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, and she gasped with imagined terror. Aye, you would feel as he does, and worse…
You knew I couldn’t just give you Lamh Shabhala.
You knew I wouldn't be able to do that."
"I suspected it." His eyes went to her hand, still clutching the chain of his cloch. "Now I know it." His gaze searched her face. "I'm sorry, Jenna.
“I'm sorry you have to bear the burden. I'm sorry I could not be your da for you."
"My da?" Jenna shouted in rage. "You could never be my da!" Anger twisted her hand tight around the chain, and with the rising fury she tore the cloch from around his neck, the silver links parting as they ripped open his skin.
He screamed, a sound that held loss and terror, a wail of grief and a shivering denial. His hands grasped for the cloch, his eyes wide. "No..!" He was panting, and his eyes were wild. "I'll kill you for this. I swear it!"
She stared down at him. "The next time we meet," she told him, clutch-ing his stone in her hand, "one of us will die." The words came to her with a sense of truth, as if she'd been given a glimpse of the future.
He moaned and shrieked, his eyes not on her but on the cloch na thintri she'd taken. Jenna turned and went to the boat, trying not to listen to the mingled threats and pleas he hurled at her back.
"Cast off," she told Meagher, and went to sit next to O'Deoradhain, staring back at the village as the wind snapped at the sail and bore them away.
Chapter 37: The White Keep
HE expected him to be angry. He wasn't. "You know it was a mistake to leave him alive," was all he said, his voice surprisingly gentle. "But you should know that in some ways, that was more cruel. He'll always feel the loss. Forever."
"They'll give him another Cloch Mor. Or he'll find one," Jenna an-swered.
O'Deoradhain nodded. "Aye, I agree. He will. And
he will come after you with it, because you have wounded him-on the inside, where it will never heal."
She only nodded, her hand at her throat, and he smiled sadly at her. 'You made the choice. You can't unmake it. And I'm not surprised that you couldn't find it in yourself to kill a helpless man." It was the last time he mentioned the incident.
The first night out, with the headland of the bay still to be rounded, the mage-lights began to glow. Meagher and his friend were watching, their gazes on the two and the mage-lights that were beginning to swirl above them. "You saw what the clochs can do at the village," Jenna told Meagher. She cradled her right arm, letting them see the patterns the lights had carved into her skin. "I'm telling you now that we can sense your intentions, also, while we're calling the mage-lights or even when we're sleeping. I will use the cloch if I feel threatened. Do you understand?"