Holder of Lightning

That was certainly true enough. Banrion Aithne had given Jenna a cloca of finest white silk that had come all the way from Thall Mor-roinn. Jenna had let Keira and the other attendants dress her, feeling numb and some-how detached, as if she were watching this happen to someone else. The wedding had been in the Great Hall of Dun Kiil Keep; she entered the hall to find the Ri and Banrion, the entire Comhairle, Moister Cleurach and several of the Brathairs of the Order, and many of the minor Riocha of the city in attendance. The dripping of the stones punctuated the droning voice of the Draiodoir brought from the Mother-Creator's temple to con-duct the ceremony. Jenna stood next to MacEagan, not truly hearing the words, and when the Draiodoir handed her the traditional oaken branch to break, symbolizing her departure from her previous family, the dry crack of the stick had sounded impossibly loud and she had dropped the half she was to give to MacEagan, startled. The party afterward had been interminable. A singer had begun the Song of Mael Armagh, his baritone voice so much like Coelin's that Jenna felt her breath go shallow for a moment. The food in front of her seemed to taste of ashes and paper. A seemingly eternal line of well-wishers passed their table. Jenna had won-dered what they were thinking behind their carefully smiling faces, their choreographed movements, their polite and empty words. .

MacEagan poured the wine and handed one of the goblets to Jenna. She took it, but stared down into the well of purple liquid without drink-ing. She felt as if she wanted to cry, but her eyes were almost painfully dry. "I don't feel much like celebrating," she said.

"I'm sorry you feel that way, Jenna. Truthfully."

She glanced up; there was genuine empathy in his face, a distress that carved deeper the lines around his eyes. "I realize I can’t ever fill the void Ennis left in you, perhaps one day someone will. But I do promise that in the meantime won’t make the emptiness larger."

"What does that mean?"

He sat on the bed near her, leaving a hand’s width between them-When she moved away, he remained where he was. "It means that stand with you even if others won’t. The truth is, when the time comes finally choose sides-and it’s coming sooner than anyone except perhaps Aithne, Kianna, and I believe-neither you nor I know where the final lines will be drawn and who will stand where. People do strange things when they think it’s to their advantage, or when it seems to be the only course they can take."

"Like marrying someone they barely know."

The corner of his lips twitched; it might have been a smile. "That’s one example, aye. You began a new age when you woke the clochs na thintri, Jenna. We still don’t know the rules of it yet, or how it will change us. We only know that it will change us." He lifted his goblet. "So would you drink with me? To the future beyond the Filleadh."

Jenna felt the infant stir within her, a fluttering deep in her stomach. She wondered what kind of world the child would be coming into. Not one I thought a child of mine would have a year ago, nor one I would have chosen. .

"To the future," she said.

The clink of the goblets touching gilded rims seemed as loud as the crash of a closing door.

"I'M so scared," she'd admitted to MacEagan that morning. "1 don't know if we can stop them." She didn't mention Thraisha's dream, which had haunted her more and more in the last few weeks: the images of death and loss. She hadn't mentioned that to anyone, but she felt the certainty of it, more firmly each day. She felt as if she were walking a path that was already set for her, unable to turn aside or change it. Part of her, at least, was already reconciled to the inevitability of failure.

The first signs of the coming battle were the white sails on the horizon beyond the arms of the Inner Harbor, well out in Dun Kiil Bay.

They knew the armada was coming from Falcarragh-their own fast scout ships had come scurrying back as soon as the fleet had been sighted. The first battle of the war had already been fought and lost: the much smaller fleet of Inish Thuaidh had engaged the enemy as soon as it rounded Falcarragh Head and turned west toward the island. The tattered remnants of the Inish fleet-five ships of twelve oars, one of twenty: their rams broken, their single sails torn, the hulls dark with smoke and blood-had landed at the end of An Ceann Caol a week ago; an exhausted courier had staggered into the keep with the news two nights afterward.

And now the sails could be seen in the morning light.

Jenna stood in the golden dawn with MacEagan, Aithne, Kianna Ciomhsog, and Ri MacBradaigh.

They gathered on the south tower, gazing out over the town, the bay, and the sea. The wind was laden with the scent o salt and fish. Soon, Jenna suspected, the primary smell would be the cop-pery odor of death.