CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

                                        
COURTSHIP

I WANT TO BE LET OUT OF HERE.

Kennit shut the door behind him and set down the tray. With elaborate calm, he turned back to Althea. “Is there something you need that you don’t have here?” he asked with studied politeness.

“Fresh air and free movement,” she replied immediately. She was sitting on the edge of her bunk. As she stood, she had to catch her balance against the gentle roll of the ship. She kept one hand on the bulkhead to steady herself.

He knit his brow. “You feel ill treated? Is that it?”

“Not exactly. I feel I am a prisoner, and—”

“Oh, never that. You are my most honored guest. That you would think otherwise wounds me. Come. Be honest with me. Is there something about me that offends you? Is my appearance frightening? If so, I assure you it is without my intent.”

“No, no.” He watched her struggle to formulate an answer. “You are a gentleman, and not at all frightening. You have shown me only courtesy and graciousness. But the door was locked when I tried it and—”

“Come. Sit down and eat something, and let us discuss it.” He smiled at her and managed to keep his eyes from roving over her. She was dressed in Wintrow’s clothing, and with her hair tied back, the resemblance between the two was even more marked. She had his dark eyes and his cheekbones, but her face had never been marred with a tattoo. She had probably put on Wintrow’s clothes believing them less provocative than his nightshirt. Exactly the opposite was true. The rise of her breasts inside Wintrow’s shirt stirred Kennit’s blood to pounding. Her cheeks were tinged pink with her earnestness, yet an unnatural glitter in her eyes showed that she had not completely cast off the soporific he had been giving her. He uncovered her food and set it out for her, just as the ship’s boy Kennit had once waited on the pirate Igrot. Strange parallels abounded, he thought to himself. He pushed down the thought and forced himself to keep his voice conversational.

“I’ve explained my concerns to you. My crewmen are not the genteel society you were reared in, I fear. To allow you the freedom of the ship would be to invite an affront, or even an attack of some kind. Many of my crew are former slaves; some were slaves here on this ship. They spent time in her holds, shackled, cold and filthy. Your family put them there. They do not bear Kyle Haven’s kin much fondness. You say you were not responsible for his treatment of them, nor for his treatment of your family ship. But I fear it is difficult to make the crew accept that. Or the ship herself.

“I know that Vivacia is truly what draws you.” He smiled indulgently. “If you were free to leave this chamber, you would rush straight to the figurehead. For I know you can’t believe me when I tell you that Vivacia is gone.” From the corner of his eye, he watched her fold her lips and set her jaw, just as Wintrow did when he was crossed. It almost made him smile, but he kept his demeanor. He shook his head at her gravely. “But she is, and Bolt would not be kind to you. Would she go so far as to threaten you with physical violence? In all honesty, I do not know. And I would prefer not to find out by experiment.”

He met her flinty stare with his warmest smile. Such black eyes she had. “Come. Eat something. You’ll feel more rational.”

A shadow of uncertainty passed over her face. He recalled that feeling. Igrot, the epitome of coarseness, would, after days of harshness and cruelty, suddenly pendulum back to contrived gentility. For a week, Igrot would speak to him with gentleness, instruct him in etiquette, and bestow on him looks of fatherly tenderness. He would praise him for hard work well done, and predict a bright future for him. And then, without warning, there would come the sudden, harsh grip on his wrist, jerking him close, and the roughness of the man’s whiskered cheek sanding Kennit’s face as he struggled in his embrace.

He felt suddenly vulnerable. Had he put himself in danger with the woman? He tried to find his open smile again, but could only gaze at her measuringly. She returned the look.

“I don’t want to eat anything,” she said flatly. “You’ve put something in my food that makes me sleep. I don’t like it. I don’t like the vivid dreams, nor the way I feel when I try to wake up and I can’t.”

He managed to look shocked. “Lady, I fear you were much more wearied than you knew. I think you have been sleeping off not just the effects of near drowning in icy water, but months of doubt and fear. It is natural that now you are aboard your family ship, your body relaxes and lets you rest. But . . . wait. Let me reassure you.”

He carefully seated himself on her chair. With fastidious precision, he ate one bite of everything on her plate, and mimed a sip of the wine to wash it down. He patted his lips thoughtfully with her napkin, then turned to smile at her. “There. Satisfied? No poison.” He cocked his head at her and lifted one eyebrow. “But why do you suppose I would want to poison you? What sort of a monster do you think I am? Do you fear and hate me so much?”

