Ship of Magic

Caolwn gave a sigh of relief. “This would be my compromise. I speak, Ronica, as a woman who has known Jani's Reyn for all his life. He is a most honorable and trustworthy young man. You need not fear he will take advantage of Malta, regardless of whether she be girl or woman. And that is why I believe you could let him begin his courtship now. Chaperoned, of course. And with the stipulation that there will be no more gifts such as could turn a girl's head more with greed than love. Simply allow Reyn to regularly present himself to her. If she is truly a child, he will see this promptly, and be more abashed than any of us can imagine to have made such a mistake. But if she is truly a woman, give him a chance, the first chance of any, to win her heart for himself. Is this too much to ask? That he be allowed to be her first suitor?”

It went far to repair many things between them that Ronica looked to Keffria for a decision. Keffria licked her lips. “I think I can allow this. If they are well chaperoned. If there are no expensive gifts to turn her head.” She sighed. “In truth, Malta has opened this door. Perhaps this should be her first lesson as a woman. That no man's affection is to be taken lightly.”

The circle of women nodded agreement.

Chapter Thirty-One Ships And Serpents

It was a crude tattoo, done hastily and only in blue ink. But for all that, it was her image marked on the boy's face. She stared at him aghast. “This falls upon me,” she had said. “But for me, none of this would have befallen you.”

“That is true,” he agreed with her wearily. “But that does not mean it is your fault.”

He turned away from her to sit down heavily on the deck. Did he even guess how his words wounded her? She tried to share his feelings, but the boy who had vibrated with pain the night before was now a great stillness. He put his head back and drew a great breath of the clean wind sweeping her decks. He sighed it out.

The man at the wheel tried to force her back out into the main channel. With almost idle malice, she leaned against it, weltering as he forced her over. That for Kyle Haven, who thought he could bend her to his will.

“I don't know what to say to you,” Wintrow confessed quietly. “When I think of you, I feel shamed, as if I betrayed you by running away. Yet when I think of myself, I am disappointed, for I nearly managed to regain my life. I don't wish to abandon you, but I don't wish to be trapped here either.” He shook his head, then leaned back against the railing. He was ragged and dirty, and Torg had not taken the chains from his wrists and ankles when he left him there. Win trow now spoke over his shoulder as he looked up at her sails. “Sometimes I feel I am two people, reaching after two different lives. Or rather, joined to you, I am a different person from who I am when we are apart. When we are together, I lose . . . something. I don't know what to call it. My ability to be only myself.”

A prickling of dread ran over Vivacia. His words were too close to what she had planned to say to him. She had left Jamaillia City the morning before this, but only now had Torg brought Wintrow to her. For the first time she had seen what they had done to him. Most jolting was her crude image in colored ink on the boy's cheek. Nothing marked him as a sailor now, let alone the captain's son. He looked like any slave. Yet despite all that had befallen him, he was outwardly calm.

Answering her thought, he observed, “I don't have anything left for feelings anymore. Through you, I am all the slaves at once. When I allow myself to feel that, I think I shall go mad. So I hold back from it and try to feel nothing at all.”

“These emotions are too strong,” Vivacia agreed in a low voice. “Their suffering is too great. It overwhelms me, until I cannot separate myself.” She paused, then went on haltingly, “It was worse when they were aboard and you were not. Just your being gone made me feel as if I were adrift. I think you are the anchor that keeps me who I am. I think that is why a liveship needs one of her own family aboard her.”

Wintrow made no reply, but she hoped from his stillness he was listening. “I take from you,” she admitted. “I take and I give you nothing.”

He stirred slightly. His voice was oddly flat as he observed, “You've given me strength, and more than once.”

“But only that I might keep you by me,” she said carefully. “I strengthen you so I may keep you. So I can remain certain of who I am.” She gathered her courage. “Wintrow. What was I, before I was a liveship?”

He shifted his fetters and rubbed his chafed ankles distractedly. He did not seem to understand the importance of her question. “A tree, I suppose. Actually, a number of trees, if wizardwood grows as other wood does. Why do you ask?”