No! No, you are not! Althea asserted it fiercely. She fought the ship’s plunge to nothingness, even though to do so thwarted her own desire for oblivion. You are made of life and beauty, and the dreams of my family for a hundred years. You are made of wind, water and wide blue days. My beauty, my pride, you must not die. If all else fails, if darkness devours all I was, you, at least, must go on. She opened both heart and mind to her ship, and flooded her with memories: her father’s deep booming laugh, and the proud moment when she had first taken the wheel into her own hands. A sun-swept vista from the crow’s nest, the horrific poetry of looking up at waves in a storm. You cannot end with me, Althea insisted fiercely. For if you do, all this dies with you. All this beauty, all this life. How can you claim to be made of death? It was not his death my father poured into you, but the summation of his life. How can you be made of death, when it was inheriting his life that quickened you?

Stillness beyond silence encompassed them both. Somewhere, Althea was aware, her body failed. Cold and dark clutched at her thoughts, but she clung to awareness, waiting for her ship to surrender and promise to go on.

And you? Vivacia asked her suddenly.

I die, my dear. It is too late for me. My body is poisoned, and so is my spirit. Nothing good is left to me.

Not even me?

Oh, my heart, you are always good in my life. Althea found a truth she had not suspected. If by living I could restore you, I would. But I fear it is too late to change my mind. When Althea reached toward her own flesh, she found only lethargy and cold.

Then you condemn me to this darkness. For without you, I have neither the strength nor the will to fight my way past her and take back my life. Will you leave me here, forever alone in the dark?

All thoughts were stilled for a time.

You have the courage to follow me into death, ship?

I do.

The profound wrongness of that gripped Althea. It was not courage to surrender to that oblivion, conceding the world to those who had wronged them. Sudden shame swept her at her cowardly flight from life. Death could make things stop, but it could not make things right. She abruptly despised herself for surrendering to death while the one who had destroyed her life went on living, for embracing death if it meant leaving her ship in darkness.

Then pick up your true courage, ship, and follow me back into life. She reached for her body, but was suddenly reminded of her time under water. How she had struggled then, trying to claw her way up through icy water. This was worse. The tides of death offered no purchase for her desperate effort. Her own body denied her presence.

Breath was stopped. Her erratic heartbeat felt like an interruption. In the timeless dark, she reached for consciousness, but could not find it. Her sense of her body became ever more tentative as her self came uncentered, and her will to live frayed. Her awareness spread wide and began to vanish in the same limitless dark that trapped Vivacia. Althea searched for more strength to draw on but found nothing within herself. Vivacia, she pleaded. Ship, help me!

Silence. Then, Take all I have left. 1 hope it will be enough.

Ship, no, wait!

Althea! Hit the deck now! Her father’s familiar command boomed through her mind. In reflexive response, her body jerked, and she was falling. The wooden deck slammed against her, plank against flesh. Eyes and mouth jolted open with the impact. Tiny lights. Stars caught in a circle of porthole. She lay on her back, gasping like a fish. She rolled onto her side and vomited. The stuff was bitter and choking, clotting in her mouth and spewing from her nose. Reflex took over. She sneezed and then gasped.

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Wood to flesh, a distant voice counted the rhythm for her, Vivacia steadied the beating of her heart. The ship was joined to her, but the connection was tenuous and fading fast. Even so, it was not just Althea’s body she labored to heal, but her heart. Oh, my dear, my dear. 1 never thought he would do something like this to you. I misjudged him. I misjudged you. I even misjudged myself. The thought died away.

Althea blinked. She felt terrible. Bile had scoured her throat and the inside of her mouth. There was a deep ache inside her. She sneezed again. Her body went on working. She voluntarily took a deep breath, then pressed her palms flat to the deck. Pain. It was so wonderful to feel pain again, to feel anything again.

“So, Vivacia,” she croaked. “We’re going to live?”

There was no reply, and only wood beneath her palms.

Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN - Key Island

TRUE TO HIS OWN COMMAND, PARAGON HAD SAILED WITH THE TIDE. NOT elegantly, not smoothly, but when the rising water lifted him off the sands, the spliced lines raised his patched sails on his raw timber rigging. Half of his depleted crew bore injuries, great or small, and many were disheartened, but they sailed.