“No. No, that is . . . I know you have been kind to me. But . . .” She drew in a breath, and he could see that she regretted her foolish accusation. “I didn’t say poison. I just know that I sleep too deeply, and awake still groggy. My head is always heavy; I never feel alert.” Her head swayed a tiny pattern of unsteadiness although her feet remained planted in one spot.

He knit his brows in grave concern. “Did you strike your head when you fell overboard? Is there a tender spot?”

“No, that is, I don’t think so. . . .” She set her hands to her head and pressed gravely.

“Allow me,” he insisted, and pushing the chair back, gestured that she should take his place. She moved stiffly and sat very straight as he set his hands to her head. He stood in front of her so she could see his face as his fingertips gently explored her head. With feigned casualness, he loosed her hair, and searched her skull. He frowned to himself. “Sometimes a blow to the back of the neck or on the spine . . .” he muttered thoughtfully.

Then he stepped behind her and pushed aside the sleek black flow of her hair. He leaned close to her and traced the line of her spine down her neck to her collar. She sat submissive before him, her head bowed, yet he could feel the thrumming of tension in her muscles. Fear? Apprehension? Perhaps, anticipation? Her hair held a trace of some fragrance, but the shirt smelled of Wintrow. The combination was intoxicating. He let his fingers slowly trail down her spine. “Any pain?” he asked concernedly. He halted his fingers at the waistband of her trousers but did not remove his hand.

“A little,” she admitted, making him smile at his good fortune. “In the middle of my back.”

“Here?” He walked his fingers gently up her spine until she nodded. “Well, then. That might be your problem. Have you been dizzy at all? Fuzzy vision?”

“A bit,” she conceded reluctantly. She lifted her head. “But I still think that there is more to my sleepiness.”

“I think not,” he contradicted her gently. His hand still rested on her back. “Unless . . .” he paused until he was certain she hung on his words. “I am so sorry to suggest this. I am sure you know what I speak of when I mention a bond with the liveship. She senses my moods, and shares her own with me. Perchance, if the ship is angry with you, or hostile toward you, if she wishes you ill—there, I am sorry I even suggested such a thing.”

He had intentionally reinforced her apprehension, but her face had paled beyond his expectations. He would have to be more careful; he did not want to take all the fight out of her. A little struggle might add piquancy to the conquest. He smiled reassuringly. “Eat something. Regain your strength.”

“Perhaps you are right,” she conceded huskily. He gestured at the food and she turned back to the table. As she took a bite of food from the spoon that had recently been in his own mouth, he felt a sharp jab of lust such as he had never experienced before. The intensity amazed him and it was all he could do to keep from gasping.

 

THE FOOD WAS EXCELLENT, BUT THE PIRATE WATCHED HER EAT SO intently that she could not relax. Neither, however, could she wake up all the way. She sipped at the wine, and almost immediately, her vision doubled. It went away when she blinked, but she was suddenly too tired to eat any more. She set her spoon down. It was so difficult to hold her thoughts still. A word from Kennit could send them drifting away. But there was something important, something she was missing—

“Please,” he said solicitously. “Try to finish your meal. I know you are feeling unwell, but food is what you need to recover.”

She managed a polite smile. “I cannot.” She cleared her throat and tried to focus her thoughts. His words kept carrying her ideas away. When he had first come in, there was something very important she had wanted to ask him . . . as important as wanting to get out of the room and speak with her ship. Brashen! Pulling him back into her mind seemed to steady her thoughts. “Brashen,” she said aloud, and felt she gained strength from just saying his name. “Captain Trell. Why has he not called on me, or taken me back on board the Paragon?”

“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 snugged 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 whom? 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, blackness reached up to drag her down, but she plunged into it willingly, diving down, hoping it was death come to take her.

 

KENNIT TURNED BACK AND CAREFULLY LOCKED THE DOOR behind him. His hands trembled. His breath was still quick and he could not seem to calm it. It had been so intense. He had never imagined that any pleasure could be that fierce. He dared not dwell on it, or he would have to go back into the room again.

He tried to think where he would go. He could not go back to his own chamber. The whore would be there, and possibly Wintrow as well. They might see something about him and wonder. He needed to be alone. He wanted to contemplate what he had done, yes, to savor it. And to make sense of it. He could not quite believe he had given in to himself like that. He could not go to the foredeck. Not yet. Bolt would be there, and she might know what he had done. Linked as she was to him and to Althea, she might have shared it.

That thought put a whole new layer onto the experience. Had she shared it? Had she wanted him to do it? Was that why he had been unable to stop? Was that why it had been so powerful?

