full draw. They wore no colors, but they were obviously gardai. 'Those arrows are aimed at your friend, Jenna,' Mac Ard continued. 'I’ve seen what you can do, but I doubt that he’s had enough practice yet to know how to use that cloch well. If they see him touch poor Gairbith’s stone, though, they will fire.'
Both of their hands went back to their sides and a grim smile came over Mac Ard’s face. He took a few steps toward them, though he stopped several yards away. 'Your mam sends you her love and concern, Jenna. When I saw her last, a month ago, she was big with your half brother-at least the midwife tells us she thinks it’s a boy.'
'Have you married her, or will this son be a bastard?' Jenna spat out, and Mac Ard’s smile
'Marriage is… a tool,' he answered slowly. 'You know that, even if you don't like it. In my position, one should only use it at need.'
'What about my mam's needs?'
'My heart is with Maeve, Jenna,' he answered.
'It will always be, whether I marry another woman or not. I don't know if you can believe that, but it's true and your mam knows it. And I know that my love is returned. She understands why I don't marry her; she also knows that I will always take care of her, as I'll take care of your brother when he's born. Despite what you might want to believe, I'm not a monster.' He spread his hands wide as if he were about to embrace her, the cloch glinting in his right palm. 'Give me Lamh Shabhala, freely, and I will also give you my promise that I will use the tool of marriage in a way that would please you. Your mam and my son, your half brother, would share my name. I would make her Bantiarna Mac Ard.'
Jenna didn't answer but glanced at O'Deoradhain, and Mac Ard's gaze followed hers. 'You're more resourceful than I'd thought, Inishlander,' he said to O'Deoradhain. 'I've underestimated you twice now. It won't hap-again. I also see the way she looks at you. Poor Coelin would be jealous, I think, though I doubt his wife lets the young man out of her sight any more.'
His regard came back to Jenna. 'I'll let you and O'Deoradhain take this man's ship back to Inish Thuaidh,' he told her, gesturing at Meagher's boat. 'But Lamh Shabhala and Gairbith's cloch must be given to me. Mow.' He waited; Jenna only breathed, her mind whirling. 'I need an answer, Jenna. You're not going to get a better offer. It's difficult, holding back bowstrings this long. I can see their fingers trembling. I'd hate to have one of them slip.'
'You'll just kill us anyway,' she said. 'You would have killed me a few days ago.'
Mac Ard shook his head. 'Only if I'd had to. That time, I was defending myself from your attack and I seem to recall that it was you who struck first.' He shrugged, and a faint smile appeared in the curl of his lips. 'Aye, I'd kill you if it means saving myself. I don't apologize for that, either. If I wanted you
dead, Jenna, I wouldn’t be standing here talking with you. I’d have struck before you ever saw us.'
'You can’t leave us alive and go back to Tuath Gabair and the Ri, not with all these witnesses.'
Mac Ard’s empty hand gestured to the men surrounding them. 'These are my personal gardai, loyal to me and not Ri Gabair,' he responded. 'They will see what I tell them to see. I don’t have many options here, however. I can’t take you back to Lar Bhaile with me-not after what you’ve done. For the Banrion’s death alone your life is forfeit, and there are the gardai you killed afterward at the bridge and the death of Gairbith and his men. And there were those we sent into Doire Coill to look for you who never came back.' He sighed, shaking his head. 'All that would await you in Lar Bhaile is torture and an eventual execution; I couldn’t stand the torment and sorrow that would bring to Maeve. But I can take Lamh Shabhala back and tell the Ri that I killed you and O’Deoradhain in battle, and no one will challenge that tale. Then you and the Inishlander can go to your island, once I have your vow that you’ll stay there and never return here at all.' His scarred head cocked toward her questioningly. 'Well, Jenna? I offer you your life and your friend’s as well as your mam’s future, all in return for the clochs na thintri you have. Is that not a fair enough trade?'
For a moment, Jenna considered the offer. She thought of how it would feel to take Lamh Shabhala from around her neck and give it to Mac Ard, never hold it again, to never drink the addictive power of the mage-lights, to never see with its ferocious vision. To lose Lamh Shabhala for-ever. Jenna glanced again at O’Deoradhain and knew that he saw the answer in her eyes. She looked back at Mac Ard.
'No,' she said.
And with the word, everything happened at once.
