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‘And that was why you had to have him back?’

‘He couldn’t die without me. Not any more than I could truly live without him. I had to take him back. Until I was whole again, I was vulnerable. I could not seal myself to others. Any blood shed on my deck was a torment to me.’

‘Oh.’

For a long time, she seemed content to leave it at that.

She leaned back against him. Her breathing became so deep and regular that he thought she slept.

Behind him, on the deck, insects battered themselves against her lantern.

He heard Semoy do a slow circuit of the deck.

He paused by the lantern. ‘All’s well?’ he asked Paragon quietly.

‘All’s well,’ the ship replied. He had come to like Semoy. The man knew how to mind his own business. His footsteps receded again.

‘Do you ever wonder,’ Amber asked him quietly, ‘how much you changed the world? Not just by keeping Kennit alive. By simply existing.’

‘By being a ship instead of a dragon?’

‘All of it.’ A slight wave of her hand encompassed all his lives.

‘I lived,’ he said simply. ‘And I’ve stayed alive. I suppose I had as much a right to do that as anyone.’

‘Absolutely.’ She shifted, then reclined in his arms to look up.

He followed her gaze but saw only darkness.

The clouds were thick beyond the trees. ‘All of us have a right to our lives. But what if, for lack of guidance, we take the wrong paths? Take Wintrow for instance. What if he was meant to lead a different life? What if, because of something I failed to do or say, he became King of the Pirate Isles when he was meant to be a man leading a life of scholarly contemplation? A man whose destiny was to experience a cloistered, contemplative life becomes a king instead. His deep spiritual meditations never occur and are never shared with the world.’

Paragon shook his head. ‘You worry too much.’ His eyes tracked a moth.

It fluttered earnestly by, intent on battering itself to death against the lantern.

‘Humans live such short lives. I believe they have little impact on the world. So Wintrow will not be a priest. It is probably no more significant than if a man who was meant to be a king became a philosophical recluse instead.’

He felt a shiver run over her body. ‘Oh, ship,’ she rebuked him softly. ‘Was that meant to be comforting?’

Carefully, he patted her as a father might soothe an infant. ‘Take comfort in this, Amber. You are only one small, short-lived creature. You’d have to be a fool to think you could change the course of the whole world.’

She was silent until she broke out in a shaky laugh. ‘Oh, Paragon, in that you are more right than you know, my friend.’

‘Be content with your own life, my friend, and live it well. Let others decide for themselves what path they will follow.’

She frowned up at him. ‘Even when you see, with absolute clarity, that it is wrong for them? That they hurt themselves?’

‘Perhaps people have a right to their pain,’ he hazarded. Reluctantly he added, ‘Perhaps they even need it.’

‘Perhaps,’ she conceded unhappily. Then, ‘Up, please. I think I shall go to bed and sleep on what you have told me. Before the rain and the mosquitoes find me.’

Althea smothered in nightmare. It did no good to know she dreamed.

She could not escape it. She could not breathe, and he was on her back, bearing her down and hurting her, hurting her.

She wanted to scream, and could not. If only she could scream, she could wake up, but she could not find the sound to give it vent. Her screams were trapped inside her.

The dream changed.

Paragon suddenly stood over her. He was a man, tall, dark-haired and grave.

He looked at her with eyes like Kennit’s.

She cowered away from him. There was hurt in his voice when he spoke.

‘Althea. Enough of this. Neither of us can endure it longer. Come to me,’ he commanded her. ‘Silently. Right now.’

‘No.’ She felt him plucking at her and she resisted. The knowing look in his eyes threatened her. No one should comprehend so fully what she felt.

‘Yes,’ he told her as she resisted. ‘I know what I’m doing. Come to me.’

She could not breathe. She could not move. He was too big and too strong. But still she struggled. If she struggled and fought, how could it be her fault?

‘It wasn’t your fault. Come away from that memory; it isn’t now. That is over and done. Let yourself be done with it. Be still, Althea, be still. If you scream, you’ll wake yourself. Worse, you’ll wake the whole crew.’

Then they all would know her shame.

‘No, no, no. That isn’t it at all. Just come to me. You have something of mine.’