He found his foot and crutch had carried him aft. The man on the wheel looked up at him curiously, then went on with his task. It was a fine, clear winter night. The skies were littered with stars. The ship rose to meet each wave and plunged on smoothly. Their escort of serpents flanked them, an undulating carpet of movement and color in the starlight. He leaned on the railing and looked out over the ship’s widening wake.

“You’ve crossed the line,” a tiny voice at his wrist observed coldly. “What made you do it, Kennit? Was that the only way to banish the memories finally, by giving them to someone else?”

The whispered questions hung in the night and for a time, Kennit didn’t answer them. He didn’t know the answers. He only knew it had brought him release, even more than sending Paragon and the memories to the bottom. He was free. Then: “I did it because I could do it,” he said coldly. “I can do what I want to do now.”

“Is that because you’re the King of the Pirates? Igrot used to call himself that sometimes, didn’t he? While he did what he wanted to do?”

A rough hand clapped over his mouth. Pain. Humiliation. Kennit pushed the memory aside angrily. It should not exist. Paragon was supposed to have taken it with him. “It’s different,” he said, hearing the defensiveness in his own voice. “I didn’t do anything like that. She likes me. She’s a woman.”

“And that makes it permissible?”

“Of course it does. It’s natural. It’s completely different from what happened to me!”

“Sir?” the man on the wheel queried.

Kennit turned to him in irritation. “What is it?”

“Beg pardon, sir. I thought you spoke to me, sir.” The whites of the man’s eyes caught starlight. He looked frightened.

“Well, I didn’t. Attend to your task and leave me in peace.” How much had the dolt overheard? It didn’t matter. If he became a problem, Kennit could make him disappear. Send him to the side on some premise. A blow to the head, a tip over the railing and no one would ever be the wiser. Kennit had no one to fear and would fear no one. Tonight, the last of his demons had been banished.

The charm on his wrist was silent, and the lengthening silence became more accusing than words.

Kennit finally whispered, “She’s a woman. That happens to women all the time. They’re accustomed to it.”

“You raped her.”

He laughed aloud. “Scarcely. She likes me. She said I was courteous and a gentleman.” He took a breath. “She only resisted because she’s not a whore.”

“Why did you really do it, Kennit?”

The question was relentless. Did the charm know that the same query rattled endlessly in his own mind? He had thought he was going to stop. He had stopped, until she began crying in the dark. If she had not done that, he would have been able to leave. So it was as much her fault as his. Perhaps. Kennit fumbled toward an answer. He spoke very softly. “Perhaps so I could finally understand why he did it to me. How he could do that to me, how he could pendulum between kindness and cruelty, between lessons in etiquette and seizures of rage—” Kennit’s voice fell away.

“You poor, pathetic bastard,” the charm ground out the slow accusing words. “You’ve become Igrot. Do you know that? To defeat the monster, you became the monster.” The tiny voice became even fainter. “You have only yourself to fear now.”

 

ETTA FLUNG DOWN HER EMBROIDERY. WINTROW LOOKED UP from his book, then, with a private sigh, set it upon the table and waited.

“I’m in love with him. But that doesn’t mean I’m stupid about him.” Her dark eyes stabbed Wintrow. “He’s with her again, isn’t he?”

“He took her a tray of food,” Wintrow suggested. Over the last four days since they had returned to Vivacia, Etta’s temper had become ever more uncertain. He supposed it might be her pregnancy, but during his mother’s times with child, she had become as content as a fat purring cat. As far as he could remember. This, he supposed, was not much. Maybe it was not her pregnancy. Maybe it was Kennit’s odd, distracted behavior. Maybe it was plain jealousy over the amount of time Kennit was devoting to Althea. He regarded Etta warily, wondering if she were going to throw anything else.

“I suggested she might dine with us. He said she still felt weak. But when I offered to take her tray to her, he said he feared she would do me harm. Does that make sense to you?”

“It seems a contradiction,” Wintrow admitted warily. Conversations like this were dangerous. While she could criticize and even accuse Kennit, any word of disparagement from him was usually met with a tirade of abuse.

“Have you spoken to her?” Etta demanded.

“No. I have not.” He would not admit he had tried. The door had been locked, from the outside. There had been no such lock on his door before. Kennit must have had it put there as soon as he cached Althea. There had been no response to his quiet call.

She stared at him quietly, but he would volunteer no information. He hated to see her like this, so agitated and yet so hurt. Against his better judgment, he asked, “Have you told Kennit yet?”

