Why not?

Hadn’t Althea also turned away from her family, with far less provocation?

A horrible mixture of jealousy, disappointment and betrayal swept through her. So must a wife feel who discovers her husband’s unfaithfulness. So must a parent feel when a daughter becomes a whore. How could Vivacia have done so? And how could Althea have failed her so badly? What would become of her beautiful misguided ship now? Could they ever be as they were before, one heart, one spirit, moving over the sea before the wind?

Paragon ranted on, threats to the pirate and pleas that they give him the prisoner, he would wring the truth out of him, yes, he’d make him speak true of that bastard Kennit. Althea scarcely heard him. Brashen took her elbow. “You look as if you will faint,” he said in a low voice. “Can you walk away? Keep your dignity in front of the crew?”

His words were her final undoing. She wrenched free of him. “Don’t touch me,” she snarled low. Dignity, she cautioned herself, dignity, but it was all she could do to keep from shrieking at him like a fishwife. He stepped back from her, appalled, and she saw the briefest flash of anger deep in his dark eyes. She drew herself up, fighting for control.

Fighting, she suddenly knew, to separate her emotions from Paragon’s.

She turned back toward the prisoner and the figurehead, a fraction of an instant too late. Lavoy had hauled the pirate to his feet, and was holding him against the railing. The threats were twin: that Lavoy would simply push him overboard, bound as he was, or that the mate would strike him. The man’s face was reddened on one cheek; there had been at least one blow. Amber had hold of Lavoy’s drawn-back arm. She suddenly looked surprisingly tall. For a woman so willowy to have the strength to hold Lavoy’s arm back surprised Althea. Amber’s expression seemed to have turned Lavoy to stone. The look on Lavoy’s face was not fear; whatever he saw in Amber’s eyes moved him beyond fear. Too late, Althea saw the real threat.

Paragon had twisted to his full limit. His hand reached, groping blindly.

“No!” Althea cried, but the big wooden fingers had found the prisoner. Paragon plucked him easily from Lavoy’s grip. The pirate screamed and Amber’s shout of, “Oh, Paragon, no, no, no!” cut through his cries.

Paragon turned away from them, clenching the pirate in his hands before him. He hunched his shoulders over the stolen prisoner like a child devouring a stolen sweetmeat. He was fiercely muttering something to the hapless man as he shook him back and forth like a rag doll, but all Althea could hear was Amber’s pleading, “Paragon. Please, Paragon.”

“Ship! Return that man to the deck at once!” Brashen roared. The snap of ultimate command was in his voice but Paragon did not even flinch. Althea found herself clutching the railing in both hands as she leaned forward desperately. “No!” she begged the ship, but if the figurehead heard her, he gave no sign. Near her, Lavoy watched, his teeth white in a gritted grimace, his eyes strangely avid. Paragon darted his face down close to the man he clutched tight in both hands. For one horrific instant, Althea feared he would bite his head off. Instead, he froze as if listening intently. Then, “No!” he shrieked. “Kennit