She gave a small laugh that had no joy in it. “In a word, I do not know how to tell you. I have been called a fool as often as I have been called a prophet. I always have known that there were things I must do for the world, things no one else could do. Well. The same is true of every man, I do not doubt. Yet I follow a path I cannot see clearly. There are guides along the way, but I cannot always find them. I set out seeking a slave-boy with nine fingers.” She shook her head. He felt it.

“I found Althea instead, and though she was not a boy nor a slave and had all ten fingers, I felt a connection through her. So I helped her. May the gods forgive me, I helped her seek her death. Then I encountered Malta, and wondered if she was the one I should have been aiding. I reach forward, Paragon, through mists of time to symbols that become people and people who teeter on the verge of legend. There is a task I must do here, but what it is remains cloaked from me. All I can do is push toward it, and hope that when the time comes, I will recognize it and perform the right actions. Although there is little hope of that now.” She took a breath. “Why are there dragons in you?” she demanded.

He felt that she changed the subject, deliberately. He answered her anyway. “Because I was meant to be dragons. What you call wizardwood is actually a protective casing that sea serpents weave about themselves before they begin their change into dragons. The Rain Wild traders came upon encased dragons in the ruins of an ancient city. They killed them, but used the casings, rich with dragon memories, to build ships. Liveships they call us, but we are truly dead. Yet while memory lives, we are doomed to a half-life, trapped in an awkward body that cannot be moved without the aid of humans. I am more unfortunate than most, for two cocoons were used in my construction. From the time I was created, the dragons within me have warred for dominance over each other.” He shook his great head. “I woke too soon, you see. I had not absorbed enough human memories to be strongly centered in them. From the time I first opened my eyes, I have been torn.”

“I do not understand. Why are you Paragon then, and not a dragon?”

He laughed bitterly. “What else do you think Paragon is, save a human veneer of memories over battling dragons? In quarreling with one another for mastery, they allowed me ascendance. When I say ‘I,’ I scarcely know what I mean.” He sighed suddenly. “That was what Kennit gave me, and what I shall miss most. A sense of self. A sense of kinship. When he was aboard me, I had no doubts as to my identity. You see him as blood-shedding pirate. I recall him first as a wild and lively boy, full of joy in the wind and waves. He laughed aloud, swung in the rigging and would not leave me alone. He refused to fear me. He was born aboard me. Can you imagine that? The only birth I have ever known was able to obliterate all the deaths that had gone before it. His father offered him to me, his birth-blood still on his skin. ‘You’ve never been my ship, Paragon. Not in your heart. But perhaps you can be his as he is yours.’ And he was. He kept the dragons at bay. You, you have loosed them, and now we must all bear the consequences.”

“They seem quiet. Dormant,” Amber ventured. “You seem very much yourself, only more-open.”

“Exactly. Cracked open and leaking my secrets. What are you doing?” He had thought she was inspecting for fire damage. He had expected her to spider along his hull, not walk all over his body.

“Keeping my word, to you and to the dragons. I’m going to carve some eyes for you. I’m trying to decide where to begin to repair this.”

“Don’t.”

“Are you sure?” Amber asked him quietly. He sensed her dismay. She had promised this to the dragons. What would she do if Paragon forbade it now?

“No. I mean, don’t repair my face. Give me a new one. One that is all of me.”

For a mercy, she did not ask him what he meant by that. She only asked, “Are you sure?”

He pondered a moment. “I think… I do not want to be a dragon. That is, I do, but I wish to be both of them, if I must. And yet to be Paragon as well. To be, as you said, three merged into one. I want…” He hesitated. If he said it and she laughed, it would be worse than death, as life was always sharper and harder than death. “Give me a face you could love,” he quietly beseeched her.

She went still and soft in his hands. The tension he had sensed thrumming through her muscles went away. He felt her do something, and then her bared hands danced lightly over his face. By her touch, she both measured him, and opened herself. Skin to skin, she hid from him no longer. He touched enough to know it was the bravest thing she had ever done. He stifled his curiosity and tried to reciprocate her trust. He did not reach into her and plunder her of her secrets. He would wait, and take only what she offered him.