The hand was gone from her mouth, the weight from her body, but she was still trapped inside herself.

Then, abruptly, she floated free. She was somewhere else, somewhere cold and windy and dark.

It was a very lonely place. Anyone’s company was better than that isolation.

‘Where are you?’ she called, but it came out as a whisper.

‘Here. Open your eyes.’

In a night storm, she stood on the foredeck.

Rising wind shook the trees overhead, and little bits of debris fell in a dirty rain.

Paragon had twisted to look back at her.

She could not see his features, but she heard his voice.

‘That’s better,’ he said reassuringly. ‘I needed you to come here, to me. I waited, thinking that eventually you would come on your own. But you did not. And this has gone on far too long for all of us. I know now what I must do.’ The figurehead paused.

His next words came harder from him. ‘You have something of mine. I want it back.’

‘I have nothing of yours.’ Did she speak the words, or only think them?

‘Yes, you do. It’s the last piece. Like it or not, I must have it, to make myself whole. To make you whole as well. You think it is yours. But you’re wrong.’ He glanced away from her. ‘By right, that pain is mine.’

Rain had begun to fall, icy cold. She heard it first in the trees above.

Then the drops found their way through the canopy.

They fell gently at first. Then a rising wind whipped the treetops, and they dropped their cold burden in a deluge.

Althea was already numbed to the cold. Paragon spoke on, softly.

‘Give it back to me, Althea. There is no reason for you to keep it. It was never even his to give you. Do you understand that? He passed it on to you. He tried to get rid of pain by giving it away, but it was not his. It should have stayed with me. I take it back from you now. All you have to do is let it go. I leave you the memory, for that, I fear, is truly yours. But the hurt is an old hurt, passed on from one to another like a pestilence. I have decided to stop it. It comes back to me now, and with me it remains.’

For a time, she resisted, gripping it tightly. ‘You can’t take it from me. It was that horrible. It was that bad. No one would understand it, no one would believe it. If you take the pain away, you make a lie of what I endured.’

‘No. No, my dear, I make it only a memory, instead of something that you live continuously in your mind. Leave it in the past. It cannot hurt you now. I will not let it.’

He reached a wide hand to her. Fearing him, but unable to resist, she set her small hand upon his. He sighed deeply. ‘Give it back to me,’ he said gently.

It was like having a deep splinter pulled.

There was the dragging pain of the extraction, and then the clean sting of fresh blood flowing.

Something clamped tight inside her suddenly eased.

He had been right. She did not have to grip her pain.

She could let it go. The memory was still there.

It had not vanished, but it had changed.

It was a memory, a thing from her past. This wound could close and heal.

The injury done to her was over. She did not have to keep it as a part of herself.

She could allow herself to heal. Her tears were diluted in the rain that ran down her face.

‘Althea!’

She didn’t even flinch. The continued rain was washing the night from the sky, bleaching it to a grey dawn that barely penetrated the tree cover.

Althea stood on the foredeck, hands outstretched to the dimness, as the pouring rain drenched her.

It sealed her nightgown to her body. Cursing her and himself for a fool, Brashen dashed across the deck to seize her by the shoulder and shake her.

‘Are you out of your mind? Come inside.’

She lifted a hand to her face, her eyes clenched shut in a grimace. Then she slammed suddenly into him, holding on to him tightly. ‘Where am I?’ she demanded dazedly.

‘Out on deck. Sleepwalking, I think. I woke up and you were gone. Let’s get inside.

’ Rain sluiced down his bare back and plastered his cotton trousers to his body.

It made points of her fine hair and ran in streams down her face.

She clung to him, making no effort to escape the deluge as she shivered.

‘I had a dream,’ she said disorientedly. ‘It was so vivid, for just a flash, and now it is gone. I can’t recall any of it.’

‘Dreams are like that. They come and go. They don’t mean anything.’ He feared that he spoke from experience.

With a roar, the storm renewed its fury. The pelting rain made a hissing sound on the water of the open river that reached them even here.

She didn’t move. She looked up at him, blinking water from her eyes. ‘Brashen, I –’

‘I’m drowning out here,’ he announced impatiently, and swooped her suddenly into his arms. She leaned her head against his shoulder as he carried her.

