Alum tilted his head at her. ‘But you were a Trader’s daughter. Surely you had servants for that sort of work?’

‘We did,’ she admitted easily. ‘But my grandmother spent time in her own hothouses when I was very small. And by the time I was older, we no longer had servants, and we were growing not flowers but vegetables for the table. I admit I did as little of the dirty work as I could; I had a horror of ruining my hands then and I could not understand the pleasure my grandmother took in nurturing growing things. Now, I think, I understand her better. And so I ready seedbeds even when we don’t have seeds yet.’

Alum idly stirred the soil with a long-fingered, silvery-green hand. ‘I thought all Trader-born were wealthy.’

‘Some are. Others, less so. But wealth doesn’t mean idleness. Look at Leftrin. Or Skelly.’ She suspected she knew why he had sought her out. She’d lead him right to it, then.

‘Oh, yes,’ he agreed. ‘She works, and she works hard. For years now, she’s been working toward a dream. Taking over the family liveship when Leftrin … when he’s finished with it.’

‘When he dies,’ Malta said easily. ‘When he goes, he’ll die on the deck of his ship, Alum. And everything he was and all he knew of the river and the ways of Tarman will go back into the liveship. It’s how it’s done. And it’s important that there is someone there who is ready and willing to take over the captaining of the ship.’

‘I know,’ he replied quietly. ‘We’ve talked about it.’ He fell silent.

Malta waited. It was coming.

‘This time, when she’s in Trehaug, she promised she’d talk to her family, with or without Leftrin. She’s going to tell them that Leftrin and Alise want to get married and maybe have a child, and so she wouldn’t be his heir any more. To see if she can break her engagement to that Rof fellow that her family promised her to. She thinks that he won’t want to marry her if it’s not certain that she’ll inherit.’

‘And then what?’ Malta prodded him gently when he fell silent.

‘She’d come back here, to me.’ He sounded confident of that part.

‘And then?’

‘That’s the hard part. I’m an Elderling. Ranculos says I’m going to live a long, long time. Hundreds of years, perhaps.’

‘And she isn’t,’ Malta said ruthlessly.

‘No. Not unless Arbuc will turn her into an Elderling, too. It must be possible! Tintaglia has you and Reyn and now Phron. So, if he wanted to, he could make her an Elderling, too. Then we both could have a long life. Together.’

‘I suppose he could. I still don’t understand everything about it. But I know that he would have to want to do it.’ She watched Alum’s face and added, ‘And she would have to desire it, also.’

‘She says she’d feel disloyal to Tarman. That in some ways, the liveship is her dragon.’

She knew what he would next ask her. She wasn’t surprised when he said, ‘You came from a liveship family. You chose Reyn over your family ship. Reyn and Tintaglia. Could you talk to her for me? Tell her there’s nothing wrong with choosing her own happiness?’

He was so earnest. His eyes were so hopefully fixed on her that she hated to disappoint him. But, ‘It wasn’t that simple, Alum. I did not have a close bond with my family’s ship. Truth to tell, I had little interest in Vivacia. I thought my aunt or my brother would inherit her—’

‘But Selden became Tintaglia’s as well. And Skelly told me that Althea chose Paragon, not her own family ship. So it doesn’t always happen that a liveship trader stays with her own liveship!’

Malta sighed. ‘It was very complicated, Alum. And some of us did not have as much of a say in what we “chose” as you might think. Tintaglia never asked me or Reyn if we wanted to be her Elderlings. She took us. Nor did my elder brother Wintrow want to be bonded to a liveship. Yet he is, and content with it now, I imagine.’

Her heart sank as she thought of her brothers. Wintrow long gone to the Pirate Isles and seldom even visiting Bingtown these days. And Selden, gone Sa knew where. Her mother alone in Bingtown. And all at the whim of dragons and liveships. How little of her life path had been determined by what she thought she had wanted. And now, once more, she and Reyn were separated by a dragon’s decision.

She swung her gaze back to Alum and spoke her truth. ‘There can be much more to a decision than you can know at this stage of your life. Wise or foolish, well thought or on the impulse of a moment, Alum, the decision must belong to Skelly.’