‘Jerd is a nasty bitch,’ Thymara filled in when Alise paused to find tactful words.

  ‘Exactly,’ Alise agreed and laughed guiltily. ‘At least right now. Before she was pregnant, she was too interested in the boys to speak to me. And now her life is focused on her belly. Poor thing. What a situation to be in.’

  ‘Perhaps she should have thought of that before she got into it,’ Thymara suggested.

  ‘I’m sure she should have. But now, well, she is where she is, and it’s up to all of us to be kind to her.’

  ‘Why?’ Thymara paused in her speech as she climbed over a fallen log and then waited for Alise to join her on the other side. ‘Do you think she’d be kind to you or me if the situation was reversed?’

  Alise thought about it. ‘Probably not. But that doesn’t excuse us from doing what is right.’ Even to herself, her words sounded a bit self-righteous. She peered at Thymara to see how she would react. But the Rain Wild girl had her head cocked back, looking up the trees.

  ‘Do you smell something?’

  Alise hadn’t, but now she deliberately tested the air. ‘Maybe,’ she said cautiously. ‘Sort of sweet, almost rotten?’

  Thymara nodded. ‘Do you mind if I leave you here and go up the tree? I think there might be fruit vines up there.’

  Alise looked at the tree trunk and realized for the first time that Thymara had probably been keeping to the ground for her sake. ‘No, of course not, go ahead. I’ll be fine down here.’

  ‘I’ll be back soon,’ Thymara promised. She chose a nearby tree trunk and went up it, digging her claws into the bark as she climbed. Alise stood on the ground and watched her go where she had no hope of following. She smiled but her heart sank quietly inside her.

  ‘What was I thinking?’ she asked herself with a sigh as Thymara vanished up the tree. ‘That a girl like that could offer me friendship or an insight into my problems? Even if we were of an age, we’re too different.’ She wandered a few steps away from the tree, trying to see Thymara’s world. It was hopeless. I see deer and she sees meat. I’m here on the ground and she’s up in the trees. I pity Jerd and she thinks we should hold her responsible. She looked around herself. The forest here was different, more inviting somehow. It took her a short time to realize that it was a difference in smell. The acridity that she had become used to as they travelled was less here. When she looked up at the treetops, it seemed to her there were more birds, and more wildlife in general. A gentler place, she thought to herself.

  Thymara had said she’d be right back. Did that mean she was supposed to wait for her? She’d followed the Rain Wild girl thinking that perhaps a few hours with Thymara would help her put her own life in perspective. And here she was, standing and waiting for her.

  She shook her head as she realized that perhaps that was the perspective. That Thymara did things while Alise stood and waited for things to happen. Wasn’t that what she’d been doing over the last few days? Agonizing over Leftrin and what Sedric had told her. Agonizing over what Hest had done to her. Thinking and stewing and pondering, but doing nothing except wait for something to happen, wait for things to resolve themselves. Well, what was there she could do, what action could she take to spur events along? One option came immediately to mind, and she shook her head at herself. It still surprised her to be so interested in that! And running back to Leftrin’s bed would not be a true resolution to anything.

  As if it were a meaningful decision, she resumed her walk along the riverbank. She wouldn’t wait for the girl. When Thymara came down, she’d either follow the river or go back to the boat. She knew where she was. If it started to get dark before she saw Thymara again, she’d simply follow the river back to the boat. She couldn’t get lost.

  At least, not any more lost than she was right now. She had no home now.

  Ever since Sedric had revealed his secret, she’d felt cut off from her Bingtown past. She couldn’t go back. Simply could not. Regardless of what happened with this expedition, she would not go home to Bingtown and Hest. She would never face him and their friends, never smile stupidly and look around a table of guests and wonder how many knew the secret of her empty marriage. She’d never confront Hest and watch his sneering smile widen as he enjoyed how he’d deceived her and trapped her. Well, she was trapped no longer. A marriage in Bingtown was, after all, like any other Trader contract. She could easily prove that Hest hadn’t lived up to his end of the bargain. He had never been sexually faithful to her, never intended that she and she alone be his life partner. He’d broken his word and with it broken the marriage contract and freed her from her word. She did not have to remain faithful to him. She was free to turn to Leftrin.