She made no protest even when he bumped her head in the narrow companionway.

In his stateroom, he kicked the door shut and lowered her to her feet.

He pushed his hair back from his face and felt a fresh trickle of water down his back.

She stood blinking at him. Rain dripped from her chin and eyelashes.

The wet cloth of her nightgown clung to every curve of her body, tempting him.

She looked so bewildered that he wanted to take her in his arms and hold her.

But she would not want that. With difficulty he turned away from her.

‘It’s near morning. I’m getting into some dry clothes,’ he said gruffly.

He heard the wet slap of her nightgown falling to the floor and the small sounds of her rummaging through her clothing chest. He would not turn. He would not torment himself. He had learned to rein himself in.

He had just found a clean shirt in his cupboard when she embraced him from behind.

Her skin was still wet where she pressed against him.

‘I can’t find any clean clothes,’ she said by his ear.

He stood stock-still. Her breath was warm.

‘I’m afraid I’ll have to take yours.’ The kiss on the side of his neck sent a shiver down his back and put the lie to her words as she took the shirt from his hands and tossed it to the floor behind them.

He turned slowly in her arms to face her and looked down into her smile.

Her playfulness astounded him. He had almost forgotten she could be like this.

The boldness of her expressed desire set his heart racing.

Her breasts brushed his chest. He set a hand to her cheek, and saw a shadow of uncertainty cross her face. He instantly took his hand away.

Dismay washed her smile away. Tears suddenly welled in her eyes.

‘Oh, no,’ she pleaded. ‘Please don’t give up on me.

’ Some decision came to her. She seized his hand and set it to her face.

The words broke from her. ‘He raped me, Brashen. Kennit. I’ve been trying to get past it.

All the time that…I just wanted you,’ she said brokenly.

‘Only you. Oh, Brashen.’ Some emotion suddenly stole her words.

She pressed herself against him, hiding her face against his chest. ‘Please tell me it can still be good between us.’

He’d known. On some level, he’d known.

‘You should have told me.’ That sounded like an accusation. ‘I should have guessed,’ he accused himself.

She shook her head. ‘Can we begin again?’ she asked him. ‘And go slowly this time?’

He felt a thousand things. Killing fury for Kennit.

Anger at himself that he had not protected her.

Hurt that she had not told him earlier. How was he to deal with all of it?

Then he knew what she meant. By beginning again.

He took a deep breath. With an effort, he set it all aside.

‘I think we have to,’ he replied gravely.

He resigned himself to patience. He studied her face.

‘Would you like to have this room to yourself for a time? Until you feel differently about…everything? I know we must go slowly.’

She shook tears from her eyes. The smile she gave him seemed more genuine now.

‘Oh, Brashen, not that slowly,’ she disagreed.

‘I meant we should begin again now. With this.’ She lifted her mouth to his.

He kissed her very gently. It shocked him when he felt the darting tip of her tongue.

She took an uneven breath. ‘You should get out of these wet trousers,’ she chided him.

Her rain-chilled fingers fumbled at his waist.

Paragon turned his face up to the sky. Rain ran over his closed eyes and into his mouth.

The chill of winter eased from it as the sun touched the day more surely.

He blinked his eyes open and smiled. As the rain suddenly pattered into cessation, a bird sang questioningly in the distance.

Closer to hand, another answered it. Life was good.

A short time later, he felt Amber set one hand to his railing. Beside it, she rested a hot mug of something. ‘You’re up early,’ he greeted her.

He glanced over his shoulder to find her studying him carefully. She was smiling. ‘I awoke suffused with a singular feeling of well-being.’

‘Did you?’ He smiled smugly, then looked back to the day. ‘I think I know the feeling. Amber, I think my luck is changing.’

‘And everyone else’s with it.’

‘I suppose so.’ He pondered briefly. ‘Do you remember what we discussed last night?’

‘I do.’ She waited.

‘I’ve changed my mind. You’re right to want to go north again.’ He looked around at the wonder of the spring world. ‘It feels good to set people on the right path.’ He smiled at her again. ‘Go north.’