Sea Lord

by Virginia Kantra

  “Picture your family,” he instructed quietly. “Imagine them all together. Can you see them? Caleb and Margred; Dylan and Regina; your father, Bart . . .”

  Their names merged with the murmur of the fountain.

  “All your family. All together. Now.”

  A wind swept over the surface of the water, shimmering with ghosts and reflections.

  Lucy shivered.

  A wind swept over the threshold of Antonia’s restaurant, carrying the scent of wood smoke and fallen leaves.

  Maggie shivered.

  Caleb put an arm around her as the door jangled shut behind them. “You okay?”

  She looked up at him with big dark eyes. “Did you feel that?”

  “Yeah. Damn cold out tonight.”

  The snap in the air had brought the locals out to dinner. Caleb exchanged nods with the former mayor, Peter Quincy, greetings with lobsterman Manny Trujillo. Glassware clinked. Plates clattered. The smell of Antonia’s red sauce and Regina’s mussels in white wine and garlic hung over the dining room.

  Nick Barone, Regina’s eight-year-old son, hopped into the aisle between the tables. “Hey, Chief. Can I show Danny your handcuffs?”

  “Sure, Houdini.” As Caleb unhooked the cuffs from his belt, Regina pushed through the swinging door, her thin face flushed beneath a red bandana.

  She gave him a grin and Maggie a kiss. “Special tonight is bluefish with capers, soup’s minestrone. Booths are full, but I can get you a table. Unless you want to share with your dad and Lucy?”

  Caleb narrowed his eyes. Bart Hunter went out in search of alcohol, not food or company. Most nights he favored the bar at the inn. “Dad’s here?”

  Regina nodded. “In the corner.”

  Caleb glanced over the dining room. Dylan had strolled out of the kitchen and picked up two plates from the pass-through. Caleb smothered a grin at the sight of his elegant older brother, the selkie son, the warden of the sea, bussing tables. He carried the plates to a corner booth, where Caleb could see a flannel sleeve and his sister’s blond hair.

  “They’ve been in almost every night this week,” Regina continued.

  A muscle ticked in Caleb’s jaw. Not too long ago, he’d hauled his father out for breaking bottles behind this very counter. “He give you any problems?” he asked evenly.

  “None.” Her gaze met his. “He’s changed, Cal.”

  Caleb grunted, watching the family tableau. “He going back to the AA meetings at church?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  Caleb rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, I’ll talk to him.”

  “Dylan says he’s been taking real good care of Lucy,” Regina offered.

  “That would be a first.” Caleb shifted until he could see his sister sitting opposite their father in the high-backed booth. Something about the color of her skin, the expression in her eyes, nagged at him. “She looks a little off.”

  Regina shrugged. “She’s been sick.”

  “We will sit with them,” Maggie said.

  Caleb frowned in concern. “I don’t want you catching anything.”

  “Oh, please,” Regina said. “Lucy’s fine now. Nick said her class spent most of yesterday outside.”

  Maggie touched Caleb’s arm. “I want to sit with them. They should hear our news, too.”

  “What news?” Regina’s gaze darted between them.

  Maggie’s dark eyes shone. Her lips curved.

  “Oh my God.” Regina’s mouth dropped open. “You’re ...”

  Maggie nodded, her smile widening. “Having a baby.”

  The joy on her face, the pride in her voice, stung Lucy’s eyes.

  “Oh, that’s wonderful. Isn’t that wonderful? They’re having a baby.” She grinned at Conn through her tears. “I’m going to be a two-time aunt!”

  “A child is a blessing,” he agreed. “We have had too few.”

  She shook her head impatiently. “I’m not talking about the selkie birthrate. I’m happy for them. Aren’t you happy for them?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “I am happy for us all.”

  She opened her mouth. Shut it. Maybe his lack of reaction was a selkie thing. Or a prince thing. Or a guy thing.

  He met her gaze and smiled very faintly, with amusement and affection. Teasing her.

  Her heart somersaulted in her chest.