  But then Sedric had shared that other rumour with her. The one that had left her wondering if she should ever trust her own judgment again. He had been so certain, but all his information seemed to have come from the vanished hunter Jess. She had felt paralyzed since then, unable to move in any direction. She wanted Leftrin as she had never wanted anything or anyone else in her life. But the thought that he might not be what she had believed him to be, the idea that perhaps the real man differed from her imaginary lover, had frozen her. She had seen the puzzlement and the patience in his eyes. He had not rebuked her and had not pressured her. It was clear to her that he did not think that their one night together gave him a claim upon her. That should mean something, shouldn’t it?

  Or did it merely indicate that she was not as important to him as he was to her? Was she merely a pleasure he would enjoy when it was offered to him, something that he could easily forgo when it was not? A cruel part of her mind replayed that night. She had been forward, aggressive even. Had all that had transpired happened only because she had made it happen? Silly to think that was so. Foolish to think it was not.

  ‘Damn you, Sedric. You took everything else from me, my dignity, and my faith in my judgment, my belief that no one else in Bingtown knew what a sham my marriage was. Did you have to take this from me, too? Did you have to take my belief in Leftrin?’

  Once taken, could anything restore her confidence in him? Or was it all spoiled for her, her doubt the crack in the cup that held happiness?

  A streamlet crossed her path. She hopped over it and went on. Slowly it dawned on her that she was following a game trail. She ducked under an overhanging branch, and realized the path she was following was beaten earth. Not mud. Earth. The land here was firmer. The forest was still too thick to allow a creature as large as a dragon to move freely or to hunt. But humans could move here easily. She stood still and looked around her in wonder. Solid land, in the Rain Wilds.

  Leftrin had gone to his bunk physically weary and sore of heart. How could his ship do this to him?

  When he had first sought his bed, he could still hear the sounds of the keepers and the hunters around their camp-fire. The dragons had fed earlier in the day when they’d disturbed a herd of riverpigs from their slumbers. Carson had managed to bag a pig as well, and he’d towed the carcass back to Tarman for the crew and keepers to share. The roasted pork had been a welcome feast for all. Alise and Thymara had returned with a carry-sack full of fruit and a report of firmer land, while Harrikin and Sylvie had found a bed of freshwater clams right where Tarman had nosed up onto the delta. All in all, they’d had a feast to make up for their days of scarcity. Their water barrels were full again, and both keepers and crew were in good spirits despite the ship’s delay. It could have been a good day, but for the ship’s stubbornness.

  He had gone to bed early in a fit of gloom. Alise was still keeping him at arm’s length, and Tarman’s incomprehensible behaviour was infuriating and frightening. All the keepers seemed confident that tomorrow the expedition would continue as planned. They all believed that he, the captain, would somehow remedy the situation. His crew did not seem so sanguine. Hennesey and Swarge shared his concerns about the boat’s decidedly odd behaviour. They had not discussed it with him, but the looks and whispers his crew had exchanged let him know that they were as troubled as he was. This was not like the Tarman they all knew and loved. Was it a result of adding more wizardwood to his hull? And if it was, where might it lead?

  Unlike all the other liveships, Tarman had no simulacrum body with which to speak to his captain and crew. He had only his eyes right at the waterline, and large and expressive as they might be, they could not communicate every thought in his mind. Tarman always had been and continued to be private in many of his thoughts. When Leftrin put his hands on Tarman’s railing, he could sense something of what the ship wanted. He’d known from whence came the idea to use the chance-found wizardwood to give the Tarman a body that was a bit more independent of human will. It was odd, now that he thought of it, that Tarman had never requested a figurehead, or arms and hands. No. All he had wanted was independence of movement.

  There were a hundred ways he could interpret that decision by his ship. Perhaps a thousand. He mulled all of them over in his mind that night. Long after the voices from the beach had quieted, and long after the reflected light from their bonfire had faded from the roof of his cabin, he thought about them.

