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An ordinary conversation, discussing the obvious.

It spoke too plainly to Brashen. She had been back on the Vivacia, and found her heart once more.

He could not blame her. Vivacia was Althea’s family ship.

With Kennit dead, she had a much better chance of reclaiming her.

And unlike Paragon, Vivacia had not embraced the anma of a murdering pirate who had done vast damage to Althea’s family.

When she had come back from Vivacia, he had deceived himself that she came back to him.

Instead, she had come to share battle plans.

Watching the distracted frown on her face, he knew where her thoughts were.

She loved him, in her way. She gave him as much as she could, without forsaking her ship and her family.

He had no right to ask more than that. If he’d still had a family to claim him, perhaps he would have been just as torn.

For a fleeting instant, he considered leaving Paragon to follow her.

But he couldn’t. No one else knew this ship as he did.

No one else had endured alongside him. He could not make Paragon vulnerable to a captain that might not tolerate his uneven moods.

And what of Clef? Would he tear the boy from the ship that loved him?

Or leave him on Paragon, to be trained by a master who might not have his best interests at heart?

And Semoy would not be first mate under any other captain.

He’d go back to being a washed-up drunk, and lose whatever years he had left to a bottle.

No. As much as he loved Althea, he had responsibilities here.

She would not respect a man who abandoned his ship to follow her.

Brashen Trell was finished with walking away from his duties.

Here he must remain, and if need be, love Althea from afar and when they could.

In that acknowledgement, he suddenly knew that he did have a family again.

Etta leaned on the railing, staring forwards into the dark. Paragon could feel her there, though her presence was limited to the warm press of her forearms against his wizardwood railing. With no bond with her, he could not sense her emotions at all.

She broke the silence suddenly. ‘I know a little bit of liveships. From Vivacia.’

He had nothing to say to that. He waited.

‘Somehow, I don’t understand how, Kennit was your family. When he died, he went into you?’ Her voice tightened on the awkward words. He felt her trembling.

‘In a manner of speaking.’ His words sounded too cold; he sought to add something gentler.

‘He was always a part of me and I of him. For many reasons, we were bound more tightly than is usual. It was very important, to both of us, that he come back at the moment of his death. I knew that. I don’t think Kennit realised it until it happened. ’

She took a breath. In a strangled voice she asked, ‘So you are Kennit now?’

‘No. I’m sorry. Kennit is a part of me. He completes me.

But I am, irrevocably, Paragon.’ It felt good to make that declaration.

He suspected that it might be painful for her to hear.

To his surprise, he felt genuine sorrow that he had to hurt her.

He tried to remember the last time he had had such a feeling, and could not.

Was this yet another aspect of being whole: the ability to feel sympathy?

It would take time to adjust to feeling such things.

‘Then he is gone,’ Etta said heavily. He heard her take a struggling breath. ‘But why couldn’t you heal him as Vivacia healed Wintrow?’

He thought silently for a time. ‘You say she healed him? I know nothing of that. I can only guess at what she did. It is what dragons can do, if they must. They burn the resources of their bodies to speed a healing. If Vivacia did that to Wintrow, he was lucky to survive it. Few humans have such reserves. Kennit certainly did not.’

Her silence lasted long. The night deepened around them.

Even darkness was a pleasure to his newly restored vision.

Night was not truly dark. He turned his eyes to the skies above, to clouds obscuring and then revealing the moon and stars.

Phosphorescence outlined the waves. His keen vision, part of his dragon heritage, picked out the outlines of the ships he followed.

‘Would you know something about him – Kennit? If I asked you something, could you tell me true?’

‘Perhaps,’ Paragon hedged. He glanced back at her. She had lifted her hands from the railing and was turning her bracelet restlessly.

‘Did he love me?’ The question burst from her, painful in its intensity. ‘Did he truly love me? I need to know.’

‘Kennit is part of me. But I am not Kennit.’ Paragon debated furiously with himself. She carried a child, the child promised him so long ago. Paragon Ludluck. A child needed to be loved, loved without reservations.

