On the other side of him, Etta was talking. “…Hush. Save your strength. Here’s the ladder, this is the last hard bit, my love. Keep breathing…” He could ignore them if he chose. If he ignored them, what could he focus on? What was important now?

He felt Vivacia take him. Oh, yes, this would be best, this would be easiest. He relaxed and tried to let go. He felt the life seeping out of his body, and he hovered, waiting to be gone. But she held him still, cupped in her hands like water, refusing to take him. “Wait,” she whispered to him. “Hold on, just for a moment or two longer. You need to go home, Kennit. You are not mine. You were never mine, and we always knew that. You need to be one once more. Wait. Just a bit longer. Wait.” Then she called aloud, “Paragon. Hurry, hurry. Kennit is yours. Come and take him!”

Paragon? Fear stabbed him. Paragon was lost to him, no more than a boyish ghost now. He had killed him. His own ship could never take him back. He could never go home. Paragon would fling him away, would leave him to sink beneath the sea just as he had-

He knew the touch of the big hands that accepted him. He would have wept, but there were no tears left. He tried to make his mouth move, to speak aloud how sorry he was. “There, there,” someone said comfortingly. Paragon? His father? Someone who loved him said, “Don’t fear. I have you now. I won’t let you go. You will not be hurt anymore.” Then he felt the kiss that absolved him without judgment. “Come back to me,” he said. “Come home.” The darkness was no longer black. It grew silvery and then as Paragon embraced him and took him home he faded into white.

Liveship Traders 3 - Ship of Destiny

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE - Hard Decisions

“COME BELOW SO I CAN BANDAGE THIS,” MALTA INSISTED. “LORDLY ONE, YOU must not take chances with yourself.” She flinched as a rock landed in the water aft of them. She glanced back and Reyn followed her stare. Their aim was getting better. The Jamaillian ships were closing in.

“No. Not yet.” The Satrap clung to the railing and stared down gloatingly. Malta was beside him, pressing a rag to his sword thrust. The Satrap himself refused to touch his wound. Only Malta would do for that duty, but Reyn refused to be jealous. The Satrap clung to her presence as if she anchored his world, yet refused to acknowledge his dependence on her. It amazed him that the man could not hear the falsity in Malta’s sweetness to him. The Satrap leaned forward suddenly and cupped his hands to his mouth so that his shouted words would carry his gleeful satisfaction to the men on the foundering Jamaillian ship.

“Farewell, Lord Criath. Give your good counsels to my white serpent now. I’ll be sure your family in Jamaillia City knows of your bold cries for mercy. What, Ferdio? Not a swimmer? Don’t let it trouble you. You won’t be in the water long, and there’s no need to swim in the serpent’s belly. I mark you, Lord Kreio. Your sons will never see their inheritance. They lose all, not just my Bingtown grants to you but your Jamaillian estates as well. And you, Peaton of Broadhill, oh best of smoking partners! Your forests and orchards will smoke in memory of you! Ah, noble Vesset, will you hide your face in your hands? Do not fear, you will not be overlooked! You leave a daughter, do you not?”

The noble conspirators gazed up at him. Some pleaded, some stood stolidly and some shouted insults back at him. They would all meet the same end. When they had balked at entering the water in the ship’s boats while the serpent prowled so near, the crew had abandoned them. Their distrust of the ship’s boats had been well founded. They were floating wreckage now. Reyn had not seen a single sailor survive.

It was too much for the Rain Wilder. “You mock the dying,” he rebuked the Satrap.

“I mock the traitorous!” the Satrap corrected him savagely. “And my vengeance will be sweet!” he called loudly across the water. Avidly, his eyes tallied the Jamaillian nobles who stood helplessly on the deck of the foundering ship. It was already awash. He muttered names, obviously committing them to memory for later retaliation on their families. Reyn exchanged an incredulous look with Malta. This savage, merciless boy was the Lord High Magnadon Satrap of all Jamaillia? Cosgo opened his mouth again, crying, “Oh, serpent, don’t leave, here’s a tender- Ah!”

He gasped suddenly and bent over his wound.

Malta looked as innocent as a babe as she held the rag firmly to the injury and proclaimed, “Oh, Lord Satrap, you must stop your shouting. Look, it has started your bleeding again. Come, we must go below. Leave them to Sa’s justice.”

“Bleeding again-ah, the treacherous cowards deserve to die more slowly. Kennit was right. He saved me, you know.” Without asking permission, he clutched Reyn’s arm and leaned on him as they tottered him toward the ship’s house. “At the end, Kennit recognized that my survival was more important than his. Brave soul! I defied those traitors, but when they came with the killing thrust, brave Kennit took my death for me. Now there is a name that will be remembered with honor. King Kennit of the Pirate Isles.”