Children of the Sea 03 - Sea Lord

risk the peace for this? For her.
    Lucy .
    The thought formed, his or Gau’s, their minds so close Conn could no longer separate them. The demon leaped on her name, fed on it, on her image, fueling his energy and Conn’s fears.
    She is not worth this.
    The daughter of Atargatis , Conn spoke or thought.
    But mortal. A human. She will not live. Nothing lasts that is not of the First Creation.
    Their thoughts clashed, thrust, parried, their arguments sharp and flexible as steel. Conn had withstood the demon’s assault on his emotions, but Gau’s mental challenge lured him to fight. His intellect had always been his strength and his weakness. His arguments quickly out-paced his wardens. Soon he was alone, locked in furious mental combat with the demon lord.
    You broke the peace.
    You disturbed the balance.
    An act of aggression . . .
    Self-defense . . .
    The portal blazed. Heat scorched his hair, his flesh, his his hope. His nostrils clogged with the stench of burning.
    Give her to us , the fire sang, and we will have peace again.
    Conn opened his mouth to defy the flames, and the fire rushed in, eating his tongue, searing his throat and lungs. Give her to us, or we will destroy Sanctuary.
    He staggered. Mind and heart were dead and dry as bone. He must . . . What? There was something he wanted. Something he must do.
    Close the gap. A whisper like water.

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    Lucy. Her name sizzled, a drop in his mouth. He gasped, pressed between hundreds of feet of rock above him and the fiery pit below.
    Close the gap.
    He shook as he laid down lines of magic, emptying himself to form a tissue seal across the door to Hell, spilling himself into the spell.
    Too little , Gau whispered. Too late.
    A vision scorched Conn’s brain and shriveled his soul. His wardens lost, trapped like sea creatures abandoned by the tide, each in his private pool, his separate Hell. Dying. Drying up.
    The flames howled.
    Desperately, Conn drew magic like moisture from his flesh and bone, poured it out like blood.
    He drained himself out like a cup of water into the burning sand.
    And felt his strength, his spirit, evaporate away.
    Lucy’s nose itched.
    She fought not to scratch. She didn’t want to make a move that might disturb Conn or distract the wardens from whatever they were doing, standing around, staring into the pool.
    The surface of the water trembled like a dreamer’s eyelids. The air was hot and close. Lucy measured the time in heartbeats, fighting to stay awake. What was going on?
    In the beginning, she’d at least had a sense of the others’ presence. They glowed in the dim cave like gemstones in a mine: Conn, brilliant and hard as diamond, and Griff with his great warm ruby heart. The one Conn called Morgan, dark as onyx; and the woman beside him, round and shining as an opal.
    But as the minutes—hours?—passed, Lucy’s awareness of them faded. Maybe if they were holding hands, the way children did in line, for comfort and to keep from getting lost . . . But the selkie did not touch.
    “ I touch you, ” Conn had objected. “ I have been inside you. ”
    The memory made her smile.
    The blue lights had dimmed. An effect of the steam? Or was everybody else nodding off, too?
    The heat was stunning. Numbing. Lucy’s head drooped. A bead of sweat rolled down her nose and plopped onto her shirt.
    With a surreptitious sideways glance, she wiped her nose on her wrist.
    No one noticed. Good.
    No one moved. At all.
    In fact . . .
    Lucy frowned, a funny quiver in the pit of her stomach. In fact, they barely appeared to be breathing.
    “Conn?” Her voice shivered like the surface of the water.
    No answer. The quiver spread. Grew.
    “Conn!” Her cry bounced off the cavern walls and ran into the corners. Just like in her nightmares.
    “Griff? Conn. ”
    Pain consumed him.
    Pain and burning. He stretched across the mouth of Hell like a prisoner on a rack, like melted wax on the seal of a bottle. His bones ran with fire. Flame coursed through his veins, pumped his heart.
    Lucy, my heart . . .
    He had not thought to love her. The selkie did not love. Or die. He would live forever in agony as long as his body above survived.
    As long as his will held out.
    He lay and burned.
    Lucy seized Conn’s arm, as stiff, as cold, as unresponsive as his face. Terror closed her throat.
    “Help me!” she shouted.

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