She looked at him oddly. “I didn’t mean you should return to your monastery. Only that you should start being a priest again.”

“Here? On the ship? Why?”

“Why not? You once told me that if a man is meant to be a priest, nothing could divert him from that. It will happen to him, no matter where he is. That perhaps Sa had put you here because there was something you were meant to do here. Destiny, and all that.”

She spoke his words flippantly, but beneath her tone he heard a desperate hope.

“But why?” he repeated. “Why do you urge me to do this now?”

She turned aside from him. “Perhaps I miss the way you used to talk. How you used to argue that there was meaning and structure to all that happened, even if we could not immediately perceive it. There was a comfort to hearing you say that, even if I couldn’t completely believe it. About destiny and all.”

Her hand strayed to her breast, then pulled away. He knew what she flinched from touching. In a small bag about her neck, she wore the charm from Others’ Island, the figurine of a baby. She had shown it to him while he was still recovering from his “miracle cure.” He had sensed how important it was to Etta but had not given it any serious thought since then. Obviously, she had. She considered the odd charm as an omen of some kind. Perhaps if Wintrow believed that the Others were truly soothsayers and prophets, he would share her opinion, but he didn’t. Likely, a trick of winds and tides carried all manner of debris to the beach, and her charm among it. As for the Others themselves, the serpent he had freed had imprinted her opinion of them on him.

Abominations. Her precise meaning had not been clear, but her horror and loathing was plain. They should never have been. They were thieves of a past not their own, with no power to foretell the future. The charm Etta had found in her boot was a mere coincidence, of no more portent than the sand that had been with it.

He could not share his opinion with Etta without affronting her.

Affronting her could be painful. He began carefully, “I still believe that every creature has a unique and significant destiny.”

She leapt to it before he could approach it gently. “It could be my destiny to bear Kennit’s child: to bring into being a prince for the King of the Pirate Isles.”

“It might also be your destiny not to,” he pointed out.

Displeasure flashed across her face, replaced by impassivity. He had hurt her. “That is what you believe, then.”

He shook his head. “No, Etta. I have no beliefs, either way. I am simply saying that you should not lock your dreams onto a child or a man. Who loves you or who you love is not as significant as who you are. Too many folk, women and men, love the person they wish to be, as if by loving that person, or being loved by that person, they could attain the importance they long for.

“I am not Sa. I lack his almighty wisdom. But I think you are more likely to find Etta’s destiny in Etta, rather than hoping Kennit will impregnate you with it.”

Anger writhed over her face. Then she sat still, anger still glinting in her eyes, but with it a careful consideration of his words. Finally, she observed gruffly, “It’s hard to take offense at your saying that I might be important for myself.” Her eyes met his squarely. “I might consider it a compliment. Except that it’s hard to believe you are sincere, when you obviously don’t believe the same is true of yourself.”

She continued into his stunned silence, “You haven’t lost your belief in Sa. You’ve lost your belief in yourself. You speak to me of measuring myself by my significance to Kennit. But you do the same. You evaluate your purpose in terms of Vivacia or Kennit. Pick up your own life, Wintrow, and be responsible for it. Then, perhaps, you may be significant to them.”

Like a key turning in a rusty lock. That was the sensation inside him. Or perhaps like a wound that bleeds anew past a closed crust, he thought wryly. He sifted her words, searching for a flaw in her logic, for a trick in her wording. There was none. She was right. Somehow, sometime, he had abdicated responsibility for his life. His hard-won meditations, the fruit of another lifetime of studying and Berandol’s guidance, had become platitudes he mouthed without applying them to himself. He suddenly recalled a callow boy telling his tutor that he dreaded the sea voyage home, because he would have to be among common men rather than thoughtful acolytes like himself. What had he said to Berandol? “Good enough men, but not like us.” Then, he had despised the sort of life where simply getting from day to day prevented a man from ever taking stock of himself. Berandol had hinted to him then that a time out in the world might change his image of folk who labored every day for their bread. Had it? Or had it changed his image of acolytes who spent so much time in self-examination that they never truly experienced life?