Carys said slowly, “Did he now?”

  “He told me that you’re the guardian of the shore, and that I should address my questions to you if I wished to have them answered.”

  “Did he now?” Carys said again. “You know of the selkies, then?”

  “I learned about them in my lessons when I was younger,” said Joon Ha. “I was very interested in the fellowship between the people of the sea and those of the land.”

  “Indeed?” He was the first person Carys had met who was interested in the selkies—the first who had a knowledge of them that was more than passing.

  “Yes,” he said. “It seemed unfair to me that a lone woman or man should give their youth or lives to keep the shore. My teacher didn’t agree.”

  Faintly amused, Carys asked, “Would you prefer the shores to be unkept?”

  “No,” he said slowly. “But doing it like this makes no sense to me. What would happen if you died before a replacement arrived? Wouldn’t it be better if the process was ratified? After all, you’ll leave one day, won’t you?”

  “One day,” Carys told him. It struck her that she had answered him without thinking about it, and she wondered how used to Eurion she had become, that she allowed a countryman of his to ask her questions without demanding to know why he wished to know. “The sea calls whom it wills. When the end of my time has come, someone else will arrive. There’s no ratifying that.”

  “Perhaps not,” he said, and he sounded thoughtful. “But some part of it could be put in order, couldn’t it?”

  Carys smiled a little. Wherever he had been educated, it had not been in a Sunderman village school. “You’re a magic user, are you not?”

  “Yes, and I think there are ways to make the shores more safe for Sunderland,” he said. “Wouldn’t it be better than leaving it to one person along the shore, to live and die in danger? And then what of the village if they die suddenly? At the least, the king could set magical protections along the shore.”

  “You should speak to the prince about it when you find him,” Carys said, smiling faintly.

  Joon Ha’s eyes met hers, his lips already parted with an answer, and she thought his cheeks darkened with a little colour as he took a moment to rethink that answer. At last, he said, “The prince and I have already discussed it at length. It’s something he is particularly interested in.”

  “It will be a new thing to have an heir interested in the seashore,” said Carys. “I hope you find him.”

  “Ma Yong Hwa was correct,” Joon Ha said ruefully. “You’re very well aware of what’s happening along the shore, I think.”

  “Not as much as I should wish to be,” Carys told him, folding her arms a little closer across her ribs. There was a distinctly wet chill to the wind now. “Your Ma Yong Hwa is also very well informed, I believe.”

  “I think so, too,” said the captain, and there was still a ruefulness to his lips when he grinned. “It comforts me to think that he is a good man, otherwise I might be uncomfortable.”

  “Then perhaps you also know that there is another man from outside the village who knows more than he should.”

  Joon Ha grew sober. “I’m aware. Did you speak with him?”

  “I spoke with him,” Carys said. “But I think that’s not what you’re asking.”

  “No.” He considered her for a few moments longer, then asked directly, “Did you tell him anything?”

  “I told him less than I’ve told you today. He did turn up to search my cottage while I was gone, however.”

  “Did he take anything?”

  Carys smiled faintly at him once again. “There was nothing to take.”

  It was a challenge to him, and she saw the way his brows went up. It made her smile a little more; he reminded her of Eurion. Joon Ha smiled reluctantly back at her, and as he did, Carys heard the distinct scuff of sand. With the wind as high as it was, she might not have caught the sound of Eurion’s approach if he hadn’t caught his foot as he came around the corner of the cottage and stumbled. He looked up from his stumble to see her looking at him, and grinned, but when his eyes fell on the captain that grin vanished.

  Joon Ha must have noticed it, too, because one of his brows twitched up quizzically.

  Eurion joined them, close and warm, and asked, frowning, “Lady, who is it?”

  “He tells me that his name is Joon Ha,” Carys said, turning her head to look at the captain once again. He wasn’t quite frowning, but there was a solemnity to his face that she found hard to understand. She said to him, “This is Eurion. I take it he is not the prince for whom you are searching?”

  Joon Ha’s eyes ran curiously over Eurion’s face, and Carys wasn’t sure if she fancied the slightly questioning lift to his voice when he said thoughtfully, “No.”