She stared at him as if he had said something obscene. She folded her arms, almost protectively, over her belly. “The time has not been right,” she said stiffly.

Did that mean Kennit was no longer sharing her bed? If so, where was he sleeping? Wintrow himself was making shift wherever he could. Kennit was not at all concerned that he had given Wintrow’s space to Althea. Wintrow had had to ask him twice before he remembered to bring him any of his clothing. The captain was not himself lately. Even the crew noticed, though no one was brave enough to gossip about it yet.

“And that Jek woman?” Etta asked acidly.

He debated lying, but she probably already knew he’d been down there. “She won’t talk to me.”

Kennit had ordered Jek to be held in one of the chain lockers. Wintrow had managed one visit with her. She had met him with a peppering of questions about Althea. When he could not answer any of them, she had spat at him and then refused to respond to any of his queries. She was shackled, but not cruelly. She could sit, stand and move about. Wintrow did not really blame Kennit for that. She was a large and powerful woman. She had a blanket and regular food, and her serpent burns seemed to be healing. Her lot, he reflected, was not much worse than his had been when he was first brought aboard the ship. It was even the same chain locker. It frustrated him that she would not speak to him. He wanted her telling of what had befallen the Paragon; what he had heard from the crew did not quite match what Kennit had told him. The ship would not speak of it to him at all. Bolt only mocked him when he tried to talk to her.

“I tried to talk to the figurehead about her,” he ventured. Etta looked disapproving, but also curious. “Bolt was even less courteous to me than she usually is. She bluntly says she wants Althea off her decks. She speaks wildly of her, with curses and threats, as if she were . . .” He stopped his thoughts and shook his head, hoping Etta would not demand that he continue. The ship spoke of Althea as if she were a hated rival. Not for Wintrow’s attentions, of course. She no longer had any interest in Wintrow.

He sighed.

“You’re mooning about the ship again,” Etta accused him.

“I am,” he admitted easily. “I miss her. Talking to Bolt is more a task than a pleasure. And you have preoccupations of your own these days. I am often lonely.”

“My own preoccupations? You are the one who stopped talking to me.”

He had thought her anger was reserved for Kennit. Now he had found his share of it. “I did not mean to,” he offered cautiously. “I didn’t want to intrude. I thought you would be, uh . . .” He halted. Everything he had assumed about her suddenly seemed silly.

“You thought I would be so busy being pregnant I couldn’t think or talk anymore,” Etta finished for him. She stuck out her belly and patted it with a fatuous, simpering smile. Then she scowled at him.

“Something like that,” Wintrow admitted. He rubbed his chin ruefully and braced himself for her fury.

She laughed aloud instead. “Oh, Wintrow, you are such a lad,” she exclaimed. She said the words with such fondness that he looked up in surprise. “Yes, you,” she went on at his glance. “You’ve been fair green with jealousy since I told you, almost as if I were your mother about to forsake you for a new baby.” She shook her head. He suddenly wondered if his jealousy pleased her. “Sometimes, between you and Kennit, you span the foolishness of all men. Him, with his stiffness and coldness and manly reluctance to admit any need, and you with your great puppy eyes begging for any moment of attention I can spare you. I didn’t realize how flattered I was by it until you stopped.” She canted her head at him. “Talk to me as you used to. I haven’t changed, really. There is a child growing inside me. It’s not a disease or madness. Why does it trouble you so?”

He let the words come almost before he knew what he was going to say. “Kennit is going to have everything: the ship, you, a son. And I will have nothing. You will all be together, and I will always be on the outside.”

She looked stunned. “And you want those things? The ship. A son. Me?”

Something in her voice set his heart hammering. Did she want him to desire her? Was there in her the slightest warmth for him? He would speak and be damned. If he had to lose everything, then at least let it be said. Even if she banned him from her presence, she would know. “Yes. I want those things. The ship because she was mine. And you and a son because . . .” His courage failed him. “Because I do,” he finished lamely and looked at her. Probably with puppy eyes, he cursed himself.

“Oh, Wintrow.” She shook her head and looked away from him. “You are so very young.”

“I’m closer to your age than he is!” he replied, stung.

“Not in the ways that matter,” she answered inexorably.

“I’m only young because Kennit insists that I am,” he retorted. “And you persist in believing it as well. I’m not a child, Etta, nor a sheltered acolyte. Not anymore. A year on this ship would make any boy a man. Yet how am I supposed to be a man if no one allows me to be one?”

