Sea Lord

by Virginia Kantra

  “Or now is good,” she said. Now was very good. Why screw things up? “Fall is the best time to transplant.”

  “Is it?” Griff’s dark eyes assessed her. “You might have a look, then.”

  “I will.”

  Why not? Conn had told her he would be meeting with the remaining wardens through midday. One thing she’d learned growing up was that you couldn’t sit around waiting for somebody to pay attention to you. Conn cared for her, her comfort, her pleasure. It was just that he had other responsibilities to occupy him and she had . . .

  The back of her neck prickled. Very little.

  Time to do something about that.

  “Well.” She stood. “Thank you.”

  “Iestyn here will bring you your lunch,” Griff said.

  “I can get it. I’m usually very competent.”

  Griff and the boys regarded her with blank, male, uncomprehending stares.

  Lucy sighed. “I’m going by the kitchen anyway.”

  And by the great hall, she thought. Conn was in the hall. Not that she would actually get to see him, but even the chance proximity was enough to make her heart skip. Like she was ten years old again, pedaling her bike past Matthew Miller’s house, sweaty and breathless with anticipation.

  But when she approached the arch to the outer bailey, her footsteps faltered. She hadn’t actually walked this way since her encounter with the demon lord. The memory thrust into her mind, invasive, painful. She blocked it the same way that she had blocked Gau.

  “He sensed that you were human and therefore vulnerable, ” Conn had said during one of their time-outs to talk. Last night? The night before? He rose to put more driftwood on the fire, the firelight sliding over his strong features. Lucy had pulled the covers over her breasts. She was cold without his warmth beside her—and even the memory of Gau made her shiver. Conn’s voice was deep, with an edge like an axe. “Now he knows you are under my protection. He will not violate the sovereignty of Sanctuary again.”

  Lucy was pretty sure she had protected herself last time, but she liked the way Conn’s concern made her feel. Safe. Cared for. Also, Conn was naked. The whole time he was talking, she was focused on the hard slope of his shoulders and the curve of his haunches as he stooped to the fire.

  She crossed the cobblestones.

  The long, low building opposite the keep was the kitchen, with the well beside it. Lucy didn’t see any raised beds or weeded plots, but creeping among the stones was a tiny-leaved plant she recognized as thyme and a taller shrub that might be sage, straggling in the shade. Near the kitchen door sprouted a clump of gray-green foliage with dried-up spikes. Lavender? She rubbed a velvety leaf between her fingers and sniffed. Marjoram. Good on chicken and fish. She would have to talk Griff into allowing her to take over some of the cooking.

  Planning a garden, planning meals . . . She was remaking her old life here, with Conn as the new center.

  Something about that thought struck her as not quite right. She pushed the feeling away and opened the door to the kitchen.

  The interior was dim, cluttered, and cool, more storeroom than kitchen. The air smelled of apples and onions, fish and peat. Shuttered windows admitted bars of light, revealing stone stained with smoke, shelves thick with dust, casks, bags, and barrels piled against the walls.

  Well. Lucy turned slowly. If she wanted something to do, she had come to the right place. As her eyes adjusted, she saw a long, wide table covered with what looked like treasures from a flea market, silver, crystal, and china. A wide open hearth and a cold iron stove anchored one end of the room. A deep trough with a pipe dominated the other. The walls were lined with open shelves.

  Lucy stepped closer and blinked in surprise at rows of cans. All sizes and shapes of tins and cans, labeled in all languages, with faded pictures of tomatoes, peaches, beans.

  “We accept the gifts of the tide,” Conn had said.

  If she could get them open, she could prepare a feast. A feast for one?

  A frown formed between her eyebrows. If she wanted to eat alone out of cans, she could go back to Maine.

  Not that she could actually go back. Not that she wanted to now. Conn wasn’t in Maine.

  She smoothed her brow and straightened her shoulders, and began to search among the bone-handled knives and silver tongs for a can opener.

  A male voice drifted through the slatted windows. “. . . more pressing concerns occupying his attention.”

  A woman laughed without amusement. “Occupying his bed, you mean.”

