He spoke firmly to Vivacia. “You know the boy is aboard. You caught us up and saved us yourself. You saw him taken aboard. Do you think I would lie to you, and say he lived if he did not?”

“No,” she replied heavily. “I know you would not lie to me. Moreover, I believe that if he had died, I would know of it.” She shook her head savagely and her heavy hair flew with her denial. “We have been so closely linked for so long. I cannot convey to you how it feels to know he is aboard, and yet to have no sense of him. It is as if a part of myself had been cloven away….”

Her voice dwindled. She had forgotten to whom she spoke. Kennit leaned more heavily on his makeshift crutch. He tapped his peg loudly thrice upon her deck. “Do you think I cannot imagine what you feel?” he asked her.

“I know you can,” she conceded. “Ah, Kennit, what I cannot express is how alone I am without him. Every evil dream, every malicious imagining that has ever haunted me ventures from the corners of my mind. They gibber and mock me. Their sly taunting eats away at my sense of who I am.” She lifted her great wizardwood hands to her temples and pressed her palms there. “So often I have told myself that I no longer need Wintrow. I know who I am. And I believe I am far greater than he could ever grasp.” She gave a sigh of exasperation. “He can be so irritating. He mouths platitudes and ponders theology at me until I swear I would be happier without him. However, when he is not with me, and I have to confront who I truly am…” She shook her head again, wordlessly.

She began again. “When I got the serpent’s slime from the gig onto my hands-” Her words halted. When she spoke again, it was in an altered voice. “I am frightened. There is a terrible dread in me, Kennit.” She twisted suddenly, to look at him over one bare shoulder. “I fear the truth that lurks inside me, Kennit. I fear the whole of my identity. I have a face I wear to show the world, but there is more to me than that. There are other faces concealed in me. I sense a past behind my past. If I do not guard against it, I fear it will leap out and change all I am. Yet, it makes no sense. How could I be someone other than who I am now? How can I fear myself? I don’t understand how I could feel such a thing. Do you?”

Kennit tightened his arms across his chest and lied. “I think you are prone to flights of fancy, my sea lady. No more than that. Perhaps you feel a bit guilty. I know that I chide myself for taking Wintrow to the Others’ Island where he was exposed to such danger. For you, it must be sharper. You have been distant with him of late. I know that I have come between you and Wintrow. Pardon me if I do not regret that. Now that you have been faced with the possibility of losing him, you appreciate the hold he still has on you. You wonder what would become of you if he died. Or left.”

Kennit shook his head at her and gave her a wry smile. “I fear you still do not trust me. I have told you, I will be with you always, to the end of my days. Yet still you cling to him as the only one worthy to partner you.” Kennit paused, then ventured a gambit to see how she would react. “I think we should use this time to prepare for when Wintrow will leave us. Fond as we are of him, we both know his heart is not here, but at his monastery. The time will come when, if we truly love him, we must let him go. Do you not agree?”

Vivacia turned away to stare out over the sea. “I suppose so.”

“My lovely water-flower, why cannot you allow me to fill his place with you?”

“Blood is memory,” Vivacia said sadly. “Wintrow and I share both blood and memories.”

It was painful, for he ached in every limb, but Kennit lowered himself slowly to her deck. He put his hand flat on the bloodstain that still held the outline of his hip and leg. “My blood,” he said quietly. “I lay here while my leg was cut from my body. My blood soaked into you. I know you shared memories with me then.”

“I did. And again, when you died. Yet-” She paused, then complained, “Even unconscious, you hid yourself from me. You shared what you chose to reveal, Kennit. The rest you cloaked in mystery and shadow, denying those memories even existed.” She shook her massive head. “I love you, Kennit, but I do not know you. Not as Wintrow and I know one another. I hold the memories of three generations of his family line. His blood has soaked me as well. We are like two trees sprung from a single root.” She took a sudden breath. “I do not know you,” she repeated. “If I truly knew you, I would understand what happened when you returned from Others’ Island. The winds and sea itself seemed to answer to your command. A serpent bowed to your will. I do not understand how such a thing could be, yet I witnessed it. Nor do you see fit to explain it to me.” Very softly, she asked him, “How can I put my trust in a man who does not trust me?”