"You should have told us." Her words came out stiffly, as if she wished to hold them back. "All this time, you knew so much that could have helped us, and you kept it to yourself. Why, Paragon? Why?"

He was silent for a time. He could feel what she was doing. She was securing a line to a cleat. She tested her weight against it. Then she came to the railing and climbed stiffly over it. She dropped over the bow, swung across in front of him and without warning, landed light-footedly against his chest. His hands came up reflexively to catch her. She froze in his grip, then spoke resignedly. "I know. You could kill me right now, if you chose. But from the beginning, we've had no choice but to trust our lives to you. I had hoped that trust went both ways, but obviously, it didn't. You've shown you're capable of killing us all. That being so, I see no sense in fearing you anymore. Either you'll kill us or you won't. You've shown me I've no control over that. All I can do is keep my own life in order, and do what I am meant to do."

"Perhaps that is all I can do as well," he retorted. He made his hands a platform for her to stand on, just as he had done for the boy Kennit so many years ago.

She seemed to ignore his words. Her gloved hands moved lightly over his face, not just fingering his new scars, but touching his cheeks, his nose and his beard.

He could not leave the silence alone. "That night, you loved me. You were willing to lose your life to save mine. How can you be so angry at me now?"

"I am not angry," she denied. "I cannot help but think that it all could have turned out differently. I am… hurt. No. Stricken. By all you did not do when we did all we could for you. At all you held back from us. And probably the depth of that feeling has much to do with how much I do love you. Why couldn't you have trusted us, Paragon? If you had shared your secrets, it all could have come out differently."

He considered her words for a time while she poked at his neck and jaw-line. "You are full of your own secrets," he suddenly accused her. "Things you have never shared with the rest of us. How can you despise me for doing the same?"

Her tone was suddenly formal. "The secrets I hold are mine. My keeping them does no harm to anyone."

He picked up her doubts. "You are not sure of that. My secrets were as dangerous to share as they were to hold. But, as you said, my secrets were mine. Perhaps the only thing in the world that were truly mine."

She was silent a long time. Then, "Where are the dragons? What are the dragons and why are there dragons in you? Are you why I have dreamed of serpents and dragons? Were my callings actually bringing me to you?"

He pondered a moment. "What will you trade me for an answer? A secret of your own? To show you are trusting me as much as I am trusting you."

"I do not know if I can," Amber replied slowly. She had stopped touching his face. "My secrets are my armor. Without them, I am very vulnerable to all sorts of hurts. Even hurt that folk do not intend."

"See. You do understand," he replied quickly. He felt that barb score.

She took a breath, and spoke quickly, as if plunging into cold water. "It is hard to explain. When I was much younger, and I spoke of it, people thought that I was too full of myself. They tried to tell me that I could not be what I knew I was. Finally, I ran away from them. And when I did, I promised myself that I would no longer fear what other folk thought of me. I would keep to myself the future I knew lay ahead of me. I have shared my dreams and ambitions with very few others."

"You are telling me nothing with many words," Paragon pointed out impatiently. "What, exactly, are you?"

She gave a small laugh that had no joy in it. "In a word, I do not know how to tell you. I have been called a fool as often as I have been called a prophet. I always have known that there were things I must do for the world, things no one else could do. Well. The same is true of every man, I do not doubt. Yet I follow a path I cannot see clearly. There are guides along the way, but I cannot always find them. I set out seeking a slave-boy with nine fingers." She shook her head. He felt it.

"I found Althea instead, and though she was not a boy nor a slave and had all ten fingers, I felt a connection through her. So I helped her. May the gods forgive me, I helped her seek her death. Then I encountered Malta, and wondered if she was the one I should have been aiding. I reach forward, Paragon, through mists of time to symbols that become people and people who teeter on the verge of legend. There is a task I must do here, but what it is remains cloaked from me. All I can do is push toward it, and hope that when the time comes, I will recognize it and perform the right actions. Although there is little hope of that now." She took a breath. "Why are there dragons in you?" she demanded.

He felt that she changed the subject, deliberately. He answered her anyway. "Because I was meant to be dragons. What you call wizardwood is actually a protective casing that sea serpents weave about themselves before they begin their change into dragons. The Rain Wild traders came upon encased dragons in the ruins of an ancient city. They killed them, but used the casings, rich with dragon memories, to build ships. Liveships they call us, but we are truly dead. Yet while memory lives, we are doomed to a half-life, trapped in an awkward body that cannot be moved without the aid of humans. I am more unfortunate than most, for two cocoons were used in my construction. From the time I was created, the dragons within me have warred for dominance over each other." He shook his great head. "I woke too soon, you see. I had not absorbed enough human memories to be strongly centered in them. From the time I first opened my eyes, I have been torn."

"I do not understand. Why are you Paragon then, and not a dragon?"

He laughed bitterly. "What else do you think Paragon is, save a human veneer of memories over battling dragons? In quarreling with one another for mastery, they allowed me ascendance. When I say 'I, I scarcely know what I mean." He sighed suddenly. "That was what Kennit gave me, and what I shall miss most. A sense of self. A sense of kinship. When he was aboard me, I had no doubts as to my identity. You see him as blood-shedding pirate. I recall him first as a wild and lively boy, full of joy in the wind and waves. He laughed aloud, swung in the rigging and would not leave me alone. He refused to fear me. He was born aboard me. Can you imagine that? The only birth I have ever known was able to obliterate all the deaths that had gone before it. His father offered him to me, his birth-blood still on his skin. 'You've never been my ship, Paragon. Not in your heart. But perhaps you can be his as he is yours. And he was. He kept the dragons at bay. You, you have loosed them, and now we must all bear the consequences."

"They seem quiet. Dormant," Amber ventured. "You seem very much yourself, only more-open."

"Exactly. Cracked open and leaking my secrets. What are you doing?" He had thought she was inspecting for fire damage. He had expected her to spider along his hull, not walk all over his body.

"Keeping my word, to you and to the dragons. I'm going to carve some eyes for you. I'm trying to decide where to begin to repair this."

"Don't."

"Are you sure?" Amber asked him quietly. He sensed her dismay. She had promised this to the dragons. What would she do if Paragon forbade it now?

"No. I mean, don't repair my face. Give me a new one. One that is all of me."

For a mercy, she did not ask him what he meant by that. She only asked, "Are you sure?"

He pondered a moment. "I think… I do not want to be a dragon. That is, I do, but I wish to be both of them, if I must. And yet to be Paragon as well. To be, as you said, three merged into one. I want…" He hesitated. If he said it and she laughed, it would be worse than death, as life was always sharper and harder than death. "Give me a face you could love," he quietly beseeched her.