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If there had been a serpent close by, Kennit would have fed him to it.

‘Relay my message!’ he barked at Jola. He turned back to stare at the threatening fleet.

He recognized the type of fleet it was. Each ship belonged to a noble, and each cherished the hope of returning laden with booty and crowned with glory.

They would vie to be the one to treat for the Satrap’s release; every noble would want to negotiate it.

Would they be foolish enough to send him a hostage from every ship?

He hoped so, and yet he knew that there might still be bloody fighting today.

When Malta fled, Jek and Althea had carried Reyn down to Althea’s room. On her bunk, he had come to himself. ‘Where’s Malta?’ he demanded woozily. ‘Didn’t I find her?’ Blood leaked sluggishly from one nostril and water dripped from his hair.

‘You did,’ Althea assured him. ‘But Captain Kennit has summoned her.’

Reyn suddenly clapped both hands to his bared face. ‘Did she see me?’ he demanded, horrified. A question like that, at such a time, demanded a truthful answer.

‘Yes. She did,’ Althea replied quietly. There was no point in lying, or trying to save his feelings.

His copper eyes were hard to read but the set of his mouth was not.

‘She’s very young, Reyn,’ Althea excused her niece.

‘You knew that when you began courting her.’ She tried to make her words gentle as well as firm. ‘You can’t expect –’

‘Leave me for a time. Please,’ he requested quietly.

Jek left off staring at him, and opened the door.

Althea followed her out. ‘Those are Wintrow’s clothes on the pegs,’ she said over her shoulder.

‘If you want some dry things on.’ Not that there was much hope any of it would fit him.

Despite his scaly face and bird eyes, he was a well-made man, tall and muscled.

Jek seemed to have been following her thoughts. ‘Even with the scales, he’s not bad-looking,’ she observed quietly.

Althea leaned against the wall outside her room, Jek beside her. ‘I should be out on the foredeck, not down here,’ she grumbled to her friend.

‘Why? It’s not like you have any control over what happens up there,’ Jek pointed out maddeningly. She lowered her voice suddenly. ‘Admit it, Althea,’ she coaxed. ‘When you look at the scales on his face, you have to wonder about the rest of him.’

‘No, I don’t,’ Althea replied icily. She didn’t want to think about it.

The man was a Rain Wilder, kin to Bingtown Traders; she owed him loyalty, not idle speculation about his body.

She’d seen Rain Wilders before and, she told herself, she wasn’t shocked.

They could not help what the Rain Wilds did to them.

The Khuprus family was renowned for both their wealth and honour.

Reyn Khuprus, scaled or not, was a good catch; that he had come seeking her so far, in such a way, was undeniable evidence of a brave heart.

Still, she did not blame Malta for running away.

She had probably fantasized a handsome face beneath his veil.

To confront her scaly betrothed must have shaken her.

Reyn pulled his wet shirt off. It slapped to the floor atop his other clothes.

He took a deep breath through his tight throat and stared into the room’s small mirror forcing himself to see what Malta had seen.

Tintaglia had not lied to him. His contact with her had accelerated the Rain Wild changes.

He touched the fine dragon-scaling of his face, lidded and opened the copper reptile eyes that stared at him.

The scaled planes of his bared chest glinted bronze.

There was a bluish cast to the skin beneath; bruising or a colour change?

He had seen Rain Wild gaffers of fifty who had not shown as much change as he already did.

What would become of him as he aged? Would he grow dragon claws, would his teeth become pointed, his tongue ridged?

It scarcely mattered, he told himself. He’d grow old alone now, underground most of the time, digging for dragons.

How he looked would not matter to anyone.

Tintaglia had kept her end of the bargain.

He would keep his. The irony did not escape him.

He’d wagered the rest of his life against the hope that he could rescue Malta.

He would not deny his wild fancies now. He’d dreamed that he would rescue her, unscathed despite the horrible dangers she’d endured, and that she would collapse into his arms and promise to always be at his side.

He’d dreamed that when he unveiled before her, she would smile and touch his face and tell him it did not matter, that it was him she loved, not his face.

