"That's quite an arm you've got there, Tarrin," she said, giving him a false smile. "I'm sure you'd play a killer game of wicket."

"And I'm sure you'd love being the ball," Keritanima dug, getting a hostile look from the seated Wikuni. "Come on, Tarrin. I'm sure that Sheba has run out of things to say. Her memory isn't quite that deep."

Sheba glared murderously at the princess, but she led Tarrin away by the arm. "What did you want?" Without saying a word, he handed the book back to her. "Oh yes, this. Did Dolanna find it?"

"And she looked right through your little game," he told her bluntly. "What are you doing?"

"I'm stuck, brother," she said sourly in Selani. "I can't crack the Sha'Kar language. I need help, and Dolanna is very educated. After I teach her the spoken language, I think she can help me decipher the written language. I wasn't sure if you and Allia would approve of adding her to our rather tight inner circle, so I did it the other way."

"You should have asked us."

"I know, but I absolutely need Dolanna, brother," she said defensively. "If you or Allia said no, then I would have had to break your trust. At least this way, you'll only be mad at me a while. If I'd have had to do it the other way, you'd be mad at me for years."

"If you would have made that clear, then I doubt Allia would have said no," he told her chidingly. "Allia trusts Dolanna. So do I."

"I know, but I guess you can't change a Wikuni's fur."

"Maybe the Wikuni should look into trusting her siblings."

"That was low, Tarrin," she said sourly in Common.

"Perhaps, but it was the truth," he replied bluntly. "I didn't know you even brought the book. I thought you left it in Suld."

"No way!" she said adamantly in Sha'Kar. That she would switch to that language made it apparent how serious she wanted to be about privacy. That he could understand it so easily was a testament to how well she taught him. "I can't stop 'til I find the answers, brother, and that means that the book stays with me. Don't worry, I sleep with it under my pillow, and if I don't have it, then Binter or Sisska does. Nobody will take it from them."

"That makes my head spin," Kern said gruffly as he approached from behind. They both turned to look at him.

"What does, captain?" Keritanima asked in Common.

"How you three always bounce around in languages," he replied. "It makes my ears burn."

"Some insults carry more impact in their native tongues, Kern," Tarrin said dryly, which made the grizzled old captain chuckle.

"I'm teaching my brother Wikuni too," Keritnaima winked. "That way we can insult each other on even more levels of subtlety. If you want to insult someone, then use Wikuni. The language was designed for it."

Kern laughed. "I speak a word or two of it, if only to not let Wikuni traders get the drop on me," he admitted. "But I'd appreciate it if ye didn't bandy that about. Wikuni don't like dealing with people who can understand how badly they're cheating them."

"I didn't know that," Tarrin said as Kern ambled away.

"What?"

"That I'm learning Wikuni."

"Well, you are now," she grinned. "I feel jealous that Allia taught you her language, but you still haven't learned mine."

"You never offered to teach it. Now that I think of it, I've never heard you speak it."

"That's because Wikuni usually don't use it unless only other Wikuni are around to hear it. We're like the Selani, we like to keep our language somewhat secret. It helps us cheat others."

Tarrin chuckled. "I knew all Wikuni were pirates at heart."

"Not pirates, traders. Pirates are people who can't haggle, so they're forced to earn a living the dirty way."

"Same difference," he teased.

"Believe it or not, we use Common in Wikuna almost as often as Wikuni. Our kingdom has sorta become bilingual. We teach Common to our children at the same time they learn Wikuni, because they'll eventually be dealing with people that don't speak Wikuni, and it always puts your potential trade victim at ease if you speak his language fluently. Speaking Wikuni is saved for personal dealings, and we use it for all official court functions and ceremonies."

"That's why they made you learn all the native tongues of your trade allies," he realized.

"Exactly. So I could put them at ease, then rake them over the coals with trade treaties," she winked.

"It explains why you're so fluent too. Allia still has trouble expressing herself in Common, and Dolanna always sounds so formal. You have an accent, but it sounds more like a regional dialect than a non-speaker's accent."

"Yup," she agreed. "I'm used to speaking Common on a regular basis, so it makes me sound much more natural using it."

"Do you speak Shacean?"

"Certainly. They're strong trade allies with Wikuna. They're the only kingdom we sell gunpowder to." She glanced at him. "I take it we're done talking about this?" she asked, holding up the book.

"Not much we can do about it now," he said. "We should tell Allia about it. And if we explain the reason behind it well enough, she'll agree that it was necessary. But she won't like you acting without letting us know first, Kerri. Believe me, I get that from her enough as it is. Expect her to be mad at you for a while."

"Like I said, better a little mad than alot of mad."

The night was clear, crisp, and cool. The Skybands and the four moons, all slivers of light in the sky, competed with the brilliant stars to illuminate the night. Nights were never fully dark on Sennadar, except when the clouds concealed the sky.

The night sang to him, in ways that the others would never understand.

Tarrin stood at the bow, to get as much of the ship out of his view as possible, and stared up into the night sky, his mind carried along by the song of instinct, the sounds of the sea, the smell of salt water and the hint of ground and earth carried in the air. Cats were nocturnal creatures, always more active at night than during the day. It made it hard to sleep at night, and often he wound find himself doing just what he was doing, staring up at the night sky and communing with the forces that shaped his life. It was usually an intensely private practice, something he didn't even share with his sisters, because they couldn't fathom its importance to him or how it made him feel. The night was his time, the time of the hunter, when the cloak of darkness enshrouded the land and allowed him to move in utter stealth and harmony with his environment.

Of course, the ship was not the kind of place for that. All the rats were long gone, hunted to extinction by Tarrin's nightly prowls, leaving the hunter with no prey, and nowhere to feel completely at ease. So he stood at the bow, staring up into the night sky, knowing that the sky would look the same whether he was standing on a ship or staring up at the sky through a break in the forest canopy. It allowed him to forget, if only for a little while, where he was and what he was doing. It allowed him to ignore the constant nagging of his instincts to run to the forest, to take up his rightful place in nature. It allowed him to feel what he was in a crystalline clarity that often was unattainable when outside of what he considered to be his own environment.

It was the night, and it was his time. He was a creature of the night. He was the night. Too long, he had forgotten who he was and where he was supposed to be. Too long, it had been since the last time he had succumbed to the powerful instincts inside him and allowed them to join to his human consciousness seamlessly and without struggle. Too long, had he turned his back on his kind.

Too long, he had been aboard the cursed ship.

Tomorrow they were supposed to get to Dayise, and it would probably be in the rain. The front line was barely a mile behind them, moving slowly as it chased the ship that day, an abrupt beginning of cloud that separated the sky. He could smell the rain when the wind gusted from behind them, smell that it was a steady rain that farmers enjoyed, a rain that would last for a whole day and methodically saturate everything exposed to it. He would be on dry land. It would be among people, and it would only be an island, but it would be enough. Two months trapped on this moving prison had nearly been more than he could stand. Only the presence of his sisters, Dolanna, and Miranda had kept him calm enough to endure it. Tomorrow would be a reprieve, a temporary stay of his punishment, where he could put his feet on soft earth and feel the wind in his hair, smell the scents of life once again. Even if they were going to be smothered in the miasma of a foul-smelling city.