  Eurion laughed, a short, gleeful chuckle. “The prince? Me, Lady? Am I so pretty?”

  “At least as pretty as a prince,” Carys told him dryly, and found that Joon Ha was now looking at her as curiously as he had been looking at Eurion a moment before. “Then if this is not the prince you are searching for, I would suggest that you return to the village as soon as you may. The rain won’t wait for you to reach cover, I think.”

  “Thank you,” he said, looking from her to Eurion once again. “Perhaps I shall see you again, Carys.”

  “Perhaps,” she said, though she wasn’t sure why he should say so. No doubt she had been spending too much time talking with Ma Yong Hwa, who spoke in double meanings that were further obscured by his not-quite-perfect grasp of Sunderman. It was most likely that there was no more meaning to it than what appeared.

  “What did he want?” demanded Eurion, when Joon Ha was far enough away for the wind to take away the sound of their voices before it carried to him.

  “He’s looking for someone.”

  “That prince Enfys said about?”

  “Yes. What are you doing here?”

  Eurion looked bashful—or perhaps a little guilty. “I was late going to Enfys,” he said. “And as I was climbing the cliffs I saw him approach you.”

  “He wasn’t going to hurt me,” said Carys. “Shouldn’t you go to Enfys now?”

  “I think I don’t need to go today,” Eurion said thoughtfully.

  “You mean you don’t want to go.”

  Eurion grinned at her, understanding and a little bit mischievous. “How did you know, Lady?”

  “I know you very well by now,” Carys said dryly. “Very well. We’ll collect firewood today instead; the storm will break any moment, and we’ll need the supply.”

  “Oh good,” he said. “I like that best.”

  “And if I’d said we were going to restack the seaweed instead?”

  “Then I’d like that the best,” Eurion said. “So long as I’m with you.”

  They took the quickest route to usable firewood, a sandy cove that was further along the coast than Carys’ patch of rocky shore. The wind picked up around them as they walked, scattering shards of icy-sharp rain at intermittent intervals, and the sand otters, coming out to see what the passing fuss was about, chirped at the cold. Eurion crouched to scatter crumbs for them from his pocket, his eyes bright with delight, and instead of walking on by herself, Carys found herself lingering to watch him.

  When she had first met him, Carys had thought that Eurion’s constant sunshine was something that would wane with age, but she didn’t remember that she herself had been any different when she was younger. She had always been quieter, more inclined to keep herself to herself, even before she married. She had certainly grown more bitter as she aged, but she had nothing less than she had had when she was younger, except perhaps hope.

  Watching Eurion now, her arms folded over the flapping edges of her shawl, Carys wondered how he would change with age. How would that sunshine grow and develop?

  He looked up and caught her watching, and smiled unaffectedly. “What is it, Lady?”

  “We should keep going,” Carys said. “We’ve little enough time before it rains properly.”

  Eurion climbed obligingly to his feet, scattering the sand otters, but one, bolder than the rest, slithered and bounced its way through the sand, chasing them when they walked on, and pausing, taut and wary, when they turned to watch it.

  “It wants to come with us, Lady,” said Eurion, crouching once again. “You should stay still so it isn’t scared. It will come when it feels safe.”

  “Doesn’t it hurt to pick them up?” Carys asked him. Eurion had a big heart, and yet she had never seen him sorrow over the death of one of the short-lived otters he picked up.

  Eurion’s eyes glowed up at her, his hand outstretched and forgotten. “Are you curious, Lady?”

  “It’s why I asked,” Carys said dryly, wondering at the glow. She saw the tiny otter make a slithering motion forward, then another. “You know they’re going to die, but you still pick them up. Doesn’t it hurt?”

  “Didn’t I tell you before, Lady? They’re going to die, but they’ll live first. If I can make them happy for a little while, why should I be sad when they die?”

  “I see. Is that why you’re trying so hard now?” asked Carys, with faint smile. “You want me to be happy for a little while? Then if I die, you can bury me and go home content?”

