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‘Well. I am not sure what I should say to that.’ There was deep concern in Kennit’s voice. She had to turn her head to see him, and it made the cabin rock. The dizziness was back. Her tongue felt thick in her mouth.

‘What do you mean?’

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

‘I thought you would have seen it from the water. I am so sorry to tell you this, my dear. The serpents did great damage to the Paragon. I’m afraid the ship went down.

We tried to save those we could, but the serpents are so voracious…

Captain Trell went down with his ship. There was nothing we could do.

It was a miracle we were able to save you.

’ He patted her shoulder gravely. ‘I am afraid this ship must become your home again. Now, have no fears. I will take care of you.’

The words swept past her in a flood. Their meaning reached her mind after the sounds of them came to her ears.

When she understood what he had said, she shot to her feet.

At least, she thought she had. Then she was standing, her hands braced on the tabletop to keep from falling.

She hated the dizziness because it was distracting her from a pain so great it could only be death.

She could not comprehend its source and then she knew that her world had ended.

She had gone on alone without it, or it had somehow left her behind.

Brashen. Amber. Clef. Haff. Poor old Lop.

Paragon, dear mad Paragon. All dead, on her foolish errand.

She’d brought them all to their deaths. She opened her mouth but the agony was such she could not even weep.

‘Here, here now,’ Kennit was saying, trying to help her to her bunk.

She had forgotten how to make her knees bend, and then they suddenly buckled.

She half-fell, banging her ribs on the edge of the bunk, and then scrabbled into the bed that had so often been her refuge.

‘Brashen. Brashen. Brashen.’ She could not stop saying his name, but her throat was so tight that no sound was coming out.

The room swayed around her and she was choking on the word.

Perhaps she could die with his name caught in her throat.

Kennit suddenly sat down beside her. He hauled her to a sitting position.

She leaned on his chest and he put his arms around her.

‘Here. I am here. There, there, there. A terrible shock, I know. How clumsy of me to have told you this way. How alone you must feel. But I am here. Here. Take some wine.’

She sipped at the cup he held to her mouth.

She did not want as much as she took, but the cup would not go away and she seemed to have no determination left.

Kennit spoke gently to her all the while he tipped the cup against her mouth.

When the wine was gone, he set the cup aside and held her.

Her face was against the fine lace of his shirtfront.

He stroked her hair and rocked her as if she were a child and said nonsense about taking care of her now, and that she would be fine, fine in time, all she had to do was trust him and let him make her feel better. He gently kissed her brow.

He was doing something to her throat. She reached up and discovered he was unbuttoning her shirt for her.

She pushed at his hands to stop him, knowing dimly that something was amiss.

He set her hands gently aside and smiled sympathetically.

‘I know, I know. But you have no need to fear me. Be sensible. You cannot go to sleep dressed. Think how uncomfortable that would be.’

As before, his words pushed her own thoughts away.

He undid the little buttons carefully and opened her shirt.

‘Lie back,’ he whispered, and she obeyed without thinking.

He lowered his face to her breasts and kissed them gently.

His mouth was warm, and his tongue skilled.

For an instant, the dark head bent over her was Brashen’s, and it was Brashen’s hands unfastening her trousers.

But no, Brashen was gone, drowned in the cold dark sea, and this was not right, she could take no comfort here.

As warm and gentle as his mouth was, this was not something she wanted.

‘No!’ she wailed suddenly, and pushed Kennit away.

She managed to sit up. The lantern light behind him was dazzling. She squinted at his doubled face.

‘It’s just a dream,’ he told her reassuringly.

‘It’s all just a bad dream. Don’t worry.

It’s just a dream. Nothing that happens now matters.

No one else will know.’ For a moment she could see the man.

His pale blue eyes were foreign to her. She could not read them.

His words washed away her certainty. A dream?

She was dreaming this? She closed her eyes against the too-bright light.

Something nudged her shoulder and she fell back limply.

