Children of the Sea 03 - Sea Lord

their knees.
    “You do realize,” Dylan said as the truck caromed over another icy bump, “that if we had any sense at all, we’d be driving the other way?”
    Margred showed her teeth in what might have passed for a smile. “Bitch, bitch, bitch. At least you still have your pelt.”
    Dylan threw back his head and laughed.
    After a shocked moment, Lucy joined in.
    They were going unprepared into battle together. Her long lost brother. Her newly acquired sister. Her unborn niece or nephew. She thought fleetingly of Caleb, risking his own safety to bring in the sick, the elderly, and the reluctant from all over the island, and Regina at the community center, cooking enough food for the entire town. Or an army.
    Whatever Lucy lost, whatever she had given up, she could take comfort in this moment. She could cling to this hope. Different as they were, they were family. And maybe, one day, she could have more.
    If they defeated Gau.
    If they survived this.
    If Conn could forgive her.
    Dylan drove the truck under the black shelter of the trees. Yanked on the brake. The wind howled.
    White caps and skippers’ daughters ran in rows over the black water below. High tide, Lucy thought, her stomach clenching. That would worsen the effects of the surge.
    Dylan cocked a brow at Lucy, letting the engine run. Steam curled off the hood into the night. “Cal said the epicenter was south of the Bay of Fundy. So the water will be coming from this direction. You want to try here?”
    She consulted her bones, her heart, her gut. “Yes.”
    Dylan cut the engine. They climbed from the truck. The snow had stopped, but an icy wind whipped tiny crystals into the air, swirling like a matador’s cape, silver on black.
    Margred’s face appeared as pale and perfect as the snow. “Now what?”
    Lucy took a deep breath and held out her hands. “Now we stop this.”
    Conn stood on the castle wall in the path of the approaching flood, watching the wave roar out of the west, dark as an eclipse, loud as an attacking army, carrying destruction on its crest like foam. Spears of debris and pennants of spume flew before it.
    His wardens stood with him, naked and unarmed, pelts at hand. Griff, sturdy as a tower, and Morgan, mysterious as the deeps, and Enya, blazing like the sea at sunset. Their faces were white with fear and stark with awe and alight with a terrible pride. For the sea was coming to the children of the sea, horrible and beautiful as death, and its voice was the voice of the deep.
    And Conn knew that Gau had made a mistake.
    For the sea was theirs.
    They were united, for that one moment, in appreciation for the Creator’s awful power and the water that gave them being. Conn poured himself out along the channels Lucy had etched in his soul, drawing the wardens’ power to him, funneling their magic through him, until his gift thundered in him like the roaring of the surge and he held the flood poised on the cusp of Sanctuary.

Page 120
    Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
    He held it.
    They held it.
    Barely.
    Conn trembled. He only needed one push, one soul, one gift more to tip the balance. To turn the tide.
    He needed Lucy.
    And at that moment, when the fate of Sanctuary hung sparkling like drops at the curl of a wave, he heard her voice, his heart’s own voice, calling out to him in his own words.
    “ Conn. Help me. I cannot do this without you. ”
    Conn staggered, and the wall of water slipped.
    “Hold!” Morgan shouted, and the water halted, roaring like the waterfall at the edge of the ancients’
    world.
    Sweat broke out on Conn’s face.
    Griff’s worried face swam before him. “Lord, what is it?”
    Lucy. He saw her, blazing in his inner vision as she had blazed in the waters of the tide pool. She stood surrounded by snow and night, holding the hands of . . . Margred, Conn recognized. And Dylan. They balanced on a headland as he balanced on his tower, and above them threatened a flood.
    They were holding the waters back.
    She was holding the waters back.
    Barely.
    He felt the struggle Lucy exerted, heard the desperation in her voice. “ We need you. I need you. ”
    His soul answered hers, spinning a golden thread of love and need, a wavering bridge across the sea.
    He shook with effort and the enormity of his choice. He could not do both. He could not save both her and Sanctuary.
    Either he drew on her power to hold the wave back here, or he sent his spirit self to help