She nodded and scooted down on her pil ow, making the mattress and everything under the T-shirt shift. He closed his eyes briefly. He must be out of his mind. He settled next to her, tucking her alongside him, her head under his chin, her arm across his chest, her smooth legs against his thigh.
Torture.
Her hair smel ed fresh like rain and clean like soap. It was also, he discovered quickly, stil damp.
Sleep was hopeless. He lay staring at the ceiling, trying not to disturb her, forcing himself to breathe slowly and steadily in and out. He could feel the faint vibration of their connection, the beat of her heart, the whisper of her breath.
In and out . . .
He dreamed again. Dreamed and remembered.
*
*
*
Three of them boarded the ship in the gray dawn light. Four, if you counted the dog. Iestyn, his arms ful of ninety pounds of wet, excited deerhound, definitely counted the dog. If not for the prince’s hound Madagh, they might al have Changed into seal form instead of leaving Sanctuary by boat.
F o r g o t t e n s e a 147
Or maybe not. Iestyn boosted the shivering dog onto the swim platform at the back of the boat before hauling himself, dripping, from the cold sea.
How did you outswim the end of the world?
The dog’s claws scrabbled on the smooth deck. Roth set down the sea chest and turned to help.
At the ship’s rail, Kera stood, her gaze fixed on the rocky shore where the sea lord Conn stood with Griff, the castle warden, to see them off.
Kera’s face set in lines of mutinous distress. “I should stay.”
“The prince commanded us to leave,” Roth said.
Kera raised her chin. “I could help in Sanctuary’s defense.
I am Gifted.”
“You’re a pain in the ass.”
Iestyn ignored their squabble. The three of them had been raised together since before the age of Change. The magic of the island that kept their elders from aging prevented the young selkies from reaching maturity for a very long time.
Once there had been enough of them to fil a classroom.
But he and Roth and Kera were the youngest.
The last.
Seabirds clamored around the southern cliff face, disturbed by the fretting wind or the tension in the air. Smal waves slapped the rocks below the towers of Caer Subai.
Iestyn eyed them anxiously.
Miles away, outside the wards that protected the island, demons labored under the crust of earth to turn the sea itself against the children of the sea. When the ocean floor erupted, the quake would create a tidal wave, a roaring wal of displaced water that would crest and fal on Sanctuary.
Unless the sea lord stopped it. Somehow.
14 8
V i r g i n i a K a n t r a
A white bird, its wings sharply angled as a kite, circled the mast like a portent.
Madagh caught sight of Conn on shore and whined, pressing against Iestyn’s thigh. Iestyn rubbed the dog’s bearded muzzle. He knew exactly how the dog felt.
Lucy might have stopped the destruction of Sanctuary.
In the brief time she had lived on the island, Lucy Hunter had channeled the flood of the wardens’ power and tapped a wel of feeling in the cold, proud sea lord as deep as it was unexpected.
But Lucy was gone now.
When the demons threatened, she had turned her back on the prince and her selkie heritage to protect her human family in Maine, half a world away.
No one dared speak of her desertion to the prince. But among themselves, Iestyn and his friends could talk of little else.
“Traitor,” Kera denounced her.
But in the weeks Lucy had been on Sanctuary, she had been Iestyn’s friend. She stood with him back to back against the demons. She had healed his wounded arm.
Iestyn tightened his fingers in the rough fur of the dog’s back, his throat constricting. He would have gone with her, if she had asked. He would have fol owed her if he dared.
The cold wind whipped through Iestyn’s clothes and tugged at the rigging. On shore, Conn’s face was set like stone, his eyes like ice.
Iestyn had wanted to argue. Lucy was the important one. He wished Prince Conn would go after her and find her before it was too late.
F o r g o t t e n s e a 149
The earth rumbled. Iestyn’s heart pounded as he bent to secure the barking dog to the rail.
Unless it was already too late.
*
*
*
He woke suddenly, his heart drumming in his ears and in his chest. There was somewhere he had to go, something he had to do.
Lara’s voice. Lara’s face hovering over him, revealed in the crack of light from the bathroom. Her side pressed warm and soft against him, breast, hip, thigh. His body reared awake.
He cleared his throat. “Who?”
Her gray eyes narrowed. “You were dreaming about a woman. Lucy Something.”
“Lucy Hunter.” Memory engulfed him like a wave. He couldn’t breathe. “Lara . . .” He gripped her shoulders too hard, his fingers denting her smooth flesh. “What happened?”
She caught her ful lower lip in her teeth. “I’m not sure.