Somewhere, someone tugged at her body. She felt the rasp of cloth past her legs.

No. She dragged her eyelids up and tried to find sight.

His face was inches from her own but she could not make her eyes resolve his features.

Then she felt his hand slide up her thigh.

She cried out in protest as fingers probed her, and the hand went away.

‘Just a dream,’ the voice told her again.

He pulled up the blanket and snuggled it around her. ‘You’re safe now.’

‘Thank you,’ she said in confusion.

But then he bent and kissed her, his mouth going hard on hers, his body pinning hers. When he let her go, she found she was crying. Crying for who? Brashen? Everything was so confusing. ‘Please,’ she begged him, but he was gone.

It was dark suddenly. Had he blown out the light?

Was he really gone? She waited but all was still and silent.

It had been a dream…She was awake now and safe on her ship.

She felt the gentle rolling as Vivacia cut her sure way through the waves.

She moved like a waltz, as comforting as the rocking of a cradle and Althea had never even danced with Brashen, and now he was gone.

Sobbing shook her, but it was not release.

She only grew dizzier and woozier with her crying.

Everything was so wrong, and she was too sick to make sense of any of it.

Brashen had needed her to be strong, but she had failed him.

He was dead. Dead and gone forever, just as her father was dead and gone forever.

She knelt again by her father’s body on the deck, and once more felt her whole world taken away from her. ‘Why?’ she asked of the silence. ‘Why?’

The sudden weight on top of her drove the breath from her lungs. A hand clapped over her mouth. ‘Quiet, now. Quiet,’ the dark voice in her ear warned her roughly. ‘Best you be quiet and no one else ever needs to know. Not ever, if you’re wise.’

The old nightmare was strong and she was sick.

She tried to push him off, she thought she had, but when she rolled over to crawl away, she heard a quiet laugh.

Then he was on her back, pushing the blanket aside.

She was naked. When had she undressed? Her muscles had no strength.

The more she tried to flee, the more her body collapsed.

She made a sound, and the hand clapped over her mouth covered her nose as well and pulled her head back.

It hurt. She could not breathe, and she was no longer certain where she was or what was happening.

Needing to breathe took precedent over all else.

She seized the wrist of that hand and wrestled it feebly.

Sparks danced behind her eyes as he kneed her legs apart.

He was hurting her, her head pulled back so far on her neck, but the pain was not as important as needing to breathe.

His hand slipped until it covered only her mouth.

She dragged in breath after breath through her nose, and then he thrust suddenly deep into her.

She screamed without sound and bucked under him but could not evade him.

Devon had held her so, pressing her down so hard she couldn’t breathe.

The unwanted memory of that first time rushed back at her.

The nightmares merged, and she struggled alone, afraid to cry out for fear someone else would see what was happening to her.

She’d be disgraced, her father would know, and it was all her own fault.

It was always her fault. She stood before Keffria, crying, and begged her sister to understand, saying, ‘I was frightened, I thought I wanted him to do it and then I knew I didn’t, but I didn’t know how to make him stop.

’ ‘Your own fault,’ Keffria hissed at her, too horrified to feel sorry for her wayward sister.

‘You led him to it, and that makes it your fault.’ The words forced the deed on Althea, made it her own action rather than something done to her, and it all came back to her, sharp as blood, the stabbing impacts of the man’s rough body and the panicky need for air, and the desperation of keeping it secret.

No one must know. She gritted her teeth and ignored the rough clutch of his hand on her breast. She tried to wake herself up from the nightmare, she tried to crawl away from him, but he rode her and there was no escape.

She butted her head hard against wood, half-stunning herself.

She began to cry again, defeated. Brashen , she tried to say, Brashen , because she had promised herself there would never again be any other man, but a hand was still pressed tight on her mouth, and the brutal thrusting went on and on.

It was so hard to breathe. The pain was not as frightening as the lack of air.

Before it was over, a blackness reached up to drag her down, but she plunged into it willingly, diving down, hoping it was death come to take her.