  Eurion, the bright gold ends of his hair whipping across his face, looked rather blankly at her. “You’re—but you’re not going to die, Lady! You can’t!”

  “Everyone dies,” said Carys.

  “That’s—” Eurion stared at her. “Carys! You said it was safe on the shore!”

  “I said I’ve been working on the shore for twenty years,” she said. After all, she would send him away tomorrow. “Careful! You’re frightening it. I know what I’m doing along the shore: it’s safer for me than any other.”

  “You’re different to the otters,” Eurion said, steadying his hand again. “They’re only meant to live for a day—that’s what makes them so beautiful. You’re meant to live and love for much longer than that, so you’re not allowed to die without me.”

  “Then I’ll stay alive at least that long,” Carys said, her laugh a whisper in the wind. She would send him away tomorrow, certainly: there was no need to be quite so stern as usual. And Eurion was quiet and peaceable this afternoon.

  He laughed back up at her, the sand otter clinging to his fingers as he stood, and said, “I’ll make sure, Lady. I’ll check every day.”

  And Carys, tearing her eyes away to look out at the familiar, stormy sea, thought faintly to herself, Tomorrow. She would certainly send him away tomorrow.

  * * *

  They ran the last few hundred metres home, but they were still soaked to the skin by the time they got there.

  “Leave it,” said Carys, dropping her bundle of wood. She was laughing, though she wasn’t sure why. She hadn’t tried to run from the rain in years.

  Eurion set his own armful of wood tumbling down on the pile and said, his eyes dancing, “Lady, you have a feather in your hair.”

  “That’s unlikely to be the worst of it,” Carys said amusedly. “In, Eurion. You can bring the otter if you must, but you’re to change straight away.”

  She ignored Eurion’s protests that she ought to be the one who used their changing room first, and pattered around the room, dripping, to move the cawl further over the fire and stoke it, then to fetch the kettle. He went at last, leaving the tiny sand otter in front of the fire to dry beneath Carys’ fascinated eye. It didn’t mind her, and Carys left it to dry itself, careful only to skirt well around Eurion’s rug when she moved away from the fire. She might not bring along every sand otter that wished to come with her, but she would have hated to have stepped on one.

  She was filling the kettle when Eurion passed softly behind her and freed the feather from her hair, then went back to the fire to arrange the sand otter in a nest made from one of his shirts. It shouldn’t have affected her, but Carys felt her face warm, and took a few moments longer to fill the kettle than she would have usually taken to allow it to cool.

  In a sudden lull of the wind that battered the house, Carys heard a papery rustle, and remembered too late the drawings she had left on the table beside her bed the other night.

  She turned to see Eurion with a drawing in each hand, looking from one to the other.

  Without looking up, he asked, “Lady? What are these?”

  “They’re nothing,” Carys said, forcing herself to speak naturally. If she spoke hastily, Eurion would know they were more than they seemed.

  “This one is me,” said Eurion, gazing at it thoughtfully. She had the feeling he had been looking at it for some time before an unwary movement drew the sound of it to her attention. He wandered away from the bed, turning his eyes on the second drawing, and sat down at the table across from her chair. “But who is this?”

  Carys didn’t tell him to move, and that surprised her a little. Instead, she said, “It’s not important.”

  He had no reason to know her husband’s face, so it was nothing that was likely to jog memories. She was sending Eurion away tomorrow: there was no need to bother him with more details of her life previous to this.

  “All right,” Eurion said, and he smiled up at her over the papers. “Can I look at these for a little while, Lady? It was that Mistress Ma that drew them, wasn’t it?”

  “What makes you say so?”

  “Well,” he said, hesitating. “You said before that she’d given you a present, so I thought…”

  “She drew them,” agreed Carys, hanging the kettle to the side of the simmering cawl. “Put them back where you found them when you’re done.”

  She left both Eurion and the dinner to simmer away by themselves, and changed her clothes, stripping the now warmly wet clothes away from her skin and taking the time to dry herself thoroughly. There would be time enough to be wet and cold tomorrow without being so tonight as well.

  When she got back out, she found that Eurion had pushed his rug to the foot of the bed, and now sat down on the floor, leaning against the footboard.

