Assassin’s Fate

Beloved sat apart from us. I watched him until I fell asleep. My last thought that night was that he was as alone as I was.

I awoke to birds calling. I looked up at tree branches with bits of blue sky beyond them. Dwalia! My entire body jerked with fear.

Then Per said, ‘Bee? You’ve slept a long time. Are you waking up now?’

I sat up slowly. Per was bare-chested. Oh. His shirt had been my blanket. I offered it to him wordlessly and he spoke as he put it back on. ‘Vivacia came into the harbour early this morning. Well, to the harbour. Too shallow for her to come closer. Their boat came ashore looking for us. That red fellow, Rapskal, he’d overflown them and shouted we were here. They’ve already taken Boy-O. We’ll go next.’

I looked around me, blinking. ‘Is there food?’ I asked stupidly.

‘There is.’

The bread was stale, but he had saved me a peach. He warmed the bread on a stick over the embers and dunked it in the butter. It was good. I washed my hands and face and said, ‘The birds woke me. Did you have a blue crow? With some red feathers?’ It seemed a dream.

‘She went with the dragons, I think. They gave her such colours! She loves them.’ He seemed sad.

I changed the subject. ‘Who is Vivacia and why has she come?’

‘She’s a liveship, like Paragon was. She came following the dragons and Rapskal. She’d gone to Others’ Island. There was a battle there, too, to kill all the Others who had been taking the dragon eggs or capturing the little serpents as they hatched. Then Vivacia said they must now come here to help Tintaglia take revenge …’

‘I see,’ I said, but only to stop his flow of words. My head felt too foggy to take on so much information. I stood up slowly and looked around. Spark was drifting listlessly about our camp, as if looking for anything that needed to be done. Her eyes were red, her mouth drooping. The others were gone. ‘Did Beloved go to the ship with the others?’

‘No. He went up into the hills, to try to find his way back to the tunnel. He went before, in the night, but could not find it. So he got up very early, as soon as it was light, to try again.’

‘And he didn’t wake me to go with him?’ Anger coursed through me.

‘Nor me, nor Spark. He told Ant to tell us where he’d gone.’ He put more bread on the toasting stick. ‘I think he needed to go alone, Bee.’

‘And what about what I might need?’ I raged. The anger that shot through me was as heady as when the Skill rushed from me. Like the night the serpent spit had got in my cuts.

‘Bee?’ Per said and stepped a little back from me.

I saw Beloved at the edge of the camp. He walked slowly, looking at the ground. I did not run to him. I shouted, ‘Did you see him? You went without me.’ I could not keep the anger from my voice.

‘No.’ His voice was a hoarse admission of defeat. ‘I found the tunnel mouth again. But it was as I feared. At a high tide, it floods full.’

I winced. I did not want to think of my father’s body floating in cold seawater while fish nibbled at him. ‘He’s dead. I told you that. I felt it.’

He didn’t look at me. With an effort, he said, ‘Spark, Per, if there’s anything you want to take, gather it. I promised Wintrow I would not delay the sailing. There’s probably a boat waiting for us now.’

Per had piled fruit onto a square of canvas. He bagged it up and said, ‘That’s it. Ready to go.’

‘I’m taking nothing from here,’ Spark said.

Beloved looked at me. I shrugged. ‘Nothing. Taking nothing. Leaving everything.’

‘I know he’s dead,’ he admitted brokenly. He finally turned toward me. The rims all around his pale eyes were red. There were deep lines around his mouth. He looked at me. ‘You are all I have left of him now.’

I spoke very quietly. ‘Then you have nothing at all.’

FORTY Warm Water

Battle death to your last breath and even unknown, you are a hero.

Whimper your way into darkness and your name will become a taunt of cowardice.

Chalcedean saying

Dying is boring, Nighteyes observed.

I drew a deeper breath. ‘Perhaps you are not taking it as personally as I am.’ My voice sounded strange to me. Water had risen in the chamber and I had wondered if I would drown, trapped on my back with my head lower than my hips and my legs pinned between stone and stone. It was among the worst deaths I could have imagined for myself, but it had not even wet my hair. If it had come that high, I probably would have drunk some of it. Saltwater or not, I was so thirsty.