Page 484

The squall that had threatened all day had found them.

Paragon turned his face up, and tasted the last rain he would ever know.

The chop of the waves jolted against him, but could do little to rock him as his heavy bulk settled ever deeper.

The pounding on the hatch cover had weakened.

The oil-fed fires that Kennit had kindled smoked and stank in the rain, but burned still.

Occasionally there was a crash as scorched rigging gave way and fell to his deck.

He ignored it all. He was sinking inside himself to a place deeper than any ocean floor.

Inside him, Amber wept. That was hard to bear.

He had not realized how much he had come to cherish her.

And Clef. And Brashen, so proud to be his captain.

Resolutely, he forced such thoughts away.

He must not give in to them now. The carpenter had crawled as far forwards in his bow as she could get under the deck.

Despite the pain of her scalds, she had dragged herself through the cold water flooding his holds.

He wished she had succumbed to the numbing water; it would be a kinder end.

But she lived, and clung to his mainstem and spoke faintly. He held himself back from her.

A serpent butted against him. ‘Hey. Stupid. Are you just going to let them do this to you?’ The creature’s tone was disdainful. ‘Wake up. You’ve as much a right to live as she does.’

‘I’ve as much a right to die, also,’ Paragon retorted. Then he wished he had not roused himself to speak, for now he was aware of Amber’s agonized words as well.

‘Paragon. Paragon, I don’t want to die. Not like this. Not with all my work unfinished. Please, ship. Please don’t do this.’ She was weeping, and her tears scalded him as sharply as serpent venom.

‘No one has the right to die uselessly,’ the serpent proclaimed. Paragon recognized his voice now. He was the one who had shouted mockingly at the other serpents as they attacked him. He butted Paragon again. It was annoying.

‘Dying is the most useful thing I can do for Kennit,’ Paragon reminded himself. He struggled to compose himself once more.

The serpent pressed his head against Paragon’s listing hull and pushed hard.

‘I do not speak of “Kennit”. I speak of being useful to your own kind. Bolt brags that she alone can lead us home and protect us. I don’t believe her.

The memories I have recall many guides and protectors.

Surely what one can do well, two can do better.

Why is she so eager to kill you to please this “Kennit”?

Why do either of you care about him at all? ’

‘She wishes me to be dead, to please Kennit?’ The words came slowly to Paragon. He could not attach sense to them. Surely this was Kennit’s sorrowful will for him. It had nothing to do with Vivacia, or Bolt as she now styled herself?

Unless she wanted Kennit for herself. Unless she wished to do away with Paragon so she would have no rivals. Perhaps Kennit had deceived him. Perhaps Kennit wished him dead so he could be with Vivacia.

The traitor thought shocked him. ‘Go away! This is my decision.’

‘And who are you to decide?’ the serpent pressed him.

‘Paragon. I am Paragon of the Ludlucks!’ The name was a talisman to hold other identities at bay.

The serpent rubbed against him, a long caress, skin to hull. ‘And who else are you?’ he demanded.

Inside him, he felt the sudden press of Amber’s bare hands against him. ‘No!’ he screamed at both of them. ‘No! I am Paragon of the Ludlucks. Only that.’

But within him, from a darkness deeper than any human soul, other voices spoke, and Amber listened to them.

Althea opened her eyes and waited for the bad dream to dispel.

It seemed she was on board Vivacia, inside her old stateroom.

The look of the room was right, but the feel of it was subtly wrong.

A memory from the Reaper stirred. That ship had felt this way.

Dead wood. She received no sense of the liveship at all.

She reached out, but felt only the motion of the vessel.

Had they taken the ship? Was Brashen on the wheel, taking them home?

She sat up too suddenly. A violent fit of coughing shook her.

A stray memory surfaced as from a dream: sprawling on Vivacia’s deck, very cold, coughing up seawater.

The taste of brine was still in her mouth and stinging her nose.

That had been real. The deck under her had been very hard, and not just in the way of wood.

She had felt refusal in the planks under her hands.

Jek had been with her, but was not here now.

Her hair was still damp, so not too much time had passed.

The dusk of an early winter evening was in the window, darkened more by a spitting storm.