  At some point, he slept.

  They walked together through the streets of Kelsingra, arm in arm. Alise had a basket in her free hand and she swung it as they walked. She had the day planned out for them and was speaking, detailing it all. But he wasn’t listening. He didn’t need to hear her plans. He was enjoying the sound of her voice, and the sunlight warm on his shoulders. He wore his hat on the back of his head and sauntered along, her hand hooked so nicely in the crook of his arm. The streets were full of folk going about their business. They strolled past fine buildings made of silver-veined black stone. At the major intersections, fountains leapt and danced, playing a music that always changed but was ever harmonious. The music and smells of the market rode the air. Perhaps that was where she was taking him. It didn’t matter to him if they were going to buy silk and spices and meat cooked on a skewer, or if the basket held a cloth and a picnic for them to share on the riverside. They were here together. The sound of her voice in his ears was sweet, her hand was warm on his arm, and all was well. All was well in Kelsingra.

  He awoke to darkness and stillness. The warmth and the sense of certainty he’d had while he was dreaming was gone. His heart yearned after those things. He’d so seldom had them in his waking life. ‘Kelsingra,’ he whispered into the quiet of his room and for an instant he shared a dragon’s certainty that once they reached that fabled city, all would be well. Was it possible that when they arrived there, that would be so? In his dream the city had been peopled and alive. He and Alise had belonged there, belonged together in that place where no one could ever separate them. That, he knew for certain, was only the stuff of dreams.

  A sound softer than the scratch of Grigsby at his door came to him. ‘Cat?’ he asked, puzzled.

  ‘No,’ she spoke into the darkness. The white of her nightgown caught what little light came in his stateroom window as she eased open the door. He caught his breath. She shut the door more quietly than his beating heart. She ghosted silently to his bed and he lay still, wondering if his dream of completeness had returned, fearing that if he moved he might awaken himself. She did not sit down at the edge of his bed. Instead, she lifted the corner of his blankets and slid in beside him. His arm fell easily around her. She put the arches of her chilled bare feet on his ankles and perched there. Her breasts against his chest, her soft stomach against his belly, she faced him on the pillow.

  ‘That’s nice,’ he murmured. ‘Is this a dream?’

  ‘Maybe,’ she said. Her breath was on his face. It was a wonderful sensation, so gentle and yet so arousing. ‘I was walking with you in Kelsingra. And I suddenly knew that when we arrive there, everything will be fine. And if everything is going to be fine, then everything is actually already fine. At least, that makes sense to me.’

  A strange stillness filled him, welling up from inside him. He ventured towards it. Yes. It made sense to him, too. ‘We were walking in Kelsingra. You had a basket on your arm. Were we going shopping or for a picnic?’

  A little shiver of tension went through her. She spoke near his mouth. ‘The basket was heavy. There was fresh bread, and a bottle of wine, and a little crock of soft cheese in it.’ She took a small breath. ‘I liked how you were wearing your hat.’

  ‘Tipped back, so I could feel the sun on my face.’

  ‘Yes.’ She shivered again and he pulled her closer, thinking at the same moment that they could scarcely be closer. ‘How can we dream the same dreams?’

  ‘How can we not?’ he said without thinking. Then he took a breath and added, ‘My ship likes you. You know Tarman is a liveship. Don’t you?’

  ‘Of course, but—’

  He interrupted her. ‘No figurehead. I know. But a liveship all the same.’ He sighed, and felt his breath warm the space between their faces. ‘A liveship learns his own family. I know you must know about that. Tarman can’t speak, but he has other ways of communicating.’

  For a time, she did not reply. She moved her body slightly against his, a communication of her own. Then she asked a question. ‘That first time I dreamed of flying over Kelsingra. Looking down on it. Was that a dragon-dream from Tarman?’