  “My lord Conn.” Griff paced across the courtyard from the keep. He sketched a bow to Lucy before turning to Conn, his eyes dark and serious in his broad face. “Ronat has discovered a new vent to the northwest.”

  Conn’s features froze. “He is here?”

  “In the hall, lord.”

  Conn released Lucy’s hands and stood. “I must see to this. Will you—”

  “I’m fine here,” she assured him. “I’ll . . . plant my rosebush or something while you’re gone.”

  His smile rewarded her for her understanding. “Get Iestyn to help you with the digging,” he tossed over his shoulder as they strode away.

  She watched them through the arch, their shadows stretching across the cobblestones of the outer bailey. The fountain gurgled and flowed. The pool reflected only the sky and the castle towers.

  Lucy sighed and tried to recall her family’s faces, to hold on to their memory in her heart and in her mind, to imagine their joy and their conversation. Did they miss her?

  But no, they had the corn maiden. Sitting there with Lucy’s family. With Lucy’s face. A little worm of jealousy uncoiled and gnawed at her heart.

  Taking a deep breath, she focused on the silver surface of the water. Think about babies. Think about nieces and nephews, a little girl with Dylan’s black eyes, a little boy with Caleb’s slow smile. She could almost see them, sturdy chubby legs and small grubby hands and skin smooth as an egg or the inside of a shell. Her heart was full and tender for them, these children who would always know their parents loved them.

  The water shimmered deep, deeper . . .

  “How pretty.” The voice—that voice—drove into her brain like an iron spike and ripped her throat. She opened her mouth, but no scream came out. “How unfortunate they will not live to be born.”

  Her stomach twisted. Her mind shrank. This couldn’t be happening. Gau shouldn’t be here. They had warded the springs.

  “Oh, I am not here.” Gau’s chuckle drew blood like the rusty edge of a saw. “I am already on my way to World’s End to visit your family. Since you couldn’t take the time.”

  She quivered, fear and guilt making her shrivel like a jellyfish left in the sun.

  “Do you know what I’ll do to them when I get there? Your pathetic excuse of a father. Your big brave brothers and their bitches.”

  The pool roiled and darkened.

  “Perhaps I’ll let you watch . . . ”

  Her stomach churned like the waters of the fountain. She saw things, dark, horrible, vile things, wavering just below the surface, Dylan fighting and Regina screaming and Caleb covered in blood. Maggie, pale and torn, weeping as though her heart would break.

  “No!” Lucy shouted, or tried to shout, but she had no voice.

  Just like in her nightmares.

  “Too bad about the babies,” Gau said, and laughed while the water ran stained with blood.

  The scream built in her chest and in her head until her throat was raw, until her ears rang, until the pressure behind her eyeballs exploded.

  And she never made a sound.

  When the last echoes died away across the courtyard, she stood on trembling legs. Staggering to the corner by the fountain, she threw up on the cobblestones.

  After the freedom and relief of the sea, the stone keep closed around Conn like a prison.

  They all felt it, he saw, looking around at his wardens. They were used to the vast reaches of their own territories. Being on land, in human form and together, strained them as much as any demon threat. Morgan wore a perpetual sneer. Enya’s voice was as brittle as her smile. Even Griff’s normally impassive face
creased in worried lines.

  The weight of responsibility pressed on Conn’s neck and pounded in his temples. It fell to him to unite them, to direct them, to protect them all, however uncomfortably they bore with each other or his control.

  “We closed the door,” he said grimly. “Hell has opened a window.”

  “Unless the vent was already there,” Enya said. “We do not know everything that goes on in the deeps.”

  “The eruption could be merely a warning,” Morgan said.

  “Not a warning,” Conn said. “A threat. We must deal with it.”

  Gau’s words seared his memory. “Give her to us, or we will destroy Sanctuary.”

  He would never give Lucy up.

  He listened to the wardens squabble like seabirds on the cliffs.

  He had hoped that they would have weeks or months before the demons moved against them. Time to be together. Time for Lucy to understand her gift.

  She was operating solely on instinct and raw power. In healing Madadh and in closing the portal, she had channeled that power through Conn. She needed to learn control.

