Ship of Destiny (32 page)

His breath was warm against the top of her head as he kissed her hair gently. Suddenly, it all seemed very simple to her. When he bent to kiss her ear and the side of her neck, she turned her mouth to meet his and closed her eyes. Let it happen, then.

She felt him tug her shirt loose from her trousers. The skin of his hands was rough but his touch was gentle as his hands slid up under her shirt. One hand cupped her breast, then teased the tautness of her nipple. She could not move, and then she could. Her hands found his hips and snugged him against her.

He broke the kiss. “Wait,” he cautioned her. He took a breath. “Stop.”

He had come to his senses. She reeled with disappointment as he turned away from her. He walked to the door. With shaking hands, he bolted it. Returning, he caught up her hand. He kissed the palm of it, let it go and then stood silently, looking down on her. For an instant, she closed her eyes. He waited. She decided. She took his hands in both of hers and drew him gently toward his bed.

AMBER WAS SPEAKING GRAVELY AND SLOWLY.
“
I DON
’
T THINK
you fully understood what you did. That is why I can forgive you. But this is the only time. Paragon, you have to learn what it means to a man to die. I don’t think you grasp the finality of what you did.” The storm wind buffeted her but she clung to his railing and waited for a reply. He tried to think of something to say that would make her happy. He didn’t want Amber to be sad at him. Her sadness, when she let him feel it, went deeper than any human’s. It was almost as grievous as his own.

Paragon turned all his senses inward, seeking. Something was happening. Something dangerous, something frightening. He had known this before, and he braced himself for the wrenching agony and shame of it. When humans came together like that, it always meant pain for the weaker one. What had made Brashen so angry with her? Why was she allowing it, why wasn’t she fighting him? Was she so frightened of him she could not resist?

“Paragon. Are you listening to me?”

“No.” He drew a small breath through his open mouth. He didn’t understand this. He had thought he knew what this meant. If Brashen did not mean to punish her, if he was not trying to master her with pain, then why was he doing this? Why was Althea allowing it?

“Paragon?”

“Shh.” He clenched his hands into fists and held them tight to his chest. He would not scream. He would not. Amber was talking at him but he closed off his ears and tuned his other senses. This was not what he had thought it was. He had thought he understood humans and how they hurt one another, but this was different. This was something else. Something he could almost recall. Timidly, he shut the eyes he no longer had. He let his thoughts float, and felt ancient memories soar in him.

ALTHEA HELD BRASHEN CLOSE TO HER AND FELT HIS HEART
thundering in his chest. He gasped for breath beside the side of her neck. His hair was across her face. Her fingers gently walked the long ridge of the scarcely healed sword slash down his ribs. Then she set her hand flat to it, as if she could mend it with a touch. She sighed. He smelled good, like the sea and the ship and himself. When she held him, she held all those things within her. “Almost,” she breathed softly. “Almost, I thought we were flying.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        
SURVIVING

“
MAMA? WE CAN SEE BINGTOWN HARBOR NOW.
”

Keffria lifted her aching head from the pillow. Selden stood in the doorway of the small stateroom they shared on the
Kendry.
She had not truly been asleep. She had simply been curled around her misery, trying to find out how to live with it. She looked at her son. His lips were chapped, his cheeks and brow reddened and chafed by the wind. Ever since his misadventures in the buried city, there had been a distant look behind his eyes, as if he were in some way lost to her, even as he stood before her. Selden was her last living child. That should have made her desperate to cherish him. She should have wanted him by her side every moment. Instead, it numbed her heart to him. Best not to love him too much. Like the others, he could be taken from her at any time.

“Are you coming to see? It looks really strange.” Selden paused. “Some of the people on deck are crying.”

“I’m coming,” she said wearily. Time to face it. All the way here, she had avoided speaking to Selden of what they might find. She swung her feet out of bed. She pushed at her hair then gave it up. A shawl would cover it. She found one, still damp from the last time she had been on deck, flung it about herself and followed him onto the deck.

It was a gray day and the rain was steady. That felt right. She joined the other passengers looking toward Bingtown. No one chattered or pointed: they stood and stared silently. Tears ran down some faces.

Bingtown Harbor was a boneyard. The masts of ruined vessels stuck up from the water.
Kendry
maneuvered carefully around the sunken ships, heading not toward the liveships’ traditional dock but to one that was newly repaired. The clean yellow lumber contrasted oddly with the weathered gray and scorched black of the rest. Men on the dock waited to welcome them. At least, she hoped it was welcome.

Selden leaned against her. Absently, she lifted a hand and set it on his shoulder. Whole sections of the city were black ruins, burnt skeletons of buildings glistening in the falling rain. The boy leaned against her more heavily. “Is Grandma all right?” he asked in a muffled voice.

“I don’t know,” she replied wearily. She was so tired of telling him she didn’t know. She didn’t know if his father was alive. She didn’t know if his brother was alive. She didn’t know what had happened to Malta. The
Kendry
had searched down the Rain Wild River to its mouth and found nothing. At Reyn’s frantic insistence, they had turned back and searched up the river all the way back to Trehaug. They had found no sign of the small boat that Reyn claimed he had seen. Keffria had never spoken it aloud, but she wondered if Reyn had not imagined it. Perhaps he had wanted so badly for Malta to be alive that he had deceived himself. Keffria knew what that was like.