But the reality was crueller. Tintaglia had dropped him and departed with her precious serpents.

After days of battering flight and sleeping cold on isolated beaches, he’d nearly drowned.

Malta’s kin had had to rescue him. They must think him an utter fool.

His entire quest had been to no purpose, for Malta was safe already.

He had no idea why the Vivacia was flying the Jamaillian flag, but obviously Althea Vestrit had managed to regain her ship and rescue her niece.

They not only hadn’t needed his pathetic efforts, they’d had to rescue him.

He took one of Wintrow’s shirts from a peg and held it up.

With a sigh, he hung it up again. He picked up his own shirt from the floor and watched the water run from it.

His veil was tangled with it. For a time, he stared at it.

Then he tugged it loose and wrung it out. It was the first thing he put on.

Malta stood unseeing in the pelting rain.

The fine scaling of Reyn’s face had been like silken mail, the warm gleam of his copper eyes like a beacon.

Once, she had kissed those lips through the fine mesh of a veil.

She felt her scrub-maid’s fingers on her chapped lips and snatched her hand away.

Unattainable, now. She lifted her face to the cold rain and welcomed its icy touch.

Numb me, she begged of it. Take away this pain.

‘I’m cold,’ the Satrap whimpered beside her. ‘And I’m tired of standing here.’

Kennit shot him a warning glance.

The Satrap had his arms wrapped tightly around himself but he still shook with the cold. ‘I don’t think they’re coming. Why must I stand here in the wind and rain?’

‘Because it pleases me,’ Kennit snapped at him.

Wintrow thought to intervene. ‘You can have my cloak, if you like,’ he offered.

The Satrap scowled. ‘It’s dripping wet! What good would that do me?’

‘You could be wetter,’ Kennit snarled.

Malta took a long breath. The pirate and the Satrap did not seem much different from one another.

If she could manage one, she could manage the other.

It was not courage that motivated her to march across the deck and stand before Kennit with her arms crossed, but profound despair.

He was a dangerous, violent man, but she didn’t fear him.

What could he do to her? Ruin her life? The thought almost made her smile.

Her low, even words were meant only for Kennit but the tall woman who stood behind his shoulder listened, too.

‘Please, King Kennit, let me fetch him a heavier cloak and a chair, if you will not allow him to go inside to shelter.’

She felt his gaze on her head, searching for signs of her scar. He answered her callously. ‘He’s being foolish. He takes no harm from a little rain. I do not see where it is your concern.’

‘You, sir, are being more foolish than he.’ She spoke boldly, no longer caring if she gave offence.

‘Forget my concern. Consider your own. Whatever pleasure you take from making him miserable is not worth what you will lose. If you wish the captains of that fleet to see him as valuable, then you should treat him as the Lord High Magnadon, Satrap of all Jamaillia. If you think to bargain him for riches, that is who you must be holding. Not a wet, cranky, miserable boy.’

Her eyes flickered once from Kennit’s pale blue ones to those of his woman. To her surprise, she looked faintly amused, almost approving. Did Kennit sense that? He looked at Malta but spoke to his woman. ‘Etta. See what you can manage for him. I wish him to be very visible.’

‘I can arrange that.’ The woman had a soft contralto voice, more refined than Malta had expected from a pirate’s woman. There was intelligence in her glance.

Malta met her gaze frankly, and dropped her a curtsey as she said, ‘My gratitude to you, lady.’

She followed Etta from the foredeck and kept up with her.

The wind had stirred a nasty little chop and the wet deck was unsteady, but in her days aboard the Motley , she had finally found her sea legs.

She amazed herself. Despite all that was wrong in her life, she took pride in being able to move well on her father’s ship.

Her father. Resolutely, she banished all thoughts of him.

Nor would she dwell on Reyn, so close that she could feel his presence.

Eventually, she must stand before him, ruined and scarred, and face the disappointment in those extraordinary copper eyes.

She shook her head and clenched her teeth against the sting of tears in her eyes.

Not now. She would not feel anything for herself just now.

All her thoughts and efforts must go into restoring the Satrap to his throne.

She tried to think clearly as she followed Etta into her father’s stateroom.