Forgotten Sea

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.

“You are our hope and our future,” the prince had said that morning to the three young selkies before ordering them away.

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.

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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. “You are our hope and our future . . .” “Who’s Lucy?”

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.

It’s this connection thing we’ve got going. Like I was in your dream, but watching it, you know? I could see you—you were younger in the dream—and I could sort of hear your thoughts, but I didn’t understand everything that was going on.”

Neither did he.

Seven frigging years. Gone. The realization was as sharp as a knife, the loss as new as yesterday.

And Sanctuary . . .

He shook his head to clear it. “What happened to Sanctuary?”

“That’s the island in your dream?”

He nodded.

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“I don’t know.”

“You’re tel ing me your lot wouldn’t notice if the demons sank an island into the sea?”

“This isn’t Star Wars,” she said with a flash of spirit.

“It’s not like we feel a disturbance in the Force. Or maybe the masters would, but they wouldn’t tel me about it. I’m only a novice Seeker.”

“Wel , that’s just fucking great,” he said.

She looked at him with those big, clear, wounded eyes, which made him feel like an even bigger piece of shit for taking out his frustration on her. “Sorry. It’s not your fault.

There’s nothing you can do.”

Nothing he could do. If Sanctuary was gone, everything was over, had been over for seven years. His skul throbbed.

The only difference was that now he knew. He felt gutted, hol owed, as if everything worthwhile had been stripped from him, leaving nothing but bones and skin.

Not even skin.

His seal pelt was gone, too.

He covered his eyes with his upraised arm. Swal owed the ache in his throat. Nothing had changed, he told himself.

Nothing had real y changed. He was stil just a yacht bum, a drifter, without ties or responsibilities.

“Why would the demons destroy Sanctuary?” Lara asked.

She lay on her stomach beside him, her warm hip against his thigh, comforting. Distracting. “The merfolk have never sided with Heaven or humankind. What did the demons hope to gain?”

Reluctantly, he focused on her words. “We had something they wanted. Something our prince would never give up.”

“What?”

He lowered his arm, irritated by her persistence. “Lucy Hunter.”

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He watched her turn over his answer in her mind. “I can understand them hating her because she’s human,”