He met the sea lord’s eyes. “Maybe.”
Lucy smiled. “And here you are, safe and back with us again.”
Back among his own kind, she meant.
Back where he belonged.
Iestyn smiled, but a vague dissatisfaction stil gnawed his gut.
“The question is, where wil you go now?” Conn said.
He had no idea. His lack of direction had never bothered him before. We flow as the sea flows.
But something was missing. Something was wrong.
Lucy tipped her head. “Won’t you come with us? To Sanctuary.”
Iestyn pictured the green hil s and round towers, the magic island set like a jewel between the swaying kelp forests and swirling sky. The work of rebuilding was done, Lucy had told him earlier. Everything was as it had been.
He could go home again. He waited for the rush of relief, the sense of homecoming.
And was surprised to hear himself say, “No.”
“Ah,” Conn said.
The wind whispered from the sea, stirring Lucy’s hair.
“It’s the girl, isn’t it?” she said. “Lara.”
Iestyn ducked his head, feeling about fifteen again. Lucy had been his first love or at least his first serious crush. He suspected she knew it. He was sure Conn did. How could he tel them he was reconsidering his future based on his feelings for a girl he’d known less than a week?
“She saved my life,” he said.
“She also put you in danger,” Lucy said.
“Not deliberately.”
“We have never al ied with the children of air,” Morgan said.
The finfolk lord strol ed from the cover of trees like a shark emerging from the shadow of the rocks. His hair gleamed pale in the sunlight.
My great-uncle, Iestyn thought, Lara’s words fresh in his mind. He could see the resemblance, a trick of coloring, a similarity in build. But he didn’t feel the connection.
“Because we were neutral in Hell’s war on Heaven and humankind,” Conn said.
“Aren’t we neutral now?” Iestyn asked.
“Al iances change,” Morgan said. “The demons no longer disguise their enmity. Your affinity with this girl now could tip things in our favor.”
Conn raised his eyebrows. “Another shift in the balance of power?” he inquired softly.
Morgan met his gaze. “Why not? I liked the look of that heth.
We could use something like that.”
The undercurrents of the conversation sucked at Iestyn, leaving him edgy and off balance. “Lara didn’t make the heth,” he said.
“But she understands how it was made. How it works.”
Morgan directed another look at Conn. “It would be interesting to learn what else she knows. What else she can do.”
Iestyn gritted his teeth. Lara had run with him rather than let him be used by the nephilim. “Forget it. I won’t let you use her.”
They al regarded him with varying degrees of affront or surprise.
“The pup has grown teeth,” Morgan murmured.
“Your concern for the girl does you credit,” Conn said.
“But her appearance now has implications for us al. We’d be fools not to take advantage of her knowledge.”
“Only if she agrees,” Iestyn said. “If she stays.”
The thought that she might not stay struck at his heart.
“Why wouldn’t she stay?” Morgan asked. “She’s obviously in love with you.”
Was she?
Iestyn’s throat tightened. He gulped his beer.
Was love enough to make her stay?
“Unless you don’t love her,” Conn said, watching him closely.
Iestyn stared morosely at the bottle in his hand. “She’l never believe it. Not now. Not if she thinks I’m using her.”
“But you’ve told her how you feel,” Lucy said.
“No.”
No promises. No guarantees.
Conn raised his eyebrows. “Then you should.”
Iestyn’s jaw set stubbornly. Lara had told him straight out that she was tired of other people tel ing her how to live her life. “She ought to be able to decide what she wants for herself.”
“And how can she do that if she doesn’t know that you love her?” Lucy asked.
“She should understand her options,” Conn said.
“She deserves the words,” Morgan said. He glanced toward the picnic table, where his wife Elizabeth chatted with Margred Hunter. “Women need words.”
Iestyn’s chest felt tight. Lara had been so careful not to ask him for promises.
But he could make them, because the words mattered.
Because she mattered.
He wanted her. He trusted her. But he hadn’t trusted his feelings until now.
He regarded the three under the trees, his prince, his friend, his only living blood relative.
“I need to talk to her.”
“She’s gone,” Morgan said.
Iestyn’s blood drummed in his ears. “What?”
“Dylan saw her headed back to the inn. I came to tel you.”
Conn’s gaze narrowed. “Problem?”
Uneasiness gripped Iestyn. That sense of something off, something wrong, swept over him.
“I don’t know. I have to find her.”
Lucy watched Iestyn stride down the hil with the quick impatience of the boy she once knew.
But he wasn’t a boy any longer.
She sighed, remembering. Iestyn had been her first friend on Sanctuary, a gawky adolescent with a kind heart and a flashing smile. Seeing him al grown up made her feel.
old.
She listened to the ocean’s long-drawn-out lament, the cries of the seabirds drifting over the water like the voices of lost children.
“You are disappointed,” Conn said quietly.
She turned her head to find him watching her, his silver eyes impenetrable.
She didn’t understand. “Disappointed?”
“That he is not returning with us to Sanctuary.”
She shook her head. “No.” She roused herself to give a better answer. Conn was forcing himself out of his customary reserve to communicate. To talk about her feelings, poor man. He was trying. They both were.
“I was just thinking how much he’s changed. Iestyn.”
“He is older.”
She attempted a smile. “Aren’t we al.”
“Not you.”
The magic of Sanctuary kept her from aging. In physical years, she was probably younger than Iestyn now.
Her throat tightened. “I feel about a hundred.”
“You are as fresh and young as spring,” Conn said.
“And more beautiful than the day I met you.”
“Oh.” He took her breath away. Tears wel ed in her eyes.
“You don’t have to say that.”
“Women need words, Morgan tel s me. And it gives me pleasure to say them.”
He knelt before her on the grass.
“Conn.” She was shaken. Embarrassed. He was a proud man. Prince of the merfolk, lord of the sea. And at any moment, anyone could look over and see him kneeling at her feet. “What are you doing?”
“Something I should have done long ago.” He took her hands. Her fingers trembled in his strong clasp. “Lucy, my love. My heart. Wil you marry me?”
The earth whirled and settled around them. She swal owed the ache in her heart, the lump in her throat. One of them had to be practical. They had duties. Obligations.
“What if I can never give you children? You need an heir.”
“I need you. I will always need you.” He looked up at her, his silver eyes blazing. “Recommit to me, Lucy. Here, in a church, in the sight of God, according to the custom of your people. Take me as your husband. Will you?”
Her tears washed her grief away. She forgot pride and obligation, forgot whoever might be watching. Al she could see was Conn’s eyes, Conn’s face, ful of heat and love and tenderness.