  Lucy froze, gripping a spatula.

  “I take it you do not approve of the prince’s liaison,” the man said coolly.

  Oh, God. They were crossing the courtyard, a man and a woman walking together. Wardens?

  “I forfeited my right to approve or disapprove when I left the prince’s bed,” the woman said. “And you, Lord Morgan?”

  Lucy held her breath. Concealed by the shutters, she edged closer to the window to see them better. To spy, she admitted to herself with a lurch of shame and discomfort. A tall man dressed in black, silver-haired and smooth-faced. That must be Morgan. And the woman with him, with the red hair and the large pink pearls, had shared Conn’s bed.

  She was very beautiful, Lucy observed.

  She tried not to mind. What had she expected? Conn must have learned all that technique somewhere. She knew going in he wasn’t the three-thousand-year-old virgin.

  “The ice shelves are shattering in the northern deeps,” Morgan said. “The seals lose ground day by day. Under the circumstances, I find it difficult to sustain interest in Conn’s new broodmare.”

  Ouch.

  Lucy’s throat closed. They didn’t know her. How could they judge her?

  “You have my sympathies. If not, it seems, Conn’s help?” The woman’s tone made the statement a question.

  “He does what he can,” Morgan said grimly. “Which is not enough to counter the humans’ depredations. Perhaps when the oceans rise and drown them, we will have some relief.”

  Lucy swallowed. Apparently she wasn’t the only human these two selkies disliked. They were being mean. Hateful.

  Conn’s broodmare.

  She cringed.

  “You agree with Gau, then?” the woman murmured.

  Morgan’s long strides checked. They were very close to the window. Lucy huddled in the shadows, her heart beating against her ribcage like a trapped bird. “You heard the prince,” he said without expression. “The children of the sea are neutral in Hell’s war on humankind.”

  “Not so neutral while that human galla shares his bed.” The scornful tone made translation unnecessary.

  “Her mother was selkie,” Morgan said.

  “Her mother was a bitch.”

  “But a fertile one,” Morgan pointed out. “Conn wants a child.”

  The red-haired woman bared her teeth. “You presume to tell me what Conn wants?”

  “I presume nothing,” Morgan said harshly. “Were it otherwise, Hell might have had a different answer.”

  They walked away. If the woman said anything in reply, Lucy didn’t hear. Her blood drummed in her ears. Her stomach churned.

  She needed to see Conn. Obviously the council meeting had broken up. He would come looking for her soon. She needed the reassurance of his strong arms and encouraging words. He didn’t hate her because she was human. He thought she was beautiful. He had agreed to give her time.

  As long as she continued to have sex with him.

  “Conn wants a child.”

  She closed her eyes against the pain. Yeah, he did. “Your blood and my seed to save my people,” he had said.

  He hadn’t lied to her. Maybe it would have been easier if he had. Because now she couldn’t even take refuge in anger. She couldn’t blame him for deceiving her.

  She had deceived herself.

  She set the spatula back on the table, her hand shaking. She needed time to think before she faced him again.

  “Wh
ere are you going?” Iestyn’s young voice caught Lucy at the postern gate.

  Lucy swept a longing glance beyond the castle walls, where the green slope wandered down to lose itself in the orchard before swooping to peaks and crests. Rocks heaved from the turf like whales from the ocean. The ridges glimmered in the afternoon sun. She wanted to be out there. She wanted to be gone, away from the towers and expectations that pressed down on her and made it hard to breathe.

  She turned and gave Iestyn a tight, teacher-to-pupil smile. “For a walk.”

  His brow furrowed. “I thought you were getting lunch.”

  She swallowed past her aching throat. “I’m not hungry.” That much, at least, was true.

  The boy’s gaze passed over her and lingered on Madadh, tongue lolling, at her side. “I will come with you.”

  “No,” she said sharply. Too sharply. A wildness reared inside her. She was desperate for escape from this place. From her pain. “I’ll be fine. I have Madadh with me.”

  Iestyn’s face hardened in a curiously adult expression. And then she remembered. He only looked like a teenager. “The dog did not protect you when Gau attacked.”

  No, she had protected herself.

