The House Of Gaian

behind it. When she tried to turn to look at the sea, Murtagh shifted to place himself on the seaward side of the cliff. With his arm firmly around her shoulders, he led her back toward the village.
    “We’ll go down to the harbor and welcome your brother,” Murtagh said. “When he sees you, he’ll know he’s among friends.”
    Mihail. Yes. When he saw her waiting for him, he would know he’d reached safe harbor.
    It didn’t occur to her until much later that Murtagh had deliberately kept her from seeing what her fury and the sea had done.
    Ubel clung to the broken mast, surrounded by debris that had once been a Wolfram warship.
    Surrounded by bodies. There were a few other men clinging to anything that would float, but not many.
    A pained, garbled sound came from the guard captain, who was also clinging to the mast with his good arm. Ubel kept his face averted. The captain had been splashed in the face with liquid fire. The area around his right eye had been spared, but that normal eye, dulled with shock and exhaustion, made the rest of the ruined face look more obscene.
    He didn’t know how long he’d been in the water when he saw the line of ships slowly sailing through the debris, looking for survivors. He didn’t know how long he watched them before he noticed all the seals swimming ahead of the ships, before he heard their odd barks that guided the ships’ crews toward the living.
    He waited. When a sleek brown head rose from the water and the creature stared at him, he shuddered.
    Not seals. Not here. Selkies. An animal body with a man’s brain.
    Seconds passed, stretched, turned into agonizing years before the selkie made that odd barking sound.
    Then it sank beneath the water.
    Finally a ship approached. Beyond throwing out two loops of canvas attached to ropes, the crew offered no help. Since the ship continued moving past him, his choices were to abandon the mast and swim as best as he could to reach the canvas loop or to remain in the sea until his strength gave out.
    He splashed and floundered, came close to sinking when his foot almost tangled in one of the lines from the sails, but he managed to reach the canvas loop and slip his arms through it. They pulled him toward the ship, used the rope to steady him as he climbed the rope netting attached to the side of the ship. He glanced back once. There was no one clinging to the mast now, and the other canvas loop being hauled up was empty.
    He barely had time to collapse on the deck when he was lifted to his feet and dragged to the stern. In the bow, people were wrapped in blankets. Some were sipping from mugs. Others were having wounds tended. He caught no more than a glimpse of them before he was shoved to his knees, and his hands were tightly bound to the stern railing. The first mate was there, but not his ship’s captain. A few guards, a few sailors. Almost all of them were wounded in one way or another.
    “Water,” Ubel croaked. “We need water.”
    The man with a face that wasn’t human just stared at him.
    Curse these Fae, Ubel thought. “We need water. The wounded need tending.”
    “When we reach the harbor, we’ll turn you over to the barons who rule that part of the coast. If they want to give you water and tend the wounded, that’s their choice.” The Fae Lord turned away.
    “Have you no mercy?” Ubel cried.
    The Fae turned back and smiled at him. “No more than you, Black Coat. If you want mercy, ask one of the Mother’s Daughters. They’re the ones who believe in doing no harm.”
    Ask one of those evil bitches for mercy? Ubel shuddered. No. Never. He would conserve his strength, let these creatures bring him to the shore. Once he was dealing with the barons, his Inquisitor’s Gift of persuasion would convince them to give him food and water—and a horse. He would need only a few hours head start to stay far enough ahead of the enemy to reach the arm of the Inquisitors’ army that was crushing the southern end of the Mother’s Hills.
    Jenny wept silently as she stood on the dock and watched the battered Sweet Selkie limp into the harbor. Murtagh had taken a ship and gone out to meet her brother, and it was Murtagh she saw standing in the bow. But there was no sign of Mihail.
    She saw Fae piloting the ship to the dock instead of Mihail’s crew. She saw Fae securing the lines and lowering the gangplank.
    Her heart broke. She wrapped her arms around herself. Had she done this?
    Then she saw Murtagh motion her to