  Morgan said something that made Enya flush and snap at him.

  Yet perhaps Lucy’s ignorance was also her strength, Conn reflected. Deprived of training, she had no preconceptions of what she could or could not do. Her power, like her loyalty, was not dictated by logic or duty.

  Lucy’s magic sprang from love. From passion.

  That love had saved his hound. Her love had rescued Conn from the gate of Hell.

  Griff rumbled, intervening in the wardens’ argument. Conn listened to them debate, aware as always of the tensions that flowed below the surface, threatening to pull them apart.

  He needed Lucy’s magic to save his people. But how could she save them unless she accepted she was one of them?

  She loved him, Conn reminded himself. She had said so. For now, that must be enough.

  He must rein the council to the crisis at hand. Conn looked at Ronat. “How active is this vent?”

  “I cannot say, lord. I sensed the plume, but I could not approach the chimney. It was too deep for me—more than a mile below the surface.”

  “Could the finfolk go there?” Conn asked Morgan.

  “I could,” Morgan said.

  “Then—”

  The door swung open. A shaft of sunlight spilled across the floor. Lucy followed it in.

  For a moment Conn simply enjoyed the sight of her, long and lean and graceful, bathed in light.

  Then he saw her face, and his heart clenched like a fist.

  “What is it, lass?” Griff said. “What’s the matter?”

  She stumbled from the beam of light, moving stiffly, blindly, like an old woman. “Gau.”

  Conn surged from his seat to catch her.

  “What?” A voice behind him.

  “Where?”

  Lucy raised her drowned green eyes to Conn. “In the fountain.”

  He supported her forward, his heart beating again.

  “A vision,” he said with relief.

  Gau must have taken advantage of the opening in the fountain to bypass the wards. At least the demon had not harmed her physically.

  Lucy clutched his arms. “I have to go home.”

  Conn stiffened. She was distraught. She did not mean it. She could not leave him. “No.”

  Lucy trembled.

  He didn’t understand.

  “Gau threatened my family. I have to go home.”

  A muscle bunched in Conn’s jaw. “You cannot leave Sanctuary.”

  Despair tore her. “You don’t understand. I saw—”

  “Visions can lie,” Conn said patiently. Implacably. “Gau lies.”

  “Gau is on his way to World’s End!” The words burst from her.

  “Then he will be there before you,” a voice drawled.

  Lucy turned her head to identify the speaker. Morgan, with the white-blond hair and eerie yellow eyes.

  “Whatever you imagine you can do,” Morgan said, “you are already too late.”

  Too late. Horror shook her. The internal scream started again in her head.

  Conn pierced the warden with a look before turning back to Lucy. “Dylan is there,” he said soothingly. “And Margred. They will protect your family.”

  Lucy’s visions rose like smoke, searing, dark. They choked her. “That’s not enough. They need a warden.”

  “Dylan is a warden.”

  “Dylan’s only one person.”

  “I will send the whaleyn to him with a warning.”

  She stared at him in disbelief. “My family is in danger. My brothers. A boy you’ve known since he was thirteen. And you’re going to send a warning?”

  Conn’s mouth compressed. “Your family accepted their danger when they refused to come to Sanctuary.”

  “Conn.” Her voice caught. “You must help them.”

  His face hardened. “My duty is here.”

  “What about my duty?”

  “You are the targair inghean.”

  “Oh, let her go,” Enya snapped. “Let her take on Gau on someone else’s turf. That would solve our problems with Hell.”

  “One way or the other,” Morgan said.

  Conn shot them a glare that shut them up.

  Lucy turned to them, her frantic gaze scanning the circle of interested, noncommittal, selkie faces.

  “You could help. Help my family. Please.” Her heart pounded. “Won’t any of you help me?”

  Griff shuffled his feet and looked away.

  “They are human. Mortal.” Her eyes begged for understanding. For sympathy. “They will die.”

  Conn took her hands in a strong clasp. “Lucy, Sanctuary itself is threatened. Without it, our people will die.”

  “You’re immortal.”

