Children of the Sea 03 - Sea Lord

broken chaff clung to his skin.
    Kneeling beside Lucy, he gathered her hair in one hand the way he’d gathered the corn, counting the strands across his palm, one, two, three . . . seven . Her face was still, her skin cold and pale.
    An unexpected twinge caught him beneath the ribs. He used sex as a tool, a weapon. He did not expect it to turn like a knife in his hand. But his feelings, her feelings, could not be allowed to matter. He did what he must do.
    Fisting his hand around the strands of her hair, he yanked it out by the roots.
    Her breath escaped her lips in a silent cry. A drop of blood beaded at her scalp, but his magic compelled her to continue sleeping.
    He set his teeth, touching his finger to the blood and then to the center of the bundled corn, the claidheag
    , where the corn maiden’s heart would beat. If such a creature had a heart. His fingertip burned. He felt the heat flow upward through his arm, power building and pulsing like a headache. He tied the seven strands of hair over the twine at the top.
    “Know,” he commanded. The pressure hammered at his temples.
    He blew into the featureless face. “Breathe.”

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    He pressed the heel of his palm between Lucy’s legs, still wet with her essence and his seed. The magic gripped his neck like claws, sinking fangs into his skull, squeezing his brain. He smeared his wet hand over the dry husks of the claidheag , anointing it with life. “ Be. ”
    He felt the surge, the shock of focused power, leap from him to the sheaf on the ground.
    Done.
    The power ebbed away, leaving him drained, his head throbbing with the aftermath of magic, and the claidheag stiff and still.
    Conn inhaled, holding his breath to fill the sudden emptiness of his chest.
    Lucy slept, unknowing.
    He lifted her body in his arms and carried her away, leaving his handiwork lying behind them in the field.
    The dried stalks rattled together. Know.
    The wind whispered. Breathe.
    The earth radiated warmth. Be.
    The breeze teased the bundle on the ground. The claidheag ’s hair, the pale gold of corn husks or straw, fluttered, smoothing, softening. Beneath the swaddling clothes, its limbs swelled and grew supple, taking on substance, taking on flesh.
    From the branches of a spruce, a crow launched, squawking in protest or warning.
    The corn maiden opened its eyes, the green-yellow of pumpkin vines. Lucy’s eyes, in Lucy’s face.
    It lay in the field, watching the clouds chase across the sky, absorbing the last rays of the sun, listening to the chatter of the wind.
    A catbird landed on a nearby stake, cocked a fierce, bright eye, and flew away again. An ant, wandering the furrows, traced a trail over the claidheag ’s motionless hand. Slowly, thought formed, a pale shoot from a kernel of consciousness.
    It did not belong here, cut down, cut off from the earth.
    Not anymore.
    Sighing, the claidheag rose on one elbow and then to its knees. To its feet. It should go . . . The word was buried deep, a fat, round word, moldy with disappointment. Home. It should go home.
    Following the tug of blood, the stir of memory, it shambled toward the road.

4
    CALEB WATCHED MAGGIE STIR ANOTHER SPOON ful of sugar into her mug. Less than
    twenty-four hours after their meeting with the selkie prince, they sat at their own kitchen table. The night breeze flowed over the sill, carrying with it the scent of the salt wood.
    This was what he’d dreamed of, Maggie in his house and in his life, sharing their thoughts at the end of the day. After two months of marriage, he knew her tastes and her habits, knew she liked her coffee sweet and the windows open and sex first thing in the morning.
    But he didn’t know how to give her what she wanted. Not this time.
    “Maybe in a couple of years,” Caleb said. “When things settle down . . .”
    She shot him a wry look. “When I am seven hundred and five?”
    He reached to cover her hand on the table. “You don’t look a day over three hundred.”
    “There’s a comfort.” But she smiled and turned her palm over, linking her fingers with his. “It’s all right, Caleb. I am happy here. With you.”
    Some of the tension leached from his shoulders. “I’ll give Conn our answer in the morning, then.”
    Margred curled her free hand around her mug. “What about Lucy?”
    Caleb felt the stiffness creep back into his neck. “What about her?”
    “When I first met her, I