was tinged with soft regret. 'Even though Aron is my brother, he has violated the peace of the Ri and de-serves to pay for that. .'
Jenna wondered why Aithne would argue against Aron, but Moister Cleurach leaned toward her and whispered. 'Oh, she’ll make him pay-by bleeding his personal estate dry to come up with the honor-price against the warrant and replacing him in the Comhairle with another tiarna whose gratitude will give her his vote. Leave it to the Banrion to turn her brother’s rash judgment to her own advantage.'
The Banrion continued to speak.'… but Tiarna Ciomhsog is also correct in that the hostage taking is now eraic, and neither the Comhairle or the Ri can interfere in that.' Aithne looked directly at Jenna, and though the sorrow still throbbed in her voice, her gaze was as hard as 'int. 'I wish it were different, First Holder. I wish the decision weren't so painful and difficult for you, or that I had wise counsel to give you. I don't. You must make your own decision as to how to respond to the eraic's demands. I can only offer myself as your servant to carry Lamh Shabhala to my brother, if that is what you decide.'
Chapter 47: Voices
SHE wished she could speak with Seancoim. She wished she could sink into her mam's arms and simply sob. She wished Ennis were there, warming the other side of her bed.
But the night was cold and empty, and there was no one but Jenna herself and the voices inside Lamh Shabhala. She stroked the stone, listening. .
'. . give it up! Aye, it will hurt and may even kill you, but holding the clock will end up being more pain for you than this, and death is a final release. Save the man you love… '
'. . give up Lamh Shabhala, and you'll die unhappy and young. You'll hate him for having made you lose the cloch, that wonderful love of yours will turn sour and bitter and you'll end up with nothing. Nothing at all… '
'. . go there yourself and attack the man. If you lose, at least you've fought… '
'. . only a stupid fool would give up Lamh Shabhala for a lover… '
'. . only an utterly selfish one would keep it at the cost of a lovers death…'
'Riata, talk to me,' Jenna said, but if his voice was there in the babble, she couldn't distinguish it from the dozens of others. Jenna rolled from the bed, grimacing as the healing wounds and burns pulled and com-plained, and went over to a chest at the foot. Under the clothing were nestled the tore of Sinna Mac Ard and the carved blue seal her father had made. She picked up the seal, caressing it and
holding it against Lamh Shabhala. A moment later, the moonlight streaming in from the windows shimmered, and she was looking at the interior of her cottage in Ballintubber, and her da glanced up in surprise. 'Who are you?' he asked, as he had every time.
And as she had every time, she told him, and watched his disbelief slowly turn to acceptance. She told him about Mac Ard and Maeve, about Ennis. 'I don't know what to do, Da,' she said finally, unable to stop the tears. '1 don't know. .'
Niall put down the block of wood he was carving. He walked toward her and a hand went out to touch her in comfort, but it moved through her as if Jenna were no more substantial than air. He looked at his hand as if it had somehow betrayed him. 'What if it were you, Da?' Jenna continued as Niall stared at the offending fingers. 'What if holding the cloch meant that you lost Mam?'
'I never held a cloch na thintri when it was alive,' he answered. 'It's not hard to give up something that had little value to you. I would give away a thousand stones like that to keep Maeve.' He put his knife to the wood and a brown shaving curled away. 'I'm sorry, Jenna. Truly I am. But I can't help you; I can't imagine needing to make the choice or the choice being that important.' His sad, lost eyes gazed at her, and she was struck by the softness of his face and his hands. He wouldn't have been strong enough to hold Lamh Shabhala. It would have destroyed him. The thought was so like the cold, judgmental voices she'd heard in her head that she gasped, knowing it was her own voice she heard. She opened her hand and the carving fell to the floor. 'Da, I'm sorry. .' she whispered as Niall and the cottage vanished, leaving her alone in the room.
She left the carving where it fell, picking up a shawl and leaving her chambers. The guards posted outside started to follow her, but she ges-tured to them to stay. She hurried down the stairs and corridors of the keep and outside to the courtyard.