  Carys flicked a look at him as she passed. He was quiet—had been quiet since yesterday—but she didn’t think he was troubled. There was still the same gladness from earlier in his eyes whenever they caught hers, and he glanced at her often. Carys tried not to meet those eyes too often as she moved around the kitchen to prepare the rest of the meal, but she felt the warmth of them despite that; a pleasant, lingering feeling of affection that made her smile faintly as she worked.

  Eurion seemed disinclined to leave his spot on the floor when the kettle boiled, so Carys brought a tray with her and sat down beside him on the rug. She did it half on instinct, half in decision, and it didn’t occur to her until she was sitting beside him that it was perhaps not the wisest thing to have done.

  “This is nice,” Eurion said, sipping his tea and letting out a contented breath of steam. “Usually I have to come to you.”

  “Tonight is different,” Carys said, pouring tea. “Tomorrow…”

  “What’s tomorrow?” asked Eurion, shuffling a little back and a little sideways until the fire-warmed skin of his arm brushed against hers. “You’re warm tonight, Lady. That’s nice, too.”

  “Eat your cawl,” said Carys gently. Tomorrow’s doings could wait until tomorrow. She watched the sand otter as it explored its little nest by the fire, and it seemed to her that she knew how it felt. With the wind howling outside, and the heavy drumming of rain on the roof, the comfort of the cottage was more complete.

  Still, comfort notwithstanding, it hadn’t occurred to Carys that she could possibly fall asleep with her head on Eurion’s shoulder until a small chirp from the sand otter woke her into that comforting warmth once again.

  Golden hair tips brushed her cheek as Eurion tilted his head to gaze at her, and Carys didn’t think to stop the smile that answered his until it was already well in being. She lifted her head from his shoulder, and just like he had with the sand otter, Eurion moved softly, slowly, until he was on one knee with an arm around her and his other hand just barely touching her jawline. Warm and dangerously disinclined to move, Carys felt his cheek brush hers and stay there.

  “Carys,” he said in her ear, “if you don’t stop me, I’m going to kiss you again.”

  His cheek drew away from hers, and Carys had the brief impression of honeyed skin and heavy-lidded eyes before she turned up her face to allow him to kiss her.

  No—not to allow it, but to kiss him back, her fingers clinging to his collar and the beat of her heart heavy in her ears. The hand that had been at her jaw curled around her neck instead, and Eurion drew her closer to himself for one moment that lengthened into many heartbeats.

  The wind still howled around the cottage, but Carys didn’t seem to hear it until Eurion released her, as gently and deliberately as he’d embraced her, and as a cool touch of air caught her cheeks in a draught from beneath the door.

  Carys, aghast, came to herself. She sat up straight and looked away into the fire, the chill of the night reminding her of all that was and all that shouldn’t be.

  She should never have sat down beside him. “Eurion—”

  “I’m going to wash the dishes now,” he said. “If you want to, you can go to sleep first. We can talk tomorrow instead.”

  Tomorrow, thought Carys, rather feverishly. Tomorrow had come too late.

  Eurion stopped a few steps away, worrying her that he would return. “Besides,” he added, and though he didn’t turn around, Carys could see the curve of his cheeks as he smiled, “if you’re still out of bed when I come back, I don’t think I’ll be able to stop myself from kissing you again.”

  Tomorrow, thought Carys again, rising at once. Tomorrow, Eurion would undoubtedly have to go. She had taken his quietness as a sign of safety, but it was certainly not the case.

  Perhaps, just like the seashore, Eurion wasn’t the most dangerous when he was sudden and unexpected, but when he was most quiet.

  Chapter Seventeen

  If Carys had hoped that Eurion would still be asleep when she rose the next morning, she was to be disappointed. She wasn’t sure she had hoped so, but the distinctly panicked beat of her heart suggested that it was likely. Nor was Eurion outside, practising. When Carys’ eyes snapped open in a dismayed, sudden waking and she sat up straight in the bed, Eurion was sitting by the fire with his back to it and his arms wrapped around his knees.