Wintrow lifted his chin. “I must. Not for you, not for the ship. For myself. I owe myself that honesty.”

“But what of Father?” Malta demanded in a low agonized voice. “Althea, I beg you, consider that. If not for his children, for Keffria, your sister. Whatever you think of Kyle, please do not endanger my father’s return to us. Hold back your hand from Kennit, for at least that long-“

A LONG LOW SOUND SUDDENLY TRAVELED THROUGH THE SHIP. ALTHEA HEARD IT with her ears, but her bones shook with the sound. A meaning she could almost grasp ran along her skin, leaving goosebumps in its wake. She forgot all else, reaching after it.

“It’s Vivacia,” Wintrow said needlessly.

Malta got a distant look. “She calls the serpents,” she said softly.

Althea stared at Malta, as did Wintrow. Her eyes were wide and dark.

In the silence that followed, a long snore sounded from the Satrap’s bunk. Malta jerked as if awakening, then gave a small sour laugh. “It sounds as if I may now speak freely, without interruptions, corrections and accusations of treachery.” To Althea’s surprise, Malta swiped at sudden tears, smearing the paint from her face. She drew a shuddering breath. Then she tugged off her gloves, revealing hands scalded scarlet. She snatched her headwrap off and threw it down. A shocking ridge of bright red scar began high on her brow and stood up well into her hairline. “Get the staring part over with,” she ordered them in a harsh hopeless voice. “And then I will speak….” Her voice broke suddenly. “There is so much. What happened to me is the least of it. Bingtown is destroyed; when last I saw it, fires smoldered and fighting was widespread.”

Althea watched her niece as she spoke. Malta spared them nothing. Her tale was in its details, but she spoke swiftly, the words tumbling from her lips, her voice soft. Althea felt the tears run down her cheeks at news of Davad Restart’s death; the strength of her reaction surprised her, but what followed left her numbed and reeling. The rumors of unrest in Bingtown were suddenly a personal disaster. She was devastated when she realized Malta had no idea if her grandmother or Selden still lived.

Malta spoke of Bingtown and Trehaug with detachment, an old woman telling quaint stories of her vanished youth. Emotionlessly, she told her brother of her arranged marriage to Reyn Khuprus, of fleeing to his family in Trehaug when Bingtown fell, of the curiosity that had drawn her into the buried city and the quake that had nearly claimed her life. Once, Malta would have made an extravagance of such a tale, but now she simply recounted it. When Malta spoke of Reyn, Althea suspected the young Rain Wilder had won her niece’s heart. Personally, she felt Malta was still too young to make such decisions.

Yet as Malta spoke on, her voice hushed and hurrying through her days with the Satrap, Althea realized the girl faced the world as a woman. Her experiences aboard the galley left Althea shuddering. Malta laughed, a terrible sound, at how her disfigurement had preserved her from worse treatment. By the time Malta finished, Althea loathed the Satrap, yet understood the value Malta placed on him. She doubted he would keep his promises to her, but it impressed Althea that even in her time of danger, Malta had thought of her home and family and done all she could for them.

Truly, the girl had grown up. Althea recalled ashamedly that she had once felt that some hardship would improve Malta. Undoubtedly she had been improved, but the cost had been high. The skin on her hands looked as coarse as a chicken’s foot. The cicatrix on her head was a monstrous thing, shocking in both color and size. But beyond the physical scarring, she sensed a dulling of her high spirits. The girlchild’s elaborate dreams of a romantic future had been replaced with a woman’s determination to survive tomorrow. It felt like a loss to Althea.

“At least you are with us now,” Althea offered her when Malta finished. She had wanted to say, “Safe with us,” but Malta was no longer a little girl to be cozened with falsehoods.

“I wonder for how long,” Malta replied miserably. “For where he goes, I must follow, until I am sure he is safely restored to power, and that he will keep his word to me. Otherwise, all this has been for nothing. Yet, if I leave you here, will I ever see you again? Althea, at least, must find a way to get off this ship and away from Kennit.”

Althea shook her head with a sad smile. “I cannot leave my ship with him, Malta,” she said quietly. “No matter what.”

Malta turned aside from her. Her chin trembled for an instant, but then she spoke harshly. “The ship. Always the ship, distorting our family, demanding every sacrifice. Have you ever imagined how different our lives would have been if Great-great-grandmother had never bargained our lives away for this thing?”