. . Bowstrings sang as Jenna reached for Lamh Shabhala and opened it with a mental wrench. The arrows arcing toward O’Deoradhain burst into flame, the wooden shafts seared to quick ash, the barbed heads clat-tering on the stone flags. Lightnings crackled from Jenna’s hands and she heard the screams from the gardai around her. .
. . O’Deoradhain opened his own cloch with a shout and sent a burst of hurricane wind toward Mac Ard even as the tiarna attacked with his own cloch. Their energy met in a thunderous maelstrom between them, but Mac Ard was stronger and O'Deoradhain was enveloped in snarling, flickering fury. He shouted once, a voice full of hurt and failure
. . Jenna saw O'Deoradhain fall to his knees and she struck with Lamh Shabhala as Mac Ard turned toward her. In the cloch-vision, she saw their two stones collide, like two giants formed of bright lightning wrestling with each other and grasping for holds. For several seconds, the tableau held, the power draining from their clochs with each moment. But slowly, slowly, Mac Ard's attack weakened under Lamh Shabhala’s greater strength and endurance, giving way so suddenly that Jenna nearly stum-bled herself. She could feel all the power spill from his cloch, and with her true eyes, she saw the tiarna fall--
That quickly, it was over. Jenna released Lamh Shabhala, and the shock sent her to the ground, sitting abruptly on the stones. She fought to retain consciousness, not daring to fall into night as she had the last time. Dark-ness threatened to take her, her vision shrinking and the world seeming to recede as she fought to hold onto it, bringing consciousness back slowly: Meagher and his crewman cowering behind the single mast of his boat; the moans of Mac Ard's gardai; O'Deoradhain and Mac Ard both sprawled on the ground; the echo of thunder rumbling in the hills.
Jenna took a long, slow breath and pushed herself back up. She went to O'Deoradhain; he was breathing but unconscious. 'O'Deoradhain?' she said, shaking him slightly, but he didn't wake. She took the long dagger from its scabbard at his waist, the keen edge ringing as it was unsheathed. 'Come help me with him,' she shouted to Meagher and the other man. When they didn't move, she lifted the cloch around her neck.
'Now!' she commanded, and they scrambled over the ship's side to her. 'Put him aboard,' she told the wide- eyed and terrified fishermen. 'You'll be taking us to Inish Thuaidh, and be glad that I don't strike you down right now for telling them we were here.' A quick intake of breath told her that she was right. 'How much did Tiarna Mac Ard pay you, Flynn Meagher? Tell me,' she barked into his frightened eyes.
'Four morceints, mistress,' he finally mumbled, his head down.
'Then you’ve been paid in full and more. Take my companion to the ship' Meagher and the other man didn’t move, their heads still down as if they awaited an executioner’s stroke. 'Do it now!' she ordered, 'And gently.'
'Aye, mistress.' Meagher and the other man lifted O’Deoradhain care-fully As they placed him on the boat, Jenna went to Mac Ard. She crouched beside him. He was barely conscious; his eyes fluttered, and he seemed to almost smile. His hand still clutched at his cloch. 'It seems I’ve underestimated you as well, Jenna,' he said. His eyes moved to the dagger in her hand. He tried to lift his hand, but it fell back to his chest. 'At least make it quick.'
She pressed the keen edge against the side of his neck and blood drooled as Mac Ard inhaled and closed his eyes. But she only held it there, and his eyes slowly opened again. 'Were you lying to me? Would you have let us go?' she asked him. She showed him Lamh Shabhala. 'You know I can hear the truth, if I wish.'
'It wasn’t a lie,' he answered. 'I believe you’re an abomination and a great danger, but I would do nothing that would hurt Maeve so much unless I had no other choice.'
She stared at his face, remembering the way he had looked at her mam, remembering the softness when she’d seen him sleeping with Maeve in his arms, back in Seancoim’s caves. She pulled the dagger back and put it in her belt. Then she reached down and wrapped the fingers of her left hand around the chain of his cloch, pushing his feeble hand away from the stone. 'No,' he moaned. His lips were flecked with blood. 'Ah, Jenna, don’t do this. Don’t take the cloch. Think of how Lamh Shabhala is part of you, how it would be like tearing away part of yourself to lose it. Don’t…'
She could see genuine fright in his eyes now, surprising her. Would I feel this way, if it were me laying on the ground and Lamh Shabhala about to be taken from me? With the thought, a spear seemed to penetrate her heart,
