sinna shouted, and the intruder turned, firing the crossbow in the same motion. The quarrel went through Sinna's chest, burying itself in the plaster behind her. Sinna laughed, and she was herself again, an old woman. Behind the dark wrapping of the assassin's head, his eyes were wide, and he looked from the ghost of Sinna to Jenna, standing near the bed. A knife flashed in his hand, but before he could move, Jenna felt Sinna's mind close over her own and-like a skilled teacher's hand guiding a student's-she let energy burst forward from the cloch, shaping the force as it flew, and the assassin was picked up as if in a giant's hand and slammed against the wall, grunting in pain and shock. A wisp of the cloch's power ripped the cloth from his head, so that Jenna could see his face.
'Do you recognize him?' Sinna asked.
Jenna shook her head-his features were those of a stranger.
'Then he was hired, and he has a name to tell you.' The man was struggling, trying to push away from the wall and move, but Jenna held him easily. 'There, you have him,' Sinna said, and Jenna felt Sinna's mind leave hers.
'I'll tell you nothing,' the man grated out, writhing in the grip of the cloch. His gaze kept slipping from Jenna to the ghostly image of Sinna.
'No?' Sinna said. 'Tighten the power around him,
Jenna. Go on. Squeeze him, Jenna. Make him feel you.'
Jenna did as Sinna instructed, imagining the tendrils of Lamh Shabhala’s energy snaking around him, pulling tight like a noose. The man gri-maced, the lines around his eyes and forehead deepening, and he spat defiantly.
'Good. I like defiance,' Sinna said. 'It increases the pleasure when he finally gasps out the name we want. I wonder if he’s ever felt his ribs crack inside him, snapping like a dry branch into a dozen knives of bone. I wonder if he’ll whimper like a kicked dog when the eyes pop from his skull, or scream as his ballocks are crushed and ruined.'
Sinna/Jenna yanked at the cords of energy, pulling them tighter still. The man moaned, and Jenna glanced at Sinna. 'I can’t-' she began, appalled, but with the shift of attention, the assassin momentarily pulled away from his invisible bonds. Before Jenna could respond, the knife still in his hand moved. With a cry, he plunged it into his own chest. Blood welled around the wound, and flecks of red foamed at his lips. He wailed, his eyes rolled upward.
He fell. The wind from the balcony brought the fetid smell of piss and bowels.
Sinna sniffed. 'Not a common assassin, then, but a loyal and devoted retainer, to kill himself rather than talk,' she said. Her voice sounded eerily emotionless. 'I would guess that someone’s becoming impatient.'
Jenna gaped in horror at the foul corpse on the floor. 'Would you have done that, what you told him you would do?'
Sinna laughed. 'If he had come to me, in my time, rather than to you? Aye, I would have done that and more to stay alive. I have done it. And so will you, Daughter, if you want to remain the Holder.'
'No, I won’t,' Jenna said, the denial automatic. Sinna only smiled.
'Jenna!' Maeve’s voice called from outside the room, and she heard footsteps pounding toward her. Jenna pulled the torc from her neck, and Sinna vanished as Maeve and Mac Ard rushed in, Mac Ard with his sword drawn.