At Trehaug, Jani Khuprus had boarded the
Kendry.
Before they departed the Rain Wild city, they sent a bird to Bingtown, informing the Council that they had not recovered the Satrap, but were continuing the search. It was a foolish hope, but one that neither Keffria nor Reyn could abandon.

On this last trip down the Rain Wild River, Keffria had spent every evening on deck, staring out through the gathering dusk. Time after time, she had been sure she glimpsed a tiny rowboat on the river. Once she had seen Malta standing up in it, one hand lifted in a plea for help, but it had only been a log, torn loose from the bank, a root upraised in despair as it floated past.

Even after the
Kendry
had left the river behind, she had kept her nightly vigils on the deck. She could not trust the ship’s lookout to watch with a mother’s eyes. Last night, through a chilling downpour, she had glimpsed a Chalcedean ship that the
Kendry
had easily outrun. Last night’s Chalcedean vessel had been alone, but during their journey their lookout had sighted others, galleys in groups of two or three, and two great Chalcedean sailing ships. All had either ignored the
Kendry,
or given only token chase. What, the captain had demanded, were the raiders waiting for? Were they converging on the mouth of the Rain Wild River? On Bingtown? Were they part of a fleet that would take over the Cursed Shores? Reyn and Jani had joined the captain in his useless debating, but Keffria saw no use in speculation.

Malta was gone. Keffria did not know if she had died in the sunken city or perished in the river. That she would never know ate at her like a canker. Would she ever find out what had become of Wintrow and Kyle? She tried to hope that they still survived, but could not. Hope was too steep a mountain to climb. She feared she would only fall into an abyss of despair when the hope proved futile. She lived instead in a suspension of all feeling. Now was all there was.

REYN KHUPRUS STOOD BESIDE HIS MOTHER. THE RAIN SOAKED HIS
veil. When the wind stirred it, it slapped lightly against his face. There was Bingtown, fully as damaged as he had expected it to be from the news the messenger-birds had brought to Trehaug. He tried to find an emotion to fit to the sight, but none were left to him.

“It’s worse than I feared,” his mother muttered beside him. “How can I ask aid of the Bingtown Council when their own city is a shambles, and their coast menaced by Chalcedean ships?”

That was supposed to be part of their mission here. Jani Khuprus had often represented the Rain Wild Traders to their kin in Bingtown, but seldom on so grave a mission. After she had formally apologized to the Bingtown Council for the unfortunate loss of Satrap Cosgo and his Companion, she would ask for assistance for the Rain Wild Traders of Trehaug. The destruction of the ancient Elderling city was almost complete. With much careful work, parts of the city might eventually be reopened. In the meantime, the Trader families who had depended on the strange and wonderful objects unearthed in the city for their commerce were left abruptly destitute. Those families made up the backbone of Trehaug. Without the Elderling city to plunder, there was no economic reason for Trehaug to exist. While Trehaug harvested some foods from the Rain Wild forest, they had no fields in which to grow grain or pasture cattle. They had always bartered for food, supplying their needs through Bingtown. The Chalcedean interruption of trade was already felt in Trehaug. With winter coming, the situation would soon be desperate.

Reyn knew his mother’s deepest fear. She believed this latest disaster might destroy the Rain Wild folk. Their population had dwindled in the last two generations. Rain Wild children were often stillborn, or died in the first few months. Even those who lived did not have as long a life span as ordinary folk. Reyn himself did not expect to live much beyond his thirtieth year. It was one reason the Rain Wild Traders often sought their mates among their Bingtown kin. Such matches were more likely to be fecund, and the resulting children stronger. But Bingtown folk, kin or no, had become less willing in the last two generations to come to the Rain Wilds. Gifts for the family of a prospective spouse had risen in size, value and number. Witness his own family’s willingness to forgive the debt on a liveship simply to assure Reyn a bride. With Malta lost, Jani knew Reyn would never wed nor produce children for the Khuprus family. The bride-gifts would have been in vain. With the beggaring of Trehaug, other Rain Wild families would be sore pressed to feed the children they had, let alone negotiate for mates for them. The Rain Wild folk might disappear altogether.

So Jani would come to Bingtown, to explain the loss of the Satrap and beg for aid. The combination of the two errands was a deep affront to her pride. Reyn felt sorry for his mother, but distanced by his own grief. The loss of the Satrap could trigger a war that might mean the complete destruction of Bingtown. The ancient Elderling city he loved was destroyed. But these tragedies were now merely the backdrop to his agony at losing Malta.

He had caused her death. By bringing her to his city, he had put her on the path to her death. The only creature he blamed more was Tintaglia, the dragon. He despised himself for the way he had romanticized the dragon. He had believed her capable of nobility and wisdom, had lionized her as the last of her glorious kind. In reality, she was an ungrateful, selfish and egotistical beast. Surely, she could have saved Malta if she had only put her mind to the task.

