The Sea Thy Mistress (15 page)

The Imogen glanced down at Selene’s hand. “That is painful,” she said, calmly.

“You will explain to me,” Selene replied carefully, the tip of her tail describing a slow and fatal arc, “
exactly
what you mean by
feeding.
”

“Oh, that,” the Imogen said, her smile never changing. That deferential tone: Selene remembered having heard it in her own voice once, and it sickened her. “I only take a little, not enough to harm him. His
sceadhu …
ah, shadow? I think you would say in modern tongue his soul? Only a taste, and only the parts that give him pain.”

Selene’s fist clenched on the Imogen’s arm, a grip that must have been piercingly hurtful. She felt the claws of her finger and thumb meet through the flesh, and her palm was sticky with blood.

The Imogen never flinched. She looked back down at the einherjar who lay on the floor between them, and let her smile grow another fraction. His brow was untroubled; his breathing was even. “Does he not sleep more quietly now?”

It was true.

“Come away from there,” Selene said through tight jaws. She didn’t want to fight this madwoman, supernatural creature or whatever she was. Not here, not with her friend helpless on the floor between them and the son of her heart alone somewhere in the night. She took a step back, and another, pulling the Imogen with her.

The woman—the creature—came reluctantly but did not struggle, stepping over Cahey’s still body. She turned and gave him another glance as she followed Selene across the room, blood rolling in slow drips from her dangling fingers.

“But…,” she said in protest as Selene led her toward the door, “he is better now, you see. I have drawn away the worst of the pain. Does he not sleep more quietly?”

*   *   *

Outside, in the darkness among the dunes, Cathmar looked into the Grey Wolf’s phosphorescent eyes and took a step back. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Mingan allowed the edge of a smile to curl the corner of his mouth before flickering away. “Cathoair can teach you many things,” he said. “But he cannot teach what I can.”

“Which is?”

“How to wield power. How to pass through the shadows. How to walk through the world and leave no trace.”

“What do you mean, you are my father? I can’t have two fathers.” The boy kept a hand on the hilt of his sword, although he knew if would be useless. Suddenly, he remembered his father telling him, “Be polite.”

“Sir,” he finished.

The smile came back, a touch broader this time. “I loved your … mother as well,” the Grey Wolf said, and Cathmar caught the little hesitation but did not understand it. “And both she and your father carried a little of me inside them when they made you. That makes you my child, too.”

“Why haven’t you come to see me before, then?” Cathmar realized that he should be frightened, but he couldn’t find it in himself. Instead, he was fascinated by the Grey Wolf’s steady regard. Incongruously, he thought of Mardoll.

“Cathoair does not approve of me,” the Grey Wolf said. “Come; walk beside me. We have much to talk on. And you should meet your mother’s steed, as well.”

*   *   *

The light was muddy, but it was nonetheless light. Cahey blinked against it and turned away.

Fire.

His neck hurt.

Soft, urgent voices were arguing near the door. He felt under the covers for the hilt of his sword before remembering that he had not taken it with him. He pushed himself into a half-sit.

“Selene?”

She had another woman by the upper arm, and blood was dripping onto the floor. Both of them turned to look at him. Selene said, “You need to lie down, Cahey.”

“Who’s that?” Light smeared across his vision, and he sagged back against the cushions. “Where’s Cathmar?”

“Outside,” Selene answered. “This is Imogen. We were just about to go look for him.”

Imogen—Cahey blinked again, trying to focus—almost seemed to be leaning against Selene’s grasp, as if she intended to rip her arm right through the other’s talons and walk over to him. Selene gave Imogen’s arm a warning tug and released it.

Immediately, the blood stopped dripping.

“Come on,” Selene said to the other woman. “Come with me. We still have a lot of talking to do.”

*   *   *

The steed—a valraven, the Grey Wolf said—was the biggest living thing Cathmar had ever seen. It shone like split chalk in the moonlight, both heads regarding him with unsettling wise eyes.

Your mother would be proud of you.

The voice in his head came as a shock. Cathmar didn’t quite step back, however, and Mingan rested a light hand on his shoulder.

“I didn’t know you could talk,” he said.

The stallion snorted and tossed his manes. Mingan chuckled. “How else would he tell me what to do?”

Cathmar turned his head to look up at the dangerously lean old man, unsure if he was joking. Examining Mingan’s face, Cathmar still could not decide.

“What’s your name?” he tried again. “I’m Cathmar.”

Greetings, Cathmar. My name is a secret only one may know. But you may call me what you like. If I am able, I will answer.

He liked the sound of that. “I could call you Angel, then.”

That is what I am.

Cathmar heard voices coming down the dune behind him, and turned to look.

Selene. And a dark-haired woman.

Selene called down the dune. “Cathmar!” Her eyes swept over the Grey Wolf and his steed. “Mingan. And Bright One. Greetings.” Cathmar detected warmth in her tone, and wondered.

“Aunt Selene,” Cathmar said. “Who’s that with you?”

Selene glanced over at the dark-haired woman. “Her name is Imogen,” she said. “She claims she’s a friend.”

Mingan came forward to meet them before they made it to the base of the hill. Cathmar could see his mouth shaping words—faintly—as he bent toward Selene’s ear, moonlight glittering on a silver ring piercing his left ear and another one binding the top of his long queue. Cathmar, not having the moreau’s senses, could not hear what was said.

She gave Mingan a quick, startled glance, and her ears flicked back. Then she nodded curtly. “We’ll talk about it later,” she said.

