Assassin’s Fate

‘Release the crew?’ There was alarm in Amber’s voice.

Althea was resolute. ‘As many as will go. Whatever is to become of Paragon, and of us, I see no point in taking them all with us. The sooner they are off Paragon’s decks, the sooner they can find other employment. Other lives.’

‘How can Paragon get to Clerres with no crew?’ Amber demanded.

‘Skeleton crew.’ She looked Amber up and down. ‘You’ll have to lose those skirts and remember how to work the deck again.’ She tipped her head toward me. ‘Him, too. And Lant and the youngsters.’

I opened my mouth to respond but Amber spoke quickly. ‘I’m blind. But what I can do, I will. We all will. And I will do all I can to encourage Paragon to be reasonable. I’ve no wish for this to be any worse than it must be.’

‘Any worse,’ Brashen said softly, a terrible wondering in his voice. ‘How could it be any worse?’

As if in answer to his question, a wave of something swept past me that spun me like a weathervane. It seemed as palpable as the wind, but it was not air that slid past me, but Skill and Wit, twined together and moving through the wizardwood of the ship in a way I knew but did not understand. I knew it, for I had done it — done it without thinking or understanding it in the days when I had first begun to try to master my magics. I had done it because I had not known how to separate them. I had been told my Skill was tainted with the Wit, and I had known that my Wit had undertones of Skill to it. I had struggled to separate the two, to use the Skill properly. And I had succeeded. Almost.

But now I felt it rippling and surging through the ship, and it felt, not wrong, but pure. As if two halves of something had been restored to a whole. It was powerful, and for a time I could focus on nothing but the wonder I felt at it.

‘Oh, no!’ Althea said in a low voice, and that was when I knew the others were aware of it too. All of them stood still, faces frozen, as if they were listening to the distant howling of hungry wolves. Everyone save Perseverance, who looked from face to face and then demanded, ‘What is it?’

‘Something’s changing,’ Spark whispered. Transfixed as I was by the flow of magic, I still noted in a small corner of my mind how her hand crept out to grasp Lant’s forearm, and how he set his hand over hers to reassure her. Something was changing indeed, and it wasn’t just the ship. I felt Amber catch hold of my sleeve.

Althea and Brashen moved as if one will controlled them, striding toward the foredeck. Overhead, Motley still circled, cawing ‘Ship, Ship!’ We followed, and Clef came dashing past us. As abruptly as the surging magic had begun, it passed. Althea and Brashen had gained the foredeck.

Paragon twisted slowly to look back at them. ‘What?’ he asked mildly, raising a questioning brow.

I had a single instant of disconnection before the obvious stunned me. He looked back at us with my face, save for his pale blue eyes. ‘That’s exactly how Prince FitzChivalry looks when he’s puzzled,’ Per observed, answering a question I hadn’t even formed in my mind. Slowly, Paragon turned away from us. He lifted his arm, offering the back of his wrist to the sky. Motley swooped in to land there, completing my utter confusion.

‘Ship!’ she told him.

‘I see it. It’s a tariff ship. We’d best heave to, and then let them know we’ll be following them to Divvytown to pay our taxes.’ He glanced back to give his captains a boyish grin. ‘Vivacia is out of Divvytown, isn’t she? I have a feeling she’ll be there. It will be so good to see Boy-O again, won’t it? And Queen Etta has her court there. Perhaps, at last, Paragon Kennitsson will see fit to walk my decks. Let’s put on some more sail and pick up some speed.’

‘Paragon, what are you playing at?’ Brashen demanded in a low voice.

The figurehead did not turn back towards him. ‘Playing at? Whatever do you mean?’

‘Why have you resumed your old face?’ Brashen asked.

‘Because I did. Isn’t this the one you prefer? The one that makes me seem more human?’

‘You are human,’ Amber spoke her words with soft clarity. ‘Human and dragon. Possessed of the memories of both. Soaked in the blood and the memories of those who have crewed your decks, bled and died on them. You began as the shells of two dragons, that is true. But you have become something that is not only dragon, but imbued with humanity as well.’

Paragon was silent.

‘Yet you changed your face,’ Amber continued, ‘so that Boy-O would see you in your familiar guise and not be alarmed.’ I wondered if she were guessing or if she knew.

‘I changed my face because it suited me to do so.’ Paragon spoke the words defiantly.

Amber’s response was mild. ‘And it suited you to do so because you care for Boy-O. Paragon, there is no shame in being who and what you are. In partaking of two worlds instead of one.’

He turned to look at her and the blue of his eyes was dragon-blue. ‘I shall be dragons again. I shall.’