For his mother’s sake, he tried to say something positive. “It looks as if some of the folk have begun rebuilding,” he pointed out.

“Yes. Barricades,” she observed as the ship approached the dock. She was right. With a sinking heart, Reyn noted that the men on the dock were well-armed. They were Traders, for he recognized several among them, and the captain of the
Kendry
was already roaring a greeting to them.

Someone cleared her throat. He started and turned to find a shawled Keffria Vestrit at his shoulder. Her eyes moved from his mother to him. “I don’t know what I will find at home,” she said quietly. “But the hospitality of the Vestrit home is open to you.” She smiled wryly. “Providing that it still stands at all.”

“We could not impose,” Jani assured her gently. “Do not be troubled for us. Somewhere in Bingtown, an inn must still stand.”

“It would scarcely be an imposition,” Keffria insisted. “I am sure Selden and I would welcome the company.”

Reyn suddenly understood that there might be more to this invitation than a simple return of hospitality. He voiced it. “It might not be safe for you to return to your home alone. Please. Let my mother and me arrange our business, and then we will accompany you there, to see you resettled.”

“Actually, I would be most grateful for that,” Keffria admitted humbly.

After a moment of silence, Reyn’s mother sighed. “My mind has been busy with my own troubles. I had not stopped to think of all this homecoming might mean to you. Sorrow I knew there must be, but I had not considered danger. I have been thoughtless.”

“You have your own burdens,” Keffria told her.

“Nevertheless,” Jani said solemnly. “Honesty must replace all polite words for a time. And not just between you and me. All Traders must be frank if any of us are to survive this. Ah, Sa, look at the Great Market. Half of it is gone!”

As the crew worked the ship into the dock, Reyn’s eyes roved over the men gathering to meet the ship, and spotted Grag Tenira. He had not seen him since the night of the Summer Ball. The strength of the mixed feelings that surged up in him took him by surprise. Grag was a friend, yet now Reyn connected him with Malta’s death. Would her death edge every day of his life with pain? It seemed it must be so.

The ship was secured to the dock and a gangplank run up to it. The moment there was any access to the ship, the crowd surged forward and folk began to cry out questions to the captain and the crew. Reyn pushed his way through the oncoming folk. His mother, Keffria and Selden followed in his wake. The second his foot touched the wharf, Grag stepped in front of him. “Reyn?” he asked in a low voice.

“Yes,” he confirmed for him. He extended a gloved hand to Grag and Grag took it, but used it to pull Reyn closer.

Head close to Reyn’s, Grag asked anxiously, “Has the Satrap been found?”

Reyn managed to shake his head. Grag frowned, and spoke hastily. “Come with me. All of you. I’ve a wagon waiting. I’ve had a boy watching for the
Kendry
from the headland for the past three days. Quickly, now. There have been some wild rumors in Bingtown of late. This is not a good place for any of you.” From beneath his own cloak, Grag produced a ragged workman’s cloak. “Cover your Rain Wild garb.”

For an instant, Reyn was shocked into silence. Then he shook out the cloak and flung it over his mother’s before handing her off to Grag. He seized Keffria’s arm without ceremony. “Come along quickly and quietly,” he whispered to her. He saw Keffria grip Selden’s hand more tightly. The boy sensed that all was not right. His eyes widened, and then he hurried along with them. All their bags were left behind on the ship. It could not be helped.

Grag’s wagon was an open cart more suited to hauling freight than passengers. There was a definite smell of fish to it. Two well-muscled young men lounged in the back. They wore the smocks of Three Ships fishermen. Reyn helped the women in as Grag jumped to the seat and took up the reins. “There’s some sailcloth back there. If you spread it over you, it will keep some of the rain off.”

“And hide us as well,” Jani observed sourly, but she helped Reyn to unfold the canvas and stretch it out. They huddled together under it. Their escorts sat on the tail of the wagon, feet swinging as Grag stirred the ancient horse.

“Why is the harbor so empty?” Reyn asked one of the fishermen. “Where are the ships of Bingtown?”

“On the bottom, or off chasing Chalcedeans. They made a poke at us yesterday. Two ships approached the harbor with three others hanging offshore. Ophelia took out after them, and our other ships followed. Sa, how they ran! But I don’t doubt our ships caught up to them. We’re still waiting for our ships to return.”

That didn’t seem right to Reyn, but he couldn’t put his finger on why it disturbed him. As the horse pulled the cart through Bingtown, he saw the city in glimpses from beneath the flapping canvas. Some commerce was taking place, but the city had an uneasy air. Folk hurried by on their errands or suspiciously watched the cart pass. The wind brought the clinging stink of low tide and burned houses. It seemed to Reyn that they took a roundabout route to the Tenira estate. At the gate, armed men waved Grag in and closed the gates behind the cart. As Grag pulled the horse to a halt, the door opened wide. Naria Tenira and two of Grag’s sisters were among those who spilled out. Their faces were anxious.