Chapter 21: The Last Tide

Lucan's POV

I sat on the lowest step of the sea-gate stair and watched the tide come in.

My arm hung in a sling.

The healer had burned the silver out of my side at sea and told me to lie in bed for ten days.

I had been awake for two nights. I did not go to bed.

I had ordered the flagship home from the Ashgrove cove myself, with a message left behind for her.

*You are free to go.*

It was the truest thing I had ever said to her.

I had said it by sending a lieutenant, because I could not have said it to her face.

She had a pack that howled her name, and four brothers.

She had never had a door she could open freely in her life, and I had a castle full of them.

I thought she would take the first one.

I told myself I could bear it. I could bear a lifetime of knowing she was well.

The sea slapped the bottom step. The moon came up.

A small black boat was coming across the water.

It rode low, with one figure in it, rowing badly.

The oars splashed. The boat went round in a half circle, and corrected, and came on.

I stood up.

The pain in my side was enormous. I did not feel it.

She shipped the oars twenty feet out and let the boat drift to the stair.

She did not look up until it bumped the stone.

She was wearing a plain grey dress and a thin silver chain with a crescent moon on it. Her hair was wet with spray.

"I'm terrible at that," Keira said.

"You went the long way."

"I went the only way I knew. It was in the water."

"Keira."

"You left a message," she said. "With a lieutenant."

"I did."

"Of all the cowardly things you have ever done."

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