Assassin’s Fate

I mourn the good paper and lovely leather covers of the books my father gave to me. They are gone, sent to the bottom with all the goods and possessions of those who captained and crewed Paragon. I do not miss the writing on those pages. The journal was written by a child whom I barely recall. The dreams she wrote are irrelevant, markers on paths that no longer exist. The few that yet may be will come to pass with or without ink on a page.

New dreams now come to me, and Beloved urges me to write them down. I do not like to call him Beloved. And when I called him Fool once he flinched and the captain of this ship looked at me as if I were rude. Before others, I call him Teacher. He does not seem to mind. I will not name him Amber.

I no longer have a book, but Beloved has given me sheets of paper and a simple pen and black ink. I think he has begged these things from Captain Wintrow.

This is my first dream to record. An old tree blossoms and bears a single beautiful fruit. It falls to the ground and rolls away. It cracks open and a woman wearing a silver crown steps out of it.

I am sad that I must draw this only in black on white paper.

He has told me that he will read the dreams I write. That he must so that he can guide me. I write here what I have already told him, that he may read it again. I will not let my dreams be used to shape the world. And regardless of what he promised my father, I find it intrusive and rude that he reads my words here.

Bee Farseer’s journal

We put Clerres behind us, and I was not sorry to do so. The only tear I felt was that my father was left behind, dead and unburned, in such a horrid place.

The ship spoke in my mind the instant I set foot on the deck. Who are you? And why do you ring so strangely on my senses?

I walled my mind as well as I could, but that only spiced her interest in me. She pushed at me, and it was like being prodded in the chest with a forefinger. I don’t know why you sense me. I am Bee Farseer. I was a prisoner of the Servants in Clerres. I only want to go home.

A very strange thing happened then: I felt the ship wall me out. But it was more relief than insult.

We were a rag-tag group that boarded Vivacia. The adults had already spoken to one another while I slept. It little mattered what they had agreed upon. I was like the nut carried in the stream. I was swept along by my fate.

On board the ship, hammocks were hung for us, but there were no walls to divide us from the regular crew. I did not care. The moment my hammock was hung, I clambered into it and fell asleep. I awakened shortly after to incredulous shouts from the deck. I forced myself to roll until I fell out of the hammock. I hurried from the crew’s quarters up onto the deck, fearing the ship was being attacked.

The tide had carried some of the wreckage from old Paragon out to sea. And clinging to it was a survivor. Spark’s hopes were dashed when they hauled aboard a dazed and sunburned woman. This was Boy-O’s mother and Brashen’s wife, and she was somehow related to Captain Wintrow. The liveship thrummed with joy, the timbers vibrating. I stayed to see her brought aboard and given water, and then returned to my hammock. I cried — not with joy but jealousy — and slept again.