  “I’ll be fine,” Lucy repeated. The Hunter family motto, used to guard secrets and deflect concern. She frowned, curiosity momentarily winning through her longing to be gone. “How much did you see, spying from the wall?”

  “Enough to know you should not be wandering outside the walls alone.”

  His concern was sincere and touching. “Conn said I was safe here.”

  “You could still get lost or turn an ankle. And then I’d be in trouble. I cannot let you go.”

  She raised her chin. “You can’t stop me.”

  Iestyn grinned at her, a boy’s grin, teasing, daring. “Will you put it to the test?”

  Um, no. For all his wiry build, he was as tall as she was and as leanly muscled as a high school runner.

  “How old are you?” she asked.

  Another grin. “I’ll tell if you let me come with you.”

  She blinked. Was he . . . Could he be trying to flirt with her? There was a complication none of them needed.

  But his friendly smile was balm to her bruised ego.

  “That’s okay. I’m not that interested,” she said and set off down the hill.

  Madadh ranged ahead, his long tail gently waving like the flag on the back of a bicycle. The wind plucked at Lucy’s hair and stirred the high weeds of the orchard. The heavy-sweet scent of apples carried on the breeze.

  Iestyn fell into step beside her. “I was twelve when the prince brought me to Sanctuary.”

  That caught her attention. “Conn brought you?”

  Iestyn nodded. “He paid my father in gold.”

  “How did your mother feel about that?”

  “I do not know. My mother is selkie.” He slid her a sideways glance. “Like yours.”

  “But . . . Didn’t you see her after you came here?”

  “No. She did not want me,” he explained simply. “I was conceived in human form, so all the time she carried me she could not go to sea. She gave me to my father as soon as a nurse could be found. I do not remember her, and I doubt that she remembers me.”

  Like Conn, Lucy thought with a pang at her heart. Poor boy. Poor lost boys. “It must have been hard for you to leave your dad.”

  Iestyn shrugged. “He was sorry to lose me just as I grew big enough to help around the farm. But my lord gave him enough gold to hire many men.”

  They waded through the orchard grass, threaded with wild strawberry vines and jeweled with tiny blue and white flowers. Fruit still clung to the low branches, dark as garnets, golden as moons, and under each tree a ring of wind-falls lay like a necklace.

  “I mean, it must have been hard for you emotionally,” Lucy said.

  “I could not stay,” Iestyn said.

  “Why not?”

  “I was near my Change.” He raised his head to watch the hound, trotting out of the trees and up the slope on the opposite side. “The first time is hard, even when you are prepared. You must generate your own skin from the inside. It hurts. Like your guts being torn out.”

  “But you don’t have to Change,” Lucy said before she could stop herself.

  Her lungs squeezed in her chest. Her heart pounded. For a moment she was a fourteen-year-old runaway again in the seedy gas station outside Richmond, puking her guts into the dirty washroom toilet, dying on the cold tile floor.

  Iestyn turned and regarded her with narrowed golden eyes. “Of course you do. All selkies Change. We cannot help it. It is our nature.”

  Lucy forced herself to breathe. All selkies Change.

  She was not selkie.

  They hiked up the hill after Madadh, now scrambling through and over the rocks. The climb pulled the overworked muscles of her thighs, eased the tightness in her hamstrings. The sun poured down like honey, edging the shadows. The breeze carried the faintest trace of smoke from this morning’s fires.

  “So you need somebody with you?” she asked.

  Iestyn nodded. “It helps for the Change. And after. The pull of the sea is strong and hard to break. You need a guide with you the first time out, to help you find your way back.”

  “And without a guide?”

  He shrugged again. “You stay beneath the wave. Forever, maybe. Unless it occurs to you to come ashore.”

  She tried to guess what would bring a selkie ashore. “Like for food?”

  “Er.” Iestyn’s face reddened. “For sex, mostly.”

  “Oh.” She swallowed. Of course. Her own mother . . . And Maggie . . .

  A long, low howl echoed from the rocks ahead and then another and another in an eerie chorus that quivered up her spine.

