Paragon turned all his senses inward, seeking. Something was happening. Something dangerous, something frightening. He had known this before, and he braced himself for the wrenching agony and shame of it. When humans came together like that, it always meant pain for the weaker one. What had made Brashen so angry with her? Why was she allowing it, why wasn't she fighting him? Was she so frightened of him she could not resist?

"Paragon. Are you listening to me?"

"No." He drew a small breath through his open mouth. He didn't understand this. He had thought he knew what this meant. If Brashen did not mean to punish her, if he was not trying to master her with pain, then why was he doing this? Why was Althea allowing it?

"Paragon?"

"Shh." He clenched his hands into fists and held them tight to his chest. He would not scream. He would not. Amber was talking at him but he closed off his ears and tuned his other senses. This was not what he had thought it was. He had thought he understood humans and how they hurt one another, but this was different. This was something else. Something he could almost recall. Timidly, he shut the eyes he no longer had. He let his thoughts float, and felt ancient memories soar in him.

ALTHEA HELD BRASHEN CLOSE TO HER AND FELT HIS HEART THUNDERING IN his chest. He gasped for breath beside the side of her neck. His hair was across her face. Her fingers gently walked the long ridge of the scarcely healed sword slash down his ribs. Then she set her hand flat to it, as if she could mend it with a touch. She sighed. He smelled good, like the sea and the ship and himself. When she held him, she held all those things within her. "Almost," she breathed softly. "Almost, I thought we were flying."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN — Surviving

"MAMA? WE CAN SEE BINGTOWN HARBOR NOW."

Keffria lifted her aching head from the pillow. Selden stood in the doorway of the small stateroom they shared on the Kendry. She had not truly been asleep. She had simply been curled around her misery, trying to find out how to live with it. She looked at her son. His lips were chapped, his cheeks and brow reddened and chafed by the wind. Ever since his misadventures in the buried city, there had been a distant look behind his eyes, as if he were in some way lost to her, even as he stood before her. Selden was her last living child. That should have made her desperate to cherish him. She should have wanted him by her side every moment. Instead, it numbed her heart to him. Best not to love him too much. Like the others, he could be taken from her at any time.

"Are you coming to see? It looks really strange." Selden paused. "Some of the people on deck are crying."

"I'm coming," she said wearily. Time to face it. All the way here, she had avoided speaking to Selden of what they might find. She swung her feet out of bed. She pushed at her hair then gave it up. A shawl would cover it. She found one, still damp from the last time she had been on deck, flung it about herself and followed him onto the deck.

It was a gray day and the rain was steady. That felt right. She joined the other passengers looking toward Bingtown. No one chattered or pointed: they stood and stared silently. Tears ran down some faces.

Bingtown Harbor was a boneyard. The masts of ruined vessels stuck up from the water. Kendry maneuvered carefully around the sunken ships, heading not toward the liveships' traditional dock but to one that was newly repaired. The clean yellow lumber contrasted oddly with the weathered gray and scorched black of the rest. Men on the dock waited to welcome them. At least, she hoped it was welcome.

Selden leaned against her. Absently, she lifted a hand and set it on his shoulder. Whole sections of the city were black ruins, burnt skeletons of buildings glistening in the falling rain. The boy leaned against her more heavily. "Is Grandma all right?" he asked in a muffled voice.

"I don't know," she replied wearily. She was so tired of telling him she didn't know. She didn't know if his father was alive. She didn't know if his brother was alive. She didn't know what had happened to Malta. The Kendry had searched down the Rain Wild River to its mouth and found nothing. At Reyn's frantic insistence, they had turned back and searched up the river all the way back to Trehaug. They had found no sign of the small boat that Reyn claimed he had seen. Keffria had never spoken it aloud, but she wondered if Reyn had not imagined it. Perhaps he had wanted so badly for Malta to be alive that he had deceived himself. Keffria knew what that was like.

At Trehaug, Jani Khuprus had boarded the Kendry. Before they departed the Rain Wild city, they sent a bird to Bingtown, informing the Council that they had not recovered the Satrap, but were continuing the search. It was a foolish hope, but one that neither Keffria nor Reyn could abandon.

On this last trip down the Rain Wild River, Keffria had spent every evening on deck, staring out through the gathering dusk. Time after time, she had been sure she glimpsed a tiny rowboat on the river. Once she had seen Malta standing up in it, one hand lifted in a plea for help, but it had only been a log, torn loose from the bank, a root upraised in despair as it floated past.

Even after the Kendry had left the river behind, she had kept her nightly vigils on the deck. She could not trust the ship's lookout to watch with a mother's eyes. Last night, through a chilling downpour, she had glimpsed a Chalcedean ship that the Kendry had easily outrun. Last night's Chalcedean vessel had been alone, but during their journey their lookout had sighted others, galleys in groups of two or three, and two great Chalcedean sailing ships. All had either ignored the Kendry, or given only token chase. What, the captain had demanded, were the raiders waiting for? Were they converging on the mouth of the Rain Wild River? On Bingtown? Were they part of a fleet that would take over the Cursed Shores? Reyn and Jani had joined the captain in his useless debating, but Keffria saw no use in speculation.

Malta was gone. Keffria did not know if she had died in the sunken city or perished in the river. That she would never know ate at her like a canker. Would she ever find out what had become of Wintrow and Kyle? She tried to hope that they still survived, but could not. Hope was too steep a mountain to climb. She feared she would only fall into an abyss of despair when the hope proved futile. She lived instead in a suspension of all feeling. Now was all there was.

REYN KHUPRUS STOOD BESIDE HIS MOTHER. THE RAIN SOAKED HIS VEIL. WHEN the wind stirred it, it slapped lightly against his face. There was Bingtown, fully as damaged as he had expected it to be from the news the messenger-birds had brought to Trehaug. He tried to find an emotion to fit to the sight, but none were left to him.

"It's worse than I feared," his mother muttered beside him. "How can I ask aid of the Bingtown Council when their own city is a shambles, and their coast menaced by Chalcedean ships?"

That was supposed to be part of their mission here. Jani Khuprus had often represented the Rain Wild Traders to their kin in Bingtown, but seldom on so grave a mission. After she had formally apologized to the Bingtown Council for the unfortunate loss of Satrap Cosgo and his Companion, she would ask for assistance for the Rain Wild Traders of Trehaug. The destruction of the ancient Elderling city was almost complete. With much careful work, parts of the city might eventually be reopened. In the meantime, the Trader families who had depended on the strange and wonderful objects unearthed in the city for their commerce were left abruptly destitute. Those families made up the backbone of Trehaug. Without the Elderling city to plunder, there was no economic reason for Trehaug to exist. While Trehaug harvested some foods from the Rain Wild forest, they had no fields in which to grow grain or pasture cattle. They had always bartered for food, supplying their needs through Bingtown. The Chalcedean interruption of trade was already felt in Trehaug. With winter coming, the situation would soon be desperate.