Holder of Lightning

"No!" Mac Ard shouted as both Jenna and O’Deoradhain reached for their own clochs. "Don’t move!" Several men now appeared around the dock area, at least a half dozen with arrows nocked in bows already pulled back at 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.