  Madadh crouched, ears flattening, hair raising along his shoulders.

  Lucy shivered. “What was that?”

  “Wolves.”

  She stopped dead. “Wolves?”

  Iestyn flashed her another grin, his embarrassment forgotten. “They are harmless.”

  “Harmless,” she repeated in disbelief.

  “Aye. Unless you’re a silly sheep.”

  He was plainly teasing. She didn’t care. She looked at Madadh, quivering like an arrow in a bow, and then at the track ahead, winding through the rocks. “So I’m a sheep,” she said. “Let’s go back.”

  “Baaa,” Iestyn said.

  She stuck out her tongue at him. They turned to begin their descent.

  And froze as a great gray wolf glided from the shadow of the rocks and blocked their way.

  Madadh whimpered.

  Iestyn paled. “Shit.”

  Fear raked claws down Lucy’s throat. “You said the wolves were harmless.”

  “They are.” Iestyn reached down cautiously, never taking his eyes from the wolf, and drew a long black knife like Conn’s from a sheath at his knee. “These are not wolves. Not anymore.”

  Oh, God.

  She worked moisture into her mouth. “What—”

  “Demons.”

  Panic, blinding, bright, went off in her head. She blinked to clear her vision and saw more shapes slinking, circling on either side, sticking close to the rocks. She clenched her empty hands.

  “Behind me,” Iestyn ordered, his young voice strained. “Do not run. They attack from behind.”

  She stumbled to obey. Stones littered the track at her feet. She stooped, grabbing one in each hand, and faced the head of the path.

  The wolf confronting Iestyn snapped and snarled. Threatening. Testing. Lucy almost turned.

  And would have missed its two companions as they drifted into sight, silent as smoke.

  Her knees shook. Her arms trembled. Madadh growled low in his throat.

  Iestyn shouted. “Go! I command you!”

  The wolves in front of Lucy bared their teeth, laughing. Madadh bristled and shook.

  “Conn,” Lucy whispered.

  Regret opened like a ch
asm in her heart. Her palms were slippery with sweat. She gripped the stones tighter. She didn’t want to leave him. Not like this, with so much unspoken and unresolved between them.

  The shadow in front of her leaped. She screamed. She had a confused flash of heat, teeth, and eyes before Madadh lunged to meet it, their bodies colliding with a force that sent them rolling over the ground, jaws snapping, claws raking.

  She heard Iestyn grunt, felt him stagger behind her as he absorbed another attack. Everything was noise and fear and confusion. She threw a rock and missed. Threw another and watched it bounce uselessly off the wolf’s side. The circling wolves edged closer. Behind her, Iestyn lurched and thrust. Something warm spurted over her foot.

  She looked down. Blood.

  Madadh yelped.

  And Lucy got mad.

  Rage flooded her gut, filled her chest, flowed through her trembling legs to stiffen them. She felt it coiling, writhing and rising within her, broad, slippery ripples of fury rolling through her body to her brain, too much to control, too huge to contain. Pain knifed her brain, shards of brightness behind her eyes. Flinging out her empty arms, she shouted, “Enough!”

  The word went out from her like lightning and struck the snarling, writhing knot that was Madadh and the wolf. She heard a cry from Iestyn of pain or surprise, smelled scorched meat and burning hair, watched horrified as both animals jerked and collapsed.

  Oh, God. Oh, God. Her hands fell. Her breath sobbed. What had she done?

  The hound staggered bleeding to its four feet. The wolf stayed motionless on the ground.

  Iestyn drew a sharp breath behind her.

  She turned.

  The boy swayed above the slumped carcass of the first wolf. Beneath his tawny mop, his face gleamed pasty white. Blood crawled from a jagged bite on his arm. His knife dangled uselessly at his side.

  As she watched, he grinned shakily and switched the bloody blade to his other hand.

  “That’s two,” he said.

  Lucy swallowed and nodded, trying hard not to throw up.

  More shadows boiled out of the rocks. More wolves lurking, circling.

  Waiting.

  14

  THE LONG BLACK SHADOW OF THE KEEP CRAWLED across the cobblestones, measuring time like a giant sundial.