Simon had dismissed the merfolk as untrustworthy, irrelevant to the nephilim’s struggle for survival.
But suppose that together, they could be more? The possibility quivered inside her. She could be more. What if her Seeking was in response to a greater purpose, a higher cal ing? Simon would have to acknowledge her value to him. She would be pardoned.
Vindicated.
“Don’t you see? This changes things. Now that we know what you are . . .”
“What I
She frowned, reluctant to relinquish her brief fantasy of being welcomed back to Rockhaven, problem solved. Sins forgiven. “Don’t say that.”
“Lara, when we jumped . . .” He rol ed off her and sat staring at the burning river. “Nothing happened.”
She struggled to sit up, recal ing the shock of his touch, the burst of rain and power as they shot from her element into his. “How can you say that?”
“Because nothing happened to me.” Emptiness echoed in his voice. Her heart squeezed in instinctive sympathy.
“The children of the sea are shape-shifters. But in the water, I did not Change.”
The fine hair along her arms rose. Shape-shifters.
She hugged her knees for warmth, regarding Iestyn’s profile in the sul en light of the fire—strong nose, firm lips, F
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hair flattened to his head by rain and the river. Too beautiful to be merely mortal.
She’d known he was different. She hadn’t considered how different. “Change into what?” she asked cautiously.
“I am selkie. A man on the land, a seal in the water,” he explained. “But I need my sealskin to Change form.”
Her throat thickened. The nephilim could spirit cast into birds. But nothing in her training had prepared her for an elemental who turned into a seal. Or who, um, didn’t.
She swal owed. “Where is it? Your sealskin.”
“I don’t remember.” He turned his head to meet her gaze. In the orange light of the fire, his eyes were like the eagle’s, fierce and bright. “Without a pelt, I am trapped in human form. If I were finfolk . . . But I am not. Not elemental. Not immortal. I’l grow old and die.”
She sucked in her breath. Some of the nephilim lived two or three hundred years—more than twice as long as humans.
But eventual y they, too, aged and died. “You mean, like me?”
He didn’t answer.
She rubbed her arms. Not quite like her, she realized.
She was Fal en. He was merely . . . lost.
She licked her lips. “I want to help you.”
“You’ve done enough already.”
The echo of Simon’s rebuke made her wince. “That’s cold.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.” His warmth, his regret, sounded sincere. “You got me out of there. And at least now I’ve got my mind and a piece of my memory back.”
“I can do better. I want to help you go home.” The rightness of her decision settled in her stomach.
“I have no home.”
“Back where you belong,” she clarified. “With your own kind.”
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He went very stil , his head lifting, like a dog on the scent or a man hearing his favorite song come on the radio.
And then he shook his head.
“Look, I appreciate the thought. But Sanctuary is gone.
Destroyed. If any of my kind survived, I don’t know where they are. I don’t belong with them anyway.”
Her heart thrummed. “I’m a Seeker. I could help you find them.”
“Why?” he asked bluntly.
“You saved my life. Isn’t that reason enough?”
“For you to risk your life?” He shook his head.
“I’l be safe with you.” She hoped.
“You’l be safe if you go back.”
But not trusted. Not valued. Disgraced. Dismissed.
Demoted.
“If I go back now, I’l be cleaning birdcages the rest of my life.”
“Better me than bird shit?”
Amusement. She stuck out her chin, determined to convince him. “For the moment. Or would you rather hear I can’t live without you?”
“Don’t say that.” His voice was suddenly serious. “If we find them, I’l be gone. Even if we don’t find them, I won’t stay.”
His earlier warning echoed in her head.
It was more than a sailor’s excuse this time, she thought.
Simon warned that the children of the sea were changeable as the tides, fickle and unsteady.
She bit her lip. “I don’t need you to stay. I just need . . .”
“To Axton?”
F o r g o t t e n s e a 1 15
“To Simon, yes.”
Iestyn made a sound very like a growl. “Fine. We better get moving, then.” He stood, looking down at her. “Unless you plan on waiting for the fire truck.”
It wasn’t an invitation. It was a dare.
She scrambled to her feet, her heart pounding in her chest.
She’d won. For now. She was leaving Rockhaven—
not for a brief mission in the company of a Guardian, but truly
