Children of the Sea 03 - Sea Lord

another bucket on the hearth. “There was Dylan.”
    “But he had already gone through the Change before he came,” Roth said.

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    “We were the last on Sanctuary,” Kera said.
    Lucy moistened her lips. Her pulse drummed in her ears. “The last what?”
    Iestyn regarded her with wide gold eyes. “Why, the last children.”
    Conn’s tower overlooked the sea. But despite the western views of the sunset, the eastern views of the purpling sky, the drafts that slid over the thick stone sills and skittered along the floor, the air was thick and hard to breathe. He felt the pressure in his chest. The tension in the room was palpable.
    Half a dozen wardens gathered around the map spread across his desk. His gaze rested on them in turn.
    Griff, solid as a castle wall. Morgan of the northern deeps, in the black and silver of the finfolk. Enya, her breast as white and round as the pearls twined in her hair. Brychan. Kelvan. Ronat. They crowded without touching, protecting their personal space with planted feet and angled elbows. Even gathered in council, the selkie were solitary. Territorial.
    The bloodied sun cast pink rectangles on the floor and across the desk, but the map needed no illumination. The heavy parchment glittered with pinpricks of light like constellations fallen from heaven.
    Each glowing dot represented an elemental’s energy.
    The angels’ white brilliance was lost in the great gray swathes of humanity that covered the continents.
    But all the other elementals twinkled and winked, their energies coaxed to sparks by Conn’s magic: green for the children of the earth, the fair folk, clustered in the wild places, woods and mountain ranges; red for the children of fire, flickering along fault lines; blue for the children of the sea, scattered across the oceans like a smattering of stars.
    Ignoring the headache pulsing in his temples, Conn spread his hands over the map, focusing his concentration, until he felt the demon lord Gau’s presence like a burning coal against his palm.
    Opening his eyes, he tapped the map with one finger. “Gau is there. Coming from the fault lines of Yn Eslynn .”
    “When?” Ronat asked.
    “Soon.” Conn rubbed his burned palm absently. “Tomorrow, at a guess. Post a guard on the spring and another on shore to meet him when he comes.”
    Enya frowned, flipping her red hair back over her shoulder. “Why the shore? Do you think he will come in human form?”
    Unlike the other elements, fire had no matter of its own. Lacking physical bodies, demons could move with the speed of thought. However, to speak, to act, the children of fire needed to assume corporal form. Most demons resorted to possessing living hosts. The powerful ones, like Gau, could borrow enough matter from the elements around them to present at least the appearance of living things.
    “He has no need of a human body on Sanctuary,” Griff said.
    “Not if his intention is merely to talk,” Morgan countered. “But if he is looking for a fight—”
    “He would not seek it on our soil,” Conn said. “I believe he will manifest, for convenience and as a demonstration of strength.”
    “And what of our other visitor?” Enya asked.
    Conn stiffened.
    Morgan, the golden-eyed, silver-haired lord of the finfolk, frowned. “What visitor?”
    “She is none of your concern,” Conn said.
    Enya’s smile showed all her teeth. “Then why bring her to Sanctuary?”
    “What visitor?” Brychan repeated.
    “Our prince has brought a human female to Sanctuary,” Enya said.
    “Nothing wrong with that,” Griff rumbled.
    Enya touched the warden’s mark among the pearls on her bosom. “Of course not. Anyone might enjoy a human liaison. But to bring her here—”
    “She is the daughter of Atargatis,” Conn said.
    They knew the prophecy. A daughter of the house of Atargatis would change the balance of power among the elementals.
    Ronat rubbed his jaw. “I thought the only offspring was a son. Dylan.”

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    “Dylan is the only selkie,” Conn said evenly. “Nevertheless, the girl carries her mother’s blood.”
    “But she is human,” Brychan objected.
    “Her children might not be,” Griff said.
    “Assuming she can have children,” Enya said, her voice as tight as a sail.
    Conn heard her resentment with regret. Long ago, the warden