‘If you have his memories, you know the truth.’ Etta insisted. ‘Did he love me?’

‘Yes. He loved you.’ He gave her what she needed to hear, without compunction. I have Kennit’s memories, but I am not Kennit. Still, I can lie as well as he did. And for better cause . ‘He loved you as fully as his heart could love.’ That was true, at least.

Thank you . As clear and brief as a drop of falling rain, the thought reached him. He groped for the source, but found nothing. The feel of the voice was oddly familiar, almost as if it came from Kennit, yet it was outside himself.

‘Thank you,’ Etta unconsciously echoed the sentiment. ‘Thank you more than you can know. From both of us.’ She walked swiftly away from the foredeck, leaving him with a mystery to ponder.

Ahead of him, on the Motley ’s deck, a lantern flashed suddenly. It was held aloft thrice and swung once, then masked again. It was still almost a surprise to have access to Kennit’s memories. The old pirate signals were his to decipher. Brashen was summoned to the Vivacia.

‘This had better be important,’ Brashen grumbled to Althea as they bent to the oars. Etta and Amber manned a second pair. The gusting wind blew Amber’s ragged hair past her mottled face. Etta stared straight ahead.

‘I’m sure it is,’ Althea muttered. They worked heavily, struggling against wind, water and the darkness to catch up with the lead ship.

The four ships had closed up the gap between them, but they had not stopped, even for this meeting.

Vivacia led them as they picked their way through a maze of small islands.

Some loomed steep and rocky, while others showed only as waves breaking and running on a jagged surface.

The ships threaded a meandering path through them.

Brashen guessed that at a lower tide this route would be impassable.

He prayed that both Wintrow and Vivacia knew this route as well as they seemed to.

Brashen approved the choice to put as much distance between them and the Jamaillian fleet as possible, but he still had reservations about leaving his ship to go to Vivacia.

Althea had assured him that Wintrow could be trusted, but he reminded himself that they knew little of the crew on the Vivacia, or the captains and crews of the other two ships.

They had been thrown into an unlikely alliance with the pirates.

Memories of being under the hatch in a sinking ship were still fresh in his mind.

Vivacia took them up just as a drenching rain began to fall.

By the light of a dimmed lantern, they were hauled aboard.

She already trailed boats from the Marietta and the Motley .

They were last to arrive. Brashen’s wariness rose another notch.

Etta climbed up first. Althea began to follow, but he stopped her with a touch.

‘I’m going next,’ he growled low. ‘At any sign of treachery, go back to Paragon.’

‘I don’t think you need fear,’ Althea began but he shook his head.

‘I lost you once. I won’t gamble you again,’ he told her.

‘Wise man,’ Amber observed quietly as he seized the wet ladder and began to climb.

As he set his hands to the Vivacia’s railing, incredible emotions raced through him.

For an instant, he was unmanned. Tears stung his eyes.

Warmth and welcome flowed through him. Joy at his safety.

He set foot on the deck he had not trod since the day of the ship’s awakening.

‘Brashen Trell!’ the ship called back to him a low contralto. ‘Paragon has done you good. You are more sensitive to us than ever you were when you worked my decks. For the first time in my waking life, I bid you welcome aboard.’

‘Thank you,’ he managed. Etta was nowhere in sight.

Wintrow stood on the deck in the pouring rain, offering him a hand to shake.

The self-effacing lad he had met at Ephron’s funeral now stood straight and met his eyes.

Heavy grief had aged his face. He would never be a large man, but man he definitely was.

‘You remember the way to the chart room, I’m sure,’ he said and Brashen found himself answering a familiar smile with one of his own.

Wintrow’s resemblance to Althea was truly uncanny.

He watched Althea’s face as she came aboard the ship.

When she set hands to the rail, he saw how she suddenly glowed.

Malta came to meet her and they immediately fell into conversation as they hurried inside.

Amber seemed less affected by her first contact with the liveship.

It was when she set eyes on Wintrow that her face went slack with shock.

‘The nine-fingered slave boy,’ she blurted out.