Holder of Lightning

Her hand stayed on his, and he didn't move it away. His gaze searched her face, and she felt herself blushing under the scrutiny. You like this man more than you want to admit, and the realization brought more heat to her cheeks. What she felt wasn't what she had once felt for Coelin; the heat inside her was different. With Coelin, the attraction had come from his flattery of her and his handsome face, and she knew now how false and shallow that had been. What she was feeling now came at her from all directions, and she found herself looking at O'Deoradhain with new eyes, and wondering if he were feeling what she was.

"This isn't the cloch I want to possess," he said gruffly. "You know that."

"Aye," she answered. "I know. I also know that if you take the one you want, it will be because I can no longer use it. And I also know that will be due to some other person's deed, not yours." She pressed his fingers more tightly around the stone, and smiled at him. "I think I'm making a good choice, this time."

Slowly, he nodded. His hand slid from her grasp and he put the cloch a thintri’s chain around his neck. The jewel gleamed on his chest for a moment before he placed it under his tunic.

"If you can ride," he said, "we should be moving. I'd like to make the coast by tomorrow evening. He won't let us rest." O'Deoradhain didn't need to tell Jenna who "he" was-she knew. "He'll follow us, as soon as he's able, and the next time he attacks he'll be more careful."

"I know he will," she agreed. "But we'll be stronger."

Chapter 35: O'Deoradhain's Tale

THEY stopped to eat and rest near a narrow and long lough cradled between close green hills. The sun was high and peeked out occasion-ally between the clouds sweeping across the sky. Cloud shadows raced over the slopes, and the smell of the sea was in the wind from the west. Well out toward the western end of the lake, two fishing boats bobbed on the waves where the lough curved north and away toward the endless water of the ocean. Dark fingers of smoke smeared across the sky around the hills behind them, and underneath was a cluster of white dots.

"People," Jenna said. "I’m not sure I remember how to react around them anymore."

"If we’re lucky, we won’t meet too many of them," O’Deoradhain an-swered. "We’ll make for that village. Maybe there’s an inn where we can stay and clean up, and if we’re lucky, find someone to take us up the coast. But they’ll be asking questions of strangers." He nodded at Jenna’s right arm and the swirl of scars. "You’ll need to cover that arm of yours, and we’ll need to devise a story to give them. And we can’t show the clochs. Ever. Not here."

"I agree. But let’s rest here for a bit. Tis beautiful, this."

"Aye. If you’d like to look about, go on. I’ll take care of the horses and our food."

Jenna walked down to the shore of the lough as O’Deoradhain hobbled the horses. The lough’s waters were fairly clear, not peat-stained like the waters of Lough Lar, and the water shifted from green to deep blue as the bottom fell away quickly. She sat on a rock that protruded out a bit into the water, taking off her boots and leggings and letting her feet splash in the cold water. She stroked the smooth surface of Lamh Shabhala: she had renewed its reservoirs with the mage-lights the night before, and O’Deoradhain had done the same with his cloch. She opened Lamh Shabhala slightly, letting its aura spread out over the lough, feeling for the presence of other clochs na thintri. She could sense O’Deoradhain close by and feel the powerful emanations of his cloch even through the wall he had tried to erect around it; she could perceive the fisherfolk in their boats, their thoughts altering the pattern of faint energy she placed around them; and at the very edge of Lamh Shabhala’s range, the

clustering of many people in the village. But there was no one else. No one with inten-tions toward her.

Except…

There was something. Rising toward her, drawn to her, its attention steady on her.

Rising from below. .

Fingers gripped Jenna's ankles, still dangling in the water. They pulled, hard and sudden.

Jenna had no time to cry out. Instinctively, she turned her body, trying to cling to the rock even as she was dragged down into the lough. Frigid water hammered at her lungs; she took a gulping breath as her head went under, her hands still scrabbling for purchase. Invisible, frigid hands pulled at her legs, her waist, her breasts, and finally closed around the chain of Lamh Shabhala. Her desperate fingers found a knob of rock, and she pulled herself up even as the hands tried to hold her down and rip away the cloch from around her neck. Gasping, Jenna's head broke the surface as she flailed for a higher handhold, pulling herself up. She screamed, letting go with her left hand and striking at her assailant.