The Unkindest Tide (October Daye #13) - Seanan McGuire Page 0,37

like she’d risen from the depths and hadn’t had enough time to return to room temperature. “You can’t lie.”

“I can’t, and they did,” she said. “A few scattered survivors does not a people make. It’s just a funeral in slow-motion.” She turned and looked over her shoulder at Rodrick, lifting one eyebrow. “Well? This is where you’re supposed to introduce me.”

“I . . . I sail at the pleasure of Captain Pete, and that means I truthfully name all who enter these waters, as pleasure can easily become pain,” he said. “Annie. We’ve met before. I know you. Why would you write such a thing on my passenger manifest? Are you trying to get me in trouble?”

The Luidaeg lowered her eyes to the deck, holding that position for several long seconds. When she glanced up again, looking at him through sooty lashes, her irises and sclera had blended into a single fathomless darkness, not black, not exactly, but layer upon layer of translucence leading to the same inevitable conclusion. I like to think of myself as relatively fearless where the Luidaeg is concerned. I couldn’t look at those eyes for more than a second before I turned away, searching for something—anything—less terrifying.

There was a clatter of hooves as Rodrick stumbled back, away from the Luidaeg, away from her graveyard gaze.

“Does anyone ever really know anyone else, or do we act like cartographers, drawing maps of unfamiliar shores, pretending it teaches us their secrets? You’ve met me, Mate Rodrick of the Duchy of Ships, master of the Jackdaw, wind-chaser and wave-chaser and son of the sea. You’ve seen my shores from a distance, through a fog. But to claim to know me? That’s the purview of greater hearts than yours, and it’s not a burden you’ve ever been called upon to bear. Now announce me, so we can end this little passion play and move on to the business at hand. The fog is clearing. My capital city can finally be named.”

Rodrick cleared his throat, still staring at her with a mixture of fascination and horror, like a hiker seeing their first venomous snake. “Y-yes, my lady,” he said. His voice was a shipwrecked whisper, the ghost of his former sonorous tones. He cleared his throat a second time, and in that same hollow voice, announced, “From the Kingdom of Albany, in the High Demesne of Albion, most recently in the Mists, Firstborn to Maeve by Oberon, the fair and hallowed lady known as the Luidaeg, called sea witch by all who would avoid her wrath.”

Somehow, despite its broken hollowness, his voice carried, silencing the crowds around us. I glanced to the Luidaeg. Her eyes were green again, and she inclined her chin ever so slightly, confirming that the spell which carried Rodrick’s voice throughout the Duchy had been hers. I knew, in that moment, that it had penetrated even the smallest and most private of rooms, reaching the ears of every citizen and every visitor. She was coming before them in her truest guise, and that was a sacred, terrifying thing. They deserved to be warned.

Some of the people on the docks began weeping. Others put their hands over their mouths or turned their eyes away, unable or unwilling to look at her, to face the judgment they had to be certain was upon them. The Luidaeg offered Rodrick a smile. He trembled and bowed.

He didn’t know her well enough to see the softness in her expression, but I did. She was being gentle. It didn’t look like it—it looked like some dire portent suddenly suspended over an entire people, like the sword of Damocles, only waiting for the final thread to break—and yet I knew she didn’t need any of this pomp or circumstance. She could have risen out of the sea like the avenging hand of Oberon himself. She could have swept this entire Duchy away, leaving only wreckage and legends behind. She was, in her terrifying way, trying to be kind.

She didn’t let go of my hand as she turned and descended the gangplank. The crowds pulled back as we passed, too frightened to stay close, too aware of what offending the sea witch could cost them to flee. When we reached the bottom, Quentin rolled his eyes at us.

“Are all Firstborn overly dramatic, or is that a special gift you have?”

Dean looked horrified. The Luidaeg laughed. I eyed Quentin.

“You won’t call Arden by her name, because her title is more important, but you’ll back-talk the Luidaeg?