“Manhood is not something that someone allows you,” Etta lectured him. “Manhood is something a man takes for himself. Then it is recognized by others.” She leaned down to pick up her sewing.

Wintrow stood up. His desperation was but one breath away from anger. Why did she dismiss him with platitudes? “Manhood is to be taken. I see.” As she straightened in her chair, he put two fingers under her chin and turned her startled face up to his. He would not think. He was tired of thinking. He leaned down and kissed her, desperately hoping that he was doing it well. Then, as he felt her mouth under his, he forgot everything but this daring sensation.

She pulled away from him, her hand flying to cover her mouth. She took a quick breath. Her eyes were very wide. An instant later, sparks of anger kindled in them. “Is this how you would begin asserting you are a man? By betraying Kennit, a man who has befriended you?”

“That was not about betrayal, Etta. That had nothing to do with Kennit. That was all about what I wished was between us, but is not.” He took a breath. “I should go.”

“Yes,” she replied in a shaky voice. “You should.”

He stopped at the door. “If it were my son you were carrying,” he said huskily, “I would have been the first to know of it. You would not have had to share such confidences with another man. You would have been sure of my joy and acceptance. I would have—”

“Go!” she commanded him harshly, and he went.

 

ALTHEA. A FAINT ECHO FROM A BELOVED PAST. YOUVE COME to me.

“No.” She knew her lips moved to form the word but she did not hear her own voice speak. She did not want to awaken. There was nothing good left in wakefulness. She willed herself deeper, past sleep, past unconsciousness, reaching for a place where she was no longer connected to her dirtied body. She reached for a dream in which Brashen was alive and they were in love and free. She reached back in time to the best of times, when she had loved him and not even known it, when they had both worked the deck of a beautiful ship and her father had watched over her with approval. And back again, even further back, to a little girl monkeying barefoot up the rigging, or sprawling on the sun-drenched foredeck to nap and dream with a dreaming figurehead.

Althea! The voice rang with joy. You have found me. I never should have doubted you.

Vivacia? Her presence was all around Althea, stronger than a scent, more pervasive than warmth, her reality sweeter than any memory. The being of her ship embraced her. Homecoming and farewell mingled; now, she could die in peace. Althea willed herself to let go but instead Vivacia enveloped her with love and need. Althea could not bear such tenderness. It beckoned her like a light and threatened her resolve. She turned away from it. Let me go, my dear. I want to die.

And I with you. For I am made of death, a travesty, an abomination, and I am so weary of being held down here in the dark. Have not you come to free me, come so deep to take me to death?

Vivacia’s wonder and welcome horrified Althea. To flee her own life was one thing; to end simultaneously the life of her ship was quite another. Decisions so clear a moment ago wavered. She pushed feebly at the ship, trying to disentangle her awareness from Vivacia’s. Coldness crept through her from her abused body, but the more she retreated from life, the deeper she went into her ship.

I am pressed so far down, it is almost like death, the ship confirmed. Did I know how to let go, I would. She has taken all from me, Althea. No sea, no sky, no wind on my face. If I reach for Wintrow, she threatens to kill him. Kennit cannot hear me at all. She keeps all awareness from me, and mocks me that I long for my humans. I try to die, but I do not know how. Save me. Take me with you when you die.

No. Althea forbade it firmly. This, I must do alone. You must go on. She turned from her ship, but not without pain. She let go.

So this is how it is done. The heart slows, the breath comes shallower and shallower. A poison creeps through your flesh; it will bear you away. But I have no such reprieve from her. I have no true heart of my own, nor will a lack of breath still me. She keeps me here, for she needs what I know. I cannot elude her. Don’t leave me here, alone in the dark. Take me with you.

Althea felt her ship tendril through her and cling to her. It reminded her of a child clinging to its mother’s skirts. She endeavored to set the link aside. Vivacia resisted but Althea was firm. The effort of moving away from the ship stirred the embers of her life. Somewhere, her body coughed. A bitter taste rose in her throat. She gasped air past it, and felt her heart labor more doggedly. No. That was not what she wanted. She wanted to let go, not to struggle. Vivacia was making this so hard. Just let me die. Let me die and become part of you, with my father and those who went before him. Let me continue only in you. There is no joy left in life for me.

No. You do not want to join me. What I am now is not worth sharing. If you are going to leave life, you must leave it completely, not be trapped here in the dark with me. Please. Let us go together.

