The Unkindest Tide (October Daye #13) - Seanan McGuire Page 0,142

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?”

“I have her skin,” she said. “Without demanding his life, I’m not sure what else I could ask for.”

“And I won’t kill him for you,” said Amphitrite. There was genuine regret in her tone. “I’d cast him out if I could, but I refuse to go against our father’s wishes so completely.”

“I know,” said the Luidaeg. “Antigone of Albany asks nothing more. Justice hasn’t been done, but sometimes justice is an impossible ideal. I’m as close to satisfied as is possible for me to be.”

“Then the matter is closed,” said Amphitrite. She swung her attention back to the guards who stood, silent, behind the kneeling, now-sobbing Torin. “Take him away. Hold him until the Convocation is done and all who might still be . . . annoyed . . . at his recent actions have left these waters. I’d prefer not to taunt the sharks.”

The guards hauled Torin back to his feet and dragged him away. Amphitrite turned back to the rest of us, looking thoughtfully across the group before settling on the Luidaeg.

“You are my sister and I love you,” she said.

“I sense a ‘but’ coming,” said the Luidaeg.

“This is supposed to be neutral territory,” said Amphitrite. “It’s meant to be a place where all the children of the sea can come together without fear, belonging to none of the Three before the other two, held by no authority but my own. Do you understand why I might not be overly pleased about you deciding to give your descendants carte blanche to assault each other?”

“It was necessary,” said the Luidaeg.

“You and I have very different definitions of ‘necessity,’” said Amphitrite. She sighed and was Captain Pete again, glamorous and terrifying and