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looking away toward Ennis and Isibéal, and Meriel could sense that she was considering her next words. “The discontent among the Riocha is higher now than it has been since you became the Ard,” she said finally. “It’s been building for the last year, since you sent the troops to Céile Mhór.”
    Meriel was already shaking her head. Sending out the army hadn’t been a choice she’d wanted to make. Sending soldiers off to war was never a decision with which she could be comfortable, especially since her husband and oldest son were among them. But the reports from Céile Mhór had been so dire and terrifying. The Arruk, vile creatures flooding into the peninsula from their homelands in Thall Mór-roinn, had pushed their way relentlessly north, killing and destroying as they went, and the Thane of Céile Mhór had finally sent a desperate plea for help to Dún Laoghaire. The discussion had raged for days when she’d called the Comhairle of Ríthe together. “ Céile Mhór may be far from the Tuatha, but those are our cousin Daoine who the Arruk were killing and they are the buffer between us and the Arruk. If they fall, then the Arruk will inevitably come here and it will be our families who are slain and our fields trampled underneath. We need to—no, we must —answer the Thane’s call.” To demonstrate the seriousness of her belief, she had named Owaine as the commander for the Tuathaian army that would be sent, though the decision had made her tremble, and Kayne—full of youthful conviction and fervor—would not be left behind either. Yet though they’d all finally agreed, when the troops had assembled, the Ríthe had sent far fewer soldiers to her than promised. . . .
    “The Arruk left us no choice,” she said to Edana. “We both know the arguments.”
    “I agree, but . . .”
    Meriel raised an eyebrow. “But?”
    “You complained at the lack of troops from some of the Tuatha, but while Inish Thuaidh sent clansfolk, they didn’t offer any cloudmages at all, and Lámh Shábhála remained at home.”
    “It’s that old complaint again? ‘The First Holder doesn’t do enough with her power. If I had it . . .’ Did you really expect Mam to go riding off to war with Lámh Shábhála?”
    “I wouldn’t expect that at all,” Edana answered, and there was a sharpness buried in her words that indicated she expected very little of the Banrion of Inish Thuaidh in any case. “Meriel, you know the affection I have for you, so forgive me when I say that in some ways I must agree with that complaint. The First Holder hasn’t used Lámh Shábhála as much or as well as she could, and it’s well past time for Inish Thuaidh to become part of the Tuatha and under the control of Dún Laoghaire. Now, your invitation for the First Holder to come here and your treatment of Inish Thuaidh as if it were an entirely independent land is causing the anger of the Riocha to boil.”
    Meriel felt her face flush with the criticism. “All the money and artisans Mam sent to rebuild Falcarragh, all the treaties she’s signed, the trade we now have between us, the peace that has existed between the Tuatha and Inish Thuaidh since that time . . . over three hands of years now, there’s been peace between the Tuatha. I would say that she’s done all she need do, and perhaps more. What do they expect of her: to ride all over Talamh An Ghlas and use Lámh Shábhála to plant the fields or clear the bogs or create whole new towns of sparkling stone? Even if she did that, the Riocha would all be complaining that she was planting the wrong crops and stealing their peat and that the streets in the new towns were too narrow. They’d come here screaming about her trespassing on their lands and insisting that she go back home.”
    Meriel realized that Edana was waiting patiently and closed her mouth on the remainder of the tirade. “I’m sorry,” she told Edana. “I know that you’re giving me an honest evaluation of how you see