Rather like Hest.

That thought ambushed him, breaking the pattern of his rowing. He stared straight ahead, trying to decide if he had just discovered something or was only indulging his anger at Hest yet again. Then the rope between the two small boats went tight, jolting him back on the seat and causing Carson to look back at him. The hunter allowed the river to push him back alongside Sedric’s boat. “You’re tired? If you’re tired, we can pull over to the trees for a time.” The brown eyes were full of sympathy. He knew that Sedric was unaccustomed to physical labor. That morning, he’d offered to let Sedric just sit in his boat while Carson did all the rowing and towed the other boat behind them.

He longed to do just that. Just admit that he was a weakling and not fit to survive out here. “No, I was just scratching my nose. Sorry!”

“Well, let me know if you need a rest.” Carson simply stated the possibility. Sedric looked for mockery behind the words and found none. The hunter pulled on his oars again, drawing his boat ahead.

Sedric leaned into his rowing again. Carson had turned his gaze back to the river. He watched the man’s back and tried to copy the way he moved his oars. His broad shoulders and muscular arms moved steadily with the seeming ease of an animal breathing. As he rowed, his head made small movements, watching the water, the passing trees, the dragon, the water. He was like the dragon, Sedric realized. He had his mind on what he was doing, and did it well, and that was enough for him. Sedric knew a moment of pure envy. Would that his own life was that simple.

Could it be?

Of course not.

His own life was a mess. He was out here, far from where he could be successful at anything. He’d taken blood from a dragon, and worse, he’d tasted it, and now he knew the lowness of what he’d done, and what he’d contemplated doing. How could he ever have imagined that they were simply animals, like a pig or a sheep, to be slaughtered as a man pleased? He thought of the bargain he’d struck with that merchant Begasti and shuddered. As soon he would traffic in a child’s heart or the fingers of a woman!

And here was where that ill-founded plan had brought him. He was far from home, and getting farther away every day. His plan for becoming an incredibly wealthy man and spiriting himself and Hest away from Bingtown seemed more unlikely and reprehensible every moment.

He tried to bring that fantasy back to life. He imagined himself and Hest in a beautifully appointed room, regarding each other over a table laden with a perfectly prepared meal. In his dream, there had always been tall doors open to a fragrant garden illuminated by the setting sun. In his dream, an astounded Hest was always demanding to know how he had acquired all this for them, while Sedric leaned back in a chair, a glass of wine in his hand, and silently smiled.

He imagined it all in detail, the laden sideboard, the wine in his glass, the silk shirt, and the birds calling as they flitted from bush to tree in the evening garden. He could recall every bit of his dream, but he could not make it move, could no longer hear Hest’s intrigued and eager questions, could no longer make his own face smile as he would have smiled and shaken his head, refusing all answers. It had become unruly, a dream turned to nightmare in which he knew that Hest would have had too much to drink, and that he had refused the fish as overcooked and leeringly commented on the serving boy who came to clear the dishes. The real Hest would have asked him if he’d whored himself out on the streets to get this money. The real Hest would disdain whatever Sedric presented, would have criticized the wine, found the house too ostentatious to be tasteful, would have complained that the food was too rich.

The Hest of his dreams had been replaced by the man Hest had steadily become over the last two years, the mocking, sour Hest, the impossible-to-please Hest, the domineering Hest who had banished him here for daring to disagree with him. The Hest who had begun to bludgeon him, more and more often, with reminders that the money they spent was Hest’s, that Hest fed him, clothed him, and gave him a place to sleep at night. What had Sedric thought? That by becoming the source of the wealth and taking control of it, he could make Hest go back to the man he had thought he was?

Or had he wanted to become Hest, to be the man in charge?

His oars dug deeply into the water. His back and neck and shoulders and arms all ached. His hands burned. But not even that pain could drown out the truth. From the beginning, from their very first time together, Hest had enjoyed dominating him. Always, he had sent for Sedric, and Sedric had come to him. The man had never been tender, never kind or considerate. He’d laughed at the bruises he’d left on Sedric, and Sedric had bowed his head and smiled ruefully, accepting such treatment as his due. Hest had never really gone too far, of course. Except for that one time, when he had been drunk, and Sedric had enraged him by trying to help him up the stairs of the inn. That one time, he’d been truly violent and drawn blood when he struck him. He’d fallen down the stairs. But only that one time—and the time when, in vengeance because Sedric had not agreed with him that a merchant had deliberately cheated him but suggested it was only an error, Hest had left the inn in a carriage without him, forcing Sedric to run through the most dangerous part of a rough Chalcedean town in order to board the ship minutes before it sailed. Hest had never apologized for that, only mocked him to the merriment of several of the fellows traveling with them.