Cold closed around her. The ship’s resolve was stone: she desired death. Althea was horrified. Despite herself, she clutched at her own life and awareness. Air sighed in and out of her lungs. She could not let Vivacia follow her into death. She must be dissuaded. Ship, my beautiful Vivacia, why?

Why? You know why. Because life is ruined for me. There can be no good in any tomorrow.

In a wave, the ship’s torment washed over her. The knowledge of her origin and the torment of her doubts plucked at Althea and near tore her loose from her body. Stubbornly she clung to her life now. She would not let her ship end this way. Vivacia clutched at Althea’s will and tried to drag them both under. I am made of death! she wailed in Althea’s soul.

No! No, you are not! Althea asserted it fiercely. She fought the ship’s plunge to nothingness, even though to do so thwarted her own desire for oblivion. You are made of life and beauty, and the dreams of my family for a hundred years. You are made of wind, water and wide blue days. My beauty, my pride, you must not die. If all else fails, if darkness devours all I was, you, at least, must go on. She opened both heart and mind to her ship, and flooded her with memories: her father’s deep booming laugh, and the proud moment when she had first taken the wheel into her own hands. A sun-swept vista from the crow’s nest, the horrific poetry of looking up at waves in a storm. You cannot end with me, Althea insisted fiercely. For if you do, all this dies with you. All this beauty, all this life. How can you claim to be made of death? It was not his death my father poured into you, but the summation of his life. How can you be made of death, when it was inheriting his life that quickened you?

Stillness beyond silence encompassed them both. Somewhere, Althea was aware, her body failed. Cold and dark clutched at her thoughts, but she clung to awareness, waiting for her ship to surrender and promise to go on.

And you? Vivacia asked her suddenly.

I die, my dear. It is too late for me. My body is poisoned, and so is my spirit. Nothing good is left to me.

Not even me?

Oh, my heart, you are always good in my life. Althea found a truth she had not suspected. If by living I could restore you, I would. But I fear it is too late to change my mind. When Althea reached toward her own flesh, she found only lethargy and cold.

Then you condemn me to this darkness. For without you, I have neither the strength nor the will to fight my way past her and take back my life. Will you leave me here, forever alone in the dark?

All thoughts were stilled for a time.

You have the courage to follow me into death, ship?

I do.

The profound wrongness of that gripped Althea. It was not courage to surrender to that oblivion, conceding the world to those who had wronged them. Sudden shame swept her at her cowardly flight from life. Death could make things stop, but it could not make things right. She abruptly despised herself for surrendering to death while the one who had destroyed her life went on living, for embracing death if it meant leaving her ship in darkness.

Then pick up your true courage, ship, and follow me back into life. She reached for her body, but was suddenly reminded of her time under water. How she had struggled then, trying to claw her way up through icy water. This was worse. The tides of death offered no purchase for her desperate effort. Her own body denied her presence.

Breath was stopped. Her erratic heartbeat felt like an interruption. In the timeless dark, she reached for consciousness, but could not find it. Her sense of her body became ever more tentative as her self came uncentered, and her will to live frayed. Her awareness spread wide and began to vanish in the same limitless dark that trapped Vivacia. Althea searched for more strength to draw on but found nothing within herself. Vivacia, she pleaded. Ship, help me!

Silence. Then, Take all I have left. I hope it will be enough.

Ship, no, wait!

Althea! Hit the deck now! Her father’s familiar command boomed through her mind. In reflexive response, her body jerked, and she was falling. The wooden deck slammed against her, plank against flesh. Eyes and mouth jolted open with the impact. Tiny lights. Stars caught in a circle of porthole. She lay on her back, gasping like a fish. She rolled onto her side and vomited. The stuff was bitter and choking, clotting in her mouth and spewing from her nose. Reflex took over. She sneezed and then gasped.

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Wood to flesh, a distant voice counted the rhythm for her, Vivacia steadied the beating of her heart. The ship was joined to her, but the connection was tenuous and fading fast. Even so, it was not just Althea’s body she labored to heal, but her heart. Oh, my dear, my dear. I never thought he would do something like this to you. I misjudged him. I misjudged you. I even misjudged myself. The thought died away.

Althea blinked. She felt terrible. Bile had scoured her throat and the inside of her mouth. There was a deep ache inside her. She sneezed again. Her body went on working. She voluntarily took a deep breath, then pressed her palms flat to the deck. Pain. It was so wonderful to feel pain again, to feel anything again.

“So, Vivacia,” she croaked. “We’re going to live?”

There was no reply, and only wood beneath her palms.