A lantern, wick turned low, hung from a hook.

She sat still, trying to piece time together.

The serpents had swamped the little boat, and then one had hit it broadside.

Boat and all, they had bounced down the serpent’s humped spine.

She remembered the slap of the water as she hit it.

She had struggled under water, kicking off her boots, but the cold sea had dragged at the heavy fabric of her clothing, each successive wave ducking her under for a longer time.

She did not remember Jek seizing her, but she was sure the tall woman had come to her aid.

They had been fished out of the water and onto the deck of Vivacia.

And now she was here. Someone had dressed her in a man’s nightshirt of very fine linen, and warm woollen blankets covered her legs.

Someone had cared for her with kindness.

She seized on that as a sign; the truce negotiations had gone well.

Brashen was probably on board right now, talking with Captain Kennit.

That would explain why she had not been returned to the Paragon.

She’d dress and go to find them, right after she went forwards to see the figurehead.

She had been parted from her ship for far too long.

Once she had words with the Vivacia, surely she could resolve whatever barrier divided them.

She glanced about the room but saw no sign of her own clothing.

There were shirts and trousers hung on pegs, however, and they looked about her size.

This was no time to be shy; later she would thank whoever had surrendered his room and clothes to her.

Probably the mate. The books on the shelf showed him to be a man of some education.

Her respect for Kennit increased. The quality of a crew said a great deal about the captain.

She suspected she would get along well with the pirate.

In a habitual motion that dated back to her childhood aboard the ship, she reached up and put her palms flat to the exposed beam of wizardwood overhead.

‘Vivacia,’ she greeted her warmly. ‘I’m back. I’ve come to take you home.’

The impact slammed her back against the mattress.

Dazed, she lay flat, looking up at the ceiling overhead.

Had she struck her head somehow? It made no sense.

Nothing had hit her, but the sensation was as stunning.

She looked at her palms, half-expecting them to be reddened.

‘Vivacia?’ she queried cautiously. She tried again to sense her ship, but felt nothing.

She gathered her courage and again reached up to the beam.

A finger’s length short of touching, she stopped.

Antagonism radiated from the wood like heat from a fire.

She pressed against it. It was like pushing her hand into packed snow.

Cold and burning both engulfed her fingers, followed by a spreading numbness.

She set her teeth and pressed on. ‘Vivacia,’ she grated.

‘Ship, it’s me. Althea Vestrit. I’ve come for you.

’ The opposition to her touch only grew stronger.

She heard a key turn in a lock and the door was flung open.

She spared a glance for the man framed in the entry.

A tall man, he was handsome and well-dressed.

The scent of sandalwood came with him. He carried a tray with a steaming bowl on it.

His gleaming black hair shone, and his moustache was precisely curled.

There was white lace at his throat and cuffs and a diamond that any dandy would envy sparkled in one ear, but the wide shoulders of his well-cut blue coat proclaimed him far from effete.

He leaned on a crutch of brass and polished wood, a carefully chosen accoutrement rather than a tool for a cripple. He had to be Kennit.

‘Don’t!’ he warned her. He shut the door behind him, set the tray on her table and crossed the room in two sloping strides.

‘Don’t, I said. She’ll only hurt you.’ He seized her wrists in his strong hands and pulled them away from the beam.

She felt suddenly dizzied from both the effort and the numbing rejection.

She knew what Vivacia had done to her. The ship had subtly stirred every self-doubt Althea had ever harboured and awakened in her mind every memory of bad judgement, selfishness, or stupidity that the ship had ever witnessed.

She burned with shame at how inferior a person she was, even as logic tried to assert itself.

‘She’ll only hurt you,’ Kennit repeated. He kept possession of her wrists. After one attempt to pull free of him, Althea subsided. He was strong. Better to behave with dignity than react like a thwarted child.

She met his pale blue eyes. He smiled at her reassuringly and waited. ‘Why?’ she demanded. ‘Why should she try to hurt me? She’s my ship.’

His smile widened. ‘And I’m pleased to meet you also, Althea Vestrit. I trust you feel better.’ His eyes roved over her frankly. ‘You look much better than when I first fished you out. You vomited quite a quantity of seawater onto my clean deck.’