Page 83 of The Unkindest Tide

“She’s planning to restore the Roane.” There was an air of triumph in his voice, like he’d just dropped the mother of all bombshells on us.

“And?” asked Amphitrite. “I knew that. I told her she could use my place as neutral ground. How is she moving against me when she asked me before coming?”

“They died for a reason,” spat Torin.

The Luidaeg was suddenly very still.

“I’d be careful if I were you,” said Amphitrite. “The sea witch doesn’t like it when people imply that her children didn’t deserve to live. Why would you say such a thing?”

“Because it’s true! Lady . . .” Torin dropped abruptly to his knees. It was a bold move for a man whose hands were literally tied. He wouldn’t be able to get back up without assistance. “The Roane spread lies across the water and attracted the eyes of the land. Remember how it was in the days when they swam freely. The land Courts felt entitled to the gifts of prophecy. They sailed into your waters, they attacked our fiefdoms, and for what? For a glimpse of a future that could yet be changed? The Roane died to grant peace to the rest of us. Allow them to stay gone. Allow the waters to stay safe.”

“Who told you this?” asked Amphitrite.

Torin ducked his head. “She bid me not to say.”

The Luidaeg stepped forward, stillness forgotten. “Did she have hair like the deeps during a storm, and skin like sun-bleached bone? Coral lips and seafoam eyes?” When Torin didn’t answer, only shivered, she spat and turned her face toward Amphitrite. “I should have killed her when I had the chance. My own death would have been worth it.”

“Eira will have her reckoning, one day,” said Amphitrite. “Here, today, the reckoning belongs to Dianda Lorden, and to Isla Chase.”

“Please, don’t say her name,” said Torin.

“Why? Because you killed her? Poor boy. There’s a great deal more drowning in your future.” Amphitrite leaned back in her chair as she slowly, deliberately tilted her head to the side. Her hair was a black waterfall across her silvery shoulders; her eyes were unreadable.

“I remember,” she said, voice soft. “I remember the day my sister the sea witch brought her firstborn child to our father, so he could see the boy. I remember the way my father, Oberon himself, raised that child up and called him ‘grandson.’ I remember how he smiled to see the waters so blessed. I remember many things, Torin, descendant and disgrace, who would see his own sister bleed for the crime of falling in love with a man who I have never found to be anything other than perfectly appropriate. I remember how the storms raged when the Roane died, until it seemed as if the very oceans wept. I remember blood in the water, blood enough to float an armada, and I remember that the killings didn’t happen out of any altruistic urge to make Faerie a safer place. They happened because another of my sisters was cruel as a tsunami and shallow as a cove, and she couldn’t bear to see any apart from herself happy.”

She crossed her scaled tails at what should have been her ankles, eyes fixed on the now quailing Torin.

“If I were my sister, if I had transformations in my fingers and curses in my palms, I would cast you out,” she hissed. Her voice was barely more than a whisper, but still it carried to every corner of the room. “I would say the man you refuse to call brother is more Merrow than you could ever hope to be; that if you yearn to kneel at my eldest sister’s feet so badly, you should have that dubious honor. I’d strip my contributions from your blood and bones and give them to him, because I would much rather have him for a descendant. Let you go to bleed and break and beg a place upon the land.”

Torin paled, until it looked like he might lose consciousness from the lack of blood in his face. For the first time, I thought kneeling might have been the right move. He couldn’t fall down if he wasn’t on his feet.

“Sadly, and happily, I’m not my sister,” said Amphitrite. “I don’t have knots in my hands; I can’t tangle and tie you into something you’re not intended to be. But I can do these two things, Torin of Bluefish, and you had best heed them, or I’ll see you gone and gutted. I may not be able to cast you from my bloodline, more’s the pity. I can cast you from my sight. You shall find no favor from me. You can keep your demesne, for as long as you’re allowed, but I will not find in your favor if anyone does you harm, or if you bring complaints to lay at my feet. You are no descendant of mine.”

“Lady,” said Torin, in a strangled tone.

“And as to the other . . . you claimed the authority to arrest your sister, Duchess Dianda Lorden of Saltmist, on claims of treason, on the accusation that she had brought a king-breaker into these waters, where never such a thing should stand. But you lack that authority, because the Duchess Lorden committed no treason. The closest she has ever come is in her marriage to a Daoine Sidhe, which she did with the full blessing of Queen Palatyne and King Windermere, unifying land and sea. So here is the second part of your punishment. You have to watch what follows.”

Amphitrite turned to face Patrick, smiling like the star that leads lost sailors home from sea. “Come to me, Patrick Lorden, ducal consort of Saltmist, and have no fear.”

Patrick stepped forward. Amphitrite snapped her fingers. Another rush of impossible water flowed into the room, forming a column next to her dais before it shattered, revealing Dianda. She wore no chains; her dress was kelp and shining scale, and somehow managed to be beautiful, despite seeming like something that should have washed up with the low tide.

Dianda gasped, running hands over her hips and torso, like she was reassuring herself they were still there. Then she saw Patrick, and without waiting for leave from her Firstborn, she flung herself into her husband’s arms. He let out a shuddering breath that bordered on a sob and buried his face against her shoulder, holding her like a drowning man holds a rope.

“I’d cast him out for you, if he weren’t off-limits to me,” said the Luidaeg genially, seemingly immune to the touching scene unfolding in front of her. “I can tell Toby I’d like to see how he looks with broken kneecaps, if you want. There are ways to get around anything, if you try hard enough.”

“A Merrow without the name won’t hold their fiefdom long,” said Amphitrite, giving the Luidaeg a tolerant smile. “He’ll be outcast and alone before the seasons turn, swimming the seas with neither shelter nor respite. The only post open to him will be ambassador to the land, where they neither know nor care about the specifications of our politics. It’s not exile. Exile would be too kind. It’s a room with only one door, and that door leads to voluntary isolation.” She turned the same smile on Torin. It had edges now; it had teeth. “He’ll have to be the traitor he accuses his sister of being if he wants to survive. It seems a fitting punishment for someone who’d betray his family.”

“Please,” gasped Torin. “Lady, please.” He swiveled, turning his entire upper body at once. “Dianda, I beg you, tell her this is too much. Please.”

“Excuse me?” Dianda let go of Patrick, enough to lean back and look blankly at her brother for a long moment. “You’d ask me for forgiveness? You, who swam away and never once looked back until it seemed convenient to you, who would have happily seen my husband drowned, my sons broken for the crime of being born of love, want me to say the Lady is being too harsh? I’d have your spine for jewelry if it wouldn’t make her angry. I’d make flutes from your bones and play them with my boys every time someone thought it would be a good idea to threaten us. She’s not condemning you. She’s sparing you, from me. You should thank her for her mercy, not look to me to save you from it.”

“The Law forbids me from killing you, and far be it from me to threaten a man in front of his own Firstborn, but if my wife wanted to risk Amphitrite’s fury for the sake of spilling your blood in the tide, I wouldn’t tell her to stop,” said Patrick mildly.

Amphitrite smiled again, more broadly this time. “You married well, little mermaid. If I’ve never told you that before, consider my blessing given now.”

Dianda paled and said nothing. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen her speechless before.

Amphitrite glanced to the Luidaeg. “He killed one of yours, sister. Do you demand any recompense?”