Holder of Lightning

"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?"