'I need to go down to the town,' she told one of the pages on duty there, and he scurried off to wake the stable master and bring a carriage. Half a stripe later, she left the carriage at one end of the wharf. 'Stay here,' she said to the driver. 'I'll be back soon.'
In the darkness, the harbor area was quiet, though she could hear laughter and singing from the tavern facing the docks, and the waves lapped the piers as mooring ropes groaned and hulls knocked gently against pilings. Jenna strode quickly to the end of the wharf where she and Ennis had gone the night of the Feast of First Fruits. She walked from the planks onto the wet, dark boulders there and sat, staring out over the water. She touched Lamh Shabhala, her attention drifting with its energy over the sea, calling.
There was an answer. Several minutes later, as she sat shivering in the cold night breeze, a head appeared in the waves, the waves splashing white and phosphorescent around it. A grunting warble: 'Sister-kin.' The Saimhoir hauled itself awkwardly out of the water and onto the pebbled beach.
'You knew,' Jenna said. It was not so much an accusation as a state-ment, nor did Thraisha deny it. 'When we left, you told him ’Farewell’”
“You knew.'
The black eyes glinted in moonlight. Blue light shimmered in the satin fur, mottled with the pattern of the mage-lights. She smelled of brine and fish. 'I knew that my land-cousin wasn’t with you in my foretelling, and I had the sense that I wouldn’t see him again.'
Tears filled Jenna’s eyes with that, and Thraisha waddled over until she could put her head in Jenna’s lap. Jenna stroked the silken fur, crying. A drop fell near Thraisha, and she lapped at the water, tasting it. 'Why do you give the salt water?' Thraisha asked. 'Is it an offering to your gods?'
'No,' Jenna answered, sniffing. 'I’m crying because I know that I could change your vision. All I have to do is give up Lamh Shabhala.'
'You can’t do that.' It was not a warning or a caution, only a statement of fact.
'Why not?' Jenna railed. 'Why shouldn’t I?
What’s Lamh Shabhala brought me that’s so wonderful I can’t bear to let it go? I’ve lost my mam, lost my home. I’ve had to endure more pain than I thought possible; I’ve killed people and had them try to kill me.' She yanked the stone from around her neck, holding it in her hand, the chain dangling. 'Why not give it up?' she shouted. She took her arm back, bringing it forward with a sharp, throwing motion.
But there was no answering splash out in the water. Her hand remained closed and when she opened it, the stone was still there, glinting in her palm.
'Jenna, stroke my back.' Jenna placed Lamh Shabhala around her neck again, and reached down to Thraisha, her fingertips grazing wet fur: 'No-harder, so you can feel beneath,' Thraisha told her. Jenna rubbed the patterned fur, and underneath the skin of her back and sides, she could feel the lines of hard ridges. 'Those are scars and wounds that are still healing,' Thraisha said. 'Not from harpoons or the teeth of the seal-biter. These are from my own kind, because they wanted what I have and tried to take it from me. Because they think that I'm wrong in what I do.
Her front flippers slapped rock as she moved, and Jenna saw that the left one was torn, as was her tail. 'So it's no different for you.'
'No, sister-kin.' In the cloch-hearing, Thraisha gave a bitter laugh, as Jenna's own ears heard a soft warbling. 'Stone-walkers and Saimhoir both came from the loins of the Miondia, and those lesser gods are all brothers and sisters from the womb of the same deity, even if we give Her different names-We are cousins and share more traits than we like to admit. There are a few who believe as I do, but only a few.'
'What is it that you believe?'
Thraisha looked up at Jenna. 'That we're to do more with the gifts we've been given than use them as weapons. That we who come First can mark this time and shape it so that it will be different and better than all the times the mage-lights have come in the past. That your fate and your choices-yours, sister-kin-are important to the Saimhoir because you hold Lamh Shabhala, who opened the way for all and who might still guide us.' She huffed, her nostrils flaring at the end of the dark muzzle. 'But there aren't many who agree with me. Most believe that Saimhoir and stone-walkers should stay apart, that our changeling land-cousins are abominations, and that the Bradan an Chumhacht should be used only for the needs of the Saimhoir. 'The stone-walkers live on the dry stones