  ‘Only he could say for certain. But I suspect it was.’ ‘He remembers Kelsingra. He showed me things I couldn’t have imagined, but they fitted perfectly with what I knew of Kelsingra. And now I can’t see the city any other way than how he showed it to me.’ She hesitated, then asked, ‘Why is he talking to me?’

  ‘He’s communicating with both of us. His talking to you is a message for me, as well.’

  ‘What’s the message?’ she whispered against his mouth.

  He kissed her and her mouth was pliant under his. For a time, they both forgot the question he could not answer.

  She did not return to her own bed that night. Very early in the morning, he woke her, thinking it might be an oversight on her part. ‘Alise. It’s dawn. Soon the crew will be stirring.’

  He didn’t need to say any more than that. She had been sleeping with her back against his belly, her head tucked under his chin, his arms around her holding her there, safe and warm. She did not lift her head from the pillow. ‘I don’t care who knows. Do you?’

  He thought about it for a time. The only one who might look askance at the arrangement would be Skelly. If it became long term or permanent, it might lead to her losing her position as his heir. Now there was a strange thing to think about. A child of his own? He wondered if Skelly would be unhappy or angry about it. Perhaps. Regardless of that, he wasn’t going to give Alise up. The sooner she knew about it, the better.

  ‘No problems from me. Sedric?’

  ‘Am I asking whom he sleeps with these days?’

  So she knew about him and Carson. Hmm. The two men had been discreet, but perhaps not discreet enough. There was more than a drop of bitterness in her question. Something else was there, something he didn’t want to know about right now or perhaps ever. So he made no answer. He kissed her hair, clambered over her, and took his clothing from its hook. As he dressed he said, ‘I’ll stir up the galley fire and put on coffee. What would you like for breakfast?’

  ‘Um. I may sleep in a bit longer.’

  So. She truly didn’t care who knew, and might be going out of her way to be sure that everyone knew. He tried to think of the problems that might cause and again decided that it wouldn’t change his mind. Was he captain on this ship or not? He’d deal with anyone sooner rather than later. She had already closed her eyes and pulled his blankets up to her chin.

  He looked at her for a long moment, at her red hair spilling across his pillow and the wonderful shape she made in his bunk. Then he pulled on his boots and left the room, quietly closing the door behind him.

  He smelled the fresh coffee before he reached the galley. Skelly was there before him, sitting at the table, a thick white mug of thick black coffee in front of her. She looked up at him as he came in. He avoided her glance, fearing to see accusation there. Coward. He poured himself a mug of the coffee she’d made and sat down opposite her. ‘You used up a lot of our coffee to make this. Didn’t I tell you we’d have to be careful of our supplies?’

  She cocked her head at him. ‘Maybe I’m like you. Maybe I think it’s better to make the best of what you have right now rather than giving yourself stingy bits of happiness.’ A crooked smile crawled across her face as she dared to ask him, ‘Don’t you agree?’

  He met her gaze. ‘Yes.’ There wasn’t much treacle left. He scooped a big spoonful into his mug and then asked conversationally, ‘How did you know?’

  ‘I saw you walking in the streets of Kelsingra. I was trapped in the crowd, trying to catch up with you. I called your name, but you didn’t hear me.’

  ‘Our Tarman was a busy fellow last night.’ He took a sip of his coffee and weighed his thoughts. ‘If I were just your uncle and not your captain, what might you say to me about it?’

  She looked down at her mug. ‘I’m happy for you. Happy you get to be with someone you choose.’

  Nice little jab there. ‘I’m not promised to anyone else.’

  ‘She’s married.’

  ‘She was.’

  ‘And now she’s not?’

  He considered. ‘I trust her to know what she’s free to do.’

  She thought about that and gave a slow nod. He was trying to be absolutely fair when he said to her, ‘This could change things for you, you know. A lot. If we have a child.’

  Her smile widened. ‘I know that.’

  ‘Have you thought about what it might mean?’

  ‘Since before dawn.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘That boy back in Trehaug? The one my parents promised could marry me? He thinks he’s been promised the heir to the Tarman. If he finds out that might not be so, he might look for a more promising bride.’