“Imogen,” Mingan said, smiling at the strangely passive individual, “you and Cathmar should walk back to the house now, I warrant. Cathmar…” He came forward to clasp the boy’s hand. “You and I, we shall meet again.”

BOOK TWO

Branding

50 A.R.
On the Second Day of Spring

By the time Selene came back up to the house, Cahey was on his feet, dressed and folding the blankets.

“Where’s Cathmar?” she asked. “And Imogen?”

Cahey shrugged. The play of emotions across his face flattened her whiskers. “Imogen … left. Cathmar went down to the beach.”

Selene sighed.
Like herding cats.
Humorous irony, strictly internal, brought her ears flickering forward. Cats didn’t believe in sharing the joke.

She said, “We need to talk.”

He nodded. He touched his throat: a welt that showed purple-black against his skin was already rising to the surface. He turned his head and looked out the window, down at the beach. The moon was setting beyond the ocean, a pair of satellites sparkling in her wake. “We do. Where did she come from?”

Selene shook her head. “She’s some sort of creature that associated with einherjar in the old days, I think. She feeds off us. A symbiote of sorts.”

“What did she do to me? I feel clearheaded. Not like I did after I saw Muire.” Cahey glanced back at Selene, almost shyly.

She wrinkled her nose at him, a catlike ingratiation. She smiled, a human gesture she’d taught herself years before. “Cahey … I don’t think that was Muire.”

His face stilled.
Never a good sign
. He turned to regard her directly.

“Who else could it have been?” Utterly level and reasonable, his voice, lifting the fur on her neck.

“I don’t know.” She knew this path of old: they were heading for a fight, and it was going to be a legendary one. “I summoned Muire, Cahey. I asked her.”

“Summoned her? By the moonlight?”

Selene nodded, ears and whiskers flattening. Her tail-tip twitched although she tried to school it to stillness. It gave her away, always, even if she could hold her ears forward. Ape faces were much better at inscrutability. But they were social beasts, pack animals. They needed to be able to bluff, and they were good at it.

Selene’s only bluff was the one that made her look bigger.

He didn’t speak, just stared at her, stricken. She wondered if it was the idea of Muire being summoned that bothered him, or that Selene dared to do what he did not.

She sighed. “Go talk to her,” she said softly. “Let her talk to you.”

She watched the muscle in his cheek twitch while he chewed his lip. He turned and took two steps away. “I’m going to make tea,” he said. “Do you want some? Should we go look for Cathmar?”

She bit her lip. “Cahey. Fold up the denial and
listen
to me, for once in your blasted life?”

He stopped in the kitchen doorway, spun on his heel, and squared his shoulders. “I know the mother of my child when I see her.” In
that
tone of voice.

Hel.
Selene shook her head. “No. Not in this case. No, you don’t.”

She saw him take a deep breath. He weighed his words out one at a time, heavy cold pebbles. “You’re jealous.” Incredulous. “She came to
me,
and
you’re
jealous.”

She looked around for something to throw, but nothing seemed handy, so she hissed like a teapot instead. “Do I look
jealous
? Does this look like jealous to you?” Her tail slapped back and forth like a metronome. She was puffing up with rage, follicular contraction prickling up her spine and along every limb. When her vision tunneled, he could look like prey.

He nodded. “Yes. It does.”

Two steps forward, and she stared him down.
Why is it,
the last calm corner of her mind wondered,
that he can still slide under my skin like a knifeblade?

She knew the answer, though.
Arrogant asshole.

She turned around, recrossed the room, opened the door, and stepped outside. The cool shock of the night air on her face cooled her temper, and she hissed once more. Then she stalked down the beach after the arrogant asshole’s son.

He wasn’t hard to find; he was sitting on top of a big boulder pitching pebbles into the sea. She scrambled up beside him and sat.

The waves sizzled on the sand until the silence that hung between them grew companionable rather than tense. The moon’s belly dipped into the dark, moving water. Curls of phosphorescence moved across the surface like fire through an opal.

“Tide’s coming in,” Cathmar said at last.

“It is,” she answered.

“He yelled at you, too, I take it?”

She nodded, knowing he would see her pale shadow move against the night.

Cathmar blew air out his nose and threw his head back as if to roll the stress out of his neck in unconscious mimicry of his father. The familiar gesture scratched red claws across Selene’s heart. She curved her long, flexible body and looked over her shoulder, where dawn streaked the eastern sky.

“Why is he like that?”

“Why does he have to be such a human being, you mean?”

The boy nodded, but she saw the corner of his mouth curve as he recognized the irony of his own emotions. She hadn’t expected him to display that maturity, and she found her search for a response complicated by her emotions.

It was a cruel thing the Technomancer had done, wedding the instincts of a cat to the social needs of an ape. But despite the pain it caused her, Selene was not certain she would change her makeup now if she could.

Or that might just be the ape talking.

Cathmar said, “He’s not a human being. I’m not a human being. It’s not fair. Why can’t he just act like an einherjar, if he is one?”

There was the adolescent self-absorption she’d expected. Selene thought about that one while sky lightened and the cool breeze ruffled her fur. She almost said,
Whatever he acts like, that’s how an einherjar acts.
But Cathmar deserved a real answer, and Cahey deserved better than to be dismissed so lightly.

“He wants something, Cath, that he can’t ever have again. And he’s not reasonable about it, is all. Like most people wouldn’t be.”

She waited for Cathmar to say,
But he’s not people
.

Instead, he shook his head. “At least you got to know her.” The words hissed through a constricted throat. Selene ached to drape her arm around him, but from the rigidity of his shoulders he wouldn’t welcome the breakdown her comfort would bring.