  “Not in human form. Not outside of Sanctuary.”

  “So what?” Was that her voice, sharp and cold as the wind? “So you only live eighty, ninety years?”

  His face set. “It is not for the children of the sea to grow old and die.”

  “My family won’t have the chance to grow old. They’ll just die. Gau will kill them. Unless you send help.”

  “No one can be spared from the defenses here.”

  “Then I must go.”

  “You can be spared least of all. We need you here. I need you here.” Conn lowered his voice. How he must hate this display of emotion in front of his wardens. “I cannot do this without you.”

  His eyes—warm silver—bored to the bottom of her soul. Her hands trembled in his.

  But her voice was perfectly steady as she said, “I’m sorry. I love you. But my family needs me more.”

  Slipping her hands from his grasp, she walked out of the hall.

  No one moved or spoke or tried to stop her. She walked swiftly, so no one could catch her. She did not look back. She couldn’t afford to.

  Across the courtyard and into the tower, down the stairs, and through Conn’s private door. Madadh whined and trotted after her.

  On the path that led to the beach, she turned. “Go!” she shouted. “Go on. Go back to him!”

  The hound pressed closer, thrusting its bearded muzzle into her hand. Her eyes stung. Her chest was on fire.

  She stumbled down the track.

  She had never wanted to be like the mother who had abandoned her. But she could be herself. She must not think of the ones she was leaving behind, but the ones she was leaving to save.

  Lucy swallowed hard. Maybe her mother had done the same.

  On the beach, she stripped off her borrowed clothes and folded them in a pile.

  “Something holds you back,” Conn had said.

  Yes. Pain.

  Fear.

  Love.

  Naked, she stood at the water’s edge.

  Or nearly naked. The aquamarine glinted against her belly. Conn’s words teased at her memory: “The selkie do not alter or adorn their skin.” Was she selkie? She remembered the tearing pain at
her midsection the last time she had braved the water. Maybe . . .

  With shaking hands, she fumbled with the piercing and laid it on top of the pile of discarded clothes. The tiny jewel shimmered against the rough linen like a tear. A promise. A farewell.

  Her heart hammered against her ribs as she turned to face the water. Conn had cautioned her against going alone into the sea. What had Iestyn said? Without a guide, a selkie Changing for the first time could be lost forever beneath the waves.

  But she was connected to the land in ways no selkie had ever been, anchored by duty and bound by love.

  Taking a deep breath, she walked naked into the sea.

  The water foamed around her ankles. Cold and apprehension shook her. She didn’t want to do this. She had no choice. Admitting it was a kind of relief. No choice. No control.

  She slogged forward.

  Pressure built under her skin, beneath her ribs, deep in her gut, swelling in slow rolling breakers along her sinews, bones, and nerves.

  She recognized the precursors of pain, the onset of the Change. She’d always resisted it before. Now she welcomed the pain, waded into it, with tears streaming down her face and outstretched arms.

  She needed the pain to take her where she had to go.

  Her vision blurred. Her hearing sharpened. Smells, a rich stew of kelp and brine, swept over her. The current dragged at her knees. She staggered, and the water bore her up, wrapped her in a lover’s embrace. Pain ripped her belly. Confusion rent her mind as the world dissolved and swirled around her. Her limbs shortened and fused. Her body thickened. Panic closed her throat. She couldn’t . . . She must. She struggled forward, wallowing in the surf, ungainly and powerful. Her skin quivered, her fur rippled under the caress of the water.

  We flow as the sea flows . . .

  The water broke over her head. Her heart leaped and surged.

  Yes.

  The waves whispered and sang. With a sigh of release, she surrendered her body, surrendered her will, surrendered control to the sea.

  18

  THE DOOR THUDDED SHUT BEHIND LUCY. SILENCE fell over the hall.

  None of Conn’s wardens would meet his eyes.

  “Will you go after her, lord?” Griff offered at last.

  Conn’s headache simmered behind his eyes. He was aware of having upset her. Hurt her. Disappointed her. But what else could he have done or said? His duty was to his people, as Lucy’s must be.