‘But still you ask him these questions?’ Kennit observed speculatively. He turned his head to pierce her with his glance.
‘I have no one else to share such doubts,’ she began, and then halted. ‘I meant,’ she began hesitantly, but Kennit silenced her with an impatient motion of his hand.
‘I know what you meant,’ he revealed. He sank into her chair. When he let go of his crutch, she caught it before it could clatter to the floor. He leaned forwards to look at Wintrow more closely, a frown furrowing his brow. His fingers touched the boy’s swollen face with a woman’s gentleness. ‘I, too, miss his counsel.’ He stroked the stubble of hair on Wintrow’s head, then pulled his hand back in distaste at its coarseness. ‘I am thinking of putting him up on the foredeck, by the figurehead. She may be able to speed his healing.’
‘But –’ Etta began, then held her tongue and lowered her eyes.
‘You object? Why?’
‘I did not mean to…’
‘Etta!’ Kennit barked her name, making her jump. ‘Spare me this whining and cringing. If I ask you a question, it is because I wish you to speak, not whimper at me. Why do you object to moving him there?’
She swallowed her fear. ‘The scabs on his burns are loose and wet. If we move him, they may be rubbed off, and delay his healing. The wind and the sun may dry and crack raw skin all the more.’
Kennit looked only at the boy. He appeared to be pondering her words. ‘I see. But we shall move him carefully, and we will not leave him there long. The ship needs assurance that he lives still, and I think he may need her strength to heal.’
‘I am sure you know better than I –’ she faltered, but he cut off her objection with, ‘I am certain that I do. Go fetch some crewmen to move him. I shall wait here.’
Wintrow swam deep, in darkness and warmth. Somewhere, far above, there was a world of light and shadow, of voices and pain and touch. He avoided it. In another plane, there was a being that groped after him, calling him by his name and baiting him with memories as well. She was harder to elude, but his determination was strong. If she found him, there would be great pain and disillusionment for both of them. As long as he remained a tiny formless being swimming through the dark, he could avoid it all.
Something was being done to his body. There was clatter, talk, and fuss. He centred himself against anticipated pain. Pain had the power to grasp him and hold him. Pain might be able to drag him up to that world where he had a body and a mind and a set of memories that went with them. Down here, it was much safer.
It only seems that way. And while it seems that way for a long time, eventually you will long for light and movement, for taste and sound and touch. If you wait too long, those things may be lost to you forever.
This voice boomed rich all around him like the thundering of surf against rocks. Like the ocean itself, the voice turned and tumbled him, considering him from all angles. He tried in vain to hide from it. It knew him. ‘Who are you?’ he demanded.
The voice was amused. Who am I? You know who I am, Wintrow Vestrit. I am whom you most fear, and whom she most fears. I am the one you avoid acknowledging. I am the one you deny and conceal from yourself and each other. Yet, I am a part of you both.
The voice paused and waited for him, but he would not speak the words. He knew that the old naming magic worked both ways. To know a creature’s true name was to have the power to bind it. But the naming of such a creature could also make it real.
I am the dragon. The voice spoke with finality. You know me now. And nothing will ever be the same.
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ he babbled silently. ‘I didn’t know. None of us knew. I’m sorry, I’m so very sorry.’
Not as sorry as I am. The voice was implacable in its grief. Nor yet as sorry as you shall be.
‘But it wasn’t my fault! I had nothing to do with it!’
Nor was it my fault, yet I am the one punished most grievously of all. Fault has no place in the greater scheme of things, little one. Fault and guilt are as useless as apology once the deed is done. Once the action has been taken, all must endure what follows.
‘But why are you down here so deep?’
Where else should I be? Where else is left to me? By the time I recalled who I was, your memories were stacked many layers deep upon me. Yet here I am, and here I shall remain, no matter how long you deny me. The voice paused. No matter how long I may deny myself, it added wearily.
Pain scoured him. Wintrow struggled in a blaze of heat and light, fighting to keep his eyes closed and his tongue stilled. What were they doing to him? It did not matter. He would not react to it. If he moved, if he cried out, he would have to admit he was alive and Vivacia was dead. He would have to admit his soul was linked to a thing that had been dead longer than he had been alive. It was beyond macabre; it numbed him with horror. This was the wonder and glory of a liveship. He must consort forever with death. He did not wish to awaken and acknowledge that.
Would you prefer to remain down here with me? There was bitter amusement in the being’s voice now. Do you wish to linger in the tomb of my past?
‘No. No, I wish to be free.’
Free?
Wintrow faltered. ‘I don’t want to know any of this. I don’t want to have ever been a part of it.’
You were a part of it as soon as you were conceived. There is no way to undo such a thing.
‘Then what must I do?’ The words wailed through him, unvoiced. ‘I cannot live with this.’
You could die, the voice offered sardonically.
‘I don’t want to die.’ Of that, at least, he was certain.
Neither did I, the voice pointed out remorselessly. But I did. Rich as I am in memories of flying, my own wings never were unfurled. For the sake of building this ship, my cocoon was stripped from me before I could hatch. They dumped that which would have been my body to the cold stone floor. All I am are memories, memories stored in the walls of my cocoon, memories I should have reabsorbed as I formed in the hot sun of summer. I had no way to live or grow, save through the memories your kind offered. I absorbed what you gave me, and when it was enough, I quickened. But not as myself. No. I became the shape you had imposed upon me, and took to myself the personality that was the sum of your family’s expectations. Vivacia.
A sudden shift in the position of his body freshened Wintrow’s physical pain. Air flowed over him and the warmth of the sun touched him. Even that contact scoured his denuded flesh. But worst of all was the voice that called to him in a mixture of gladness and concern. ‘Wintrow? Can you hear me? It’s Vivacia. Where are you, what are you doing that I cannot feel you at all?’
He felt the ship’s thoughts reach for him. He cringed away, unwilling to let her touch minds with him. He made himself smaller, hid deeper. The moment Vivacia reached him, she must know all that he did. What would it do to her, to confront what she truly was?
Do you fear it will drive her mad? Do you fear she will take you with her? There was fierce exultance in the voice as it framed the thought, almost like a threat. Wintrow went cold with fear. Instantly he knew that this hiding place was no asylum, but a trap. ‘Vivacia!’ he called out wildly, but his body did not obey him. No lips voiced his cry. Even his thought was muffled in the dragon’s being, wrapped and stifled and confined. He tried to struggle; he was suffocating under the weight of her presence. She held him so close he could not recall how to breathe. His heart leaped arhythmically. Pain slapped him as his body jerked in protest. In a distant world, on a sun-washed deck, voices cried out in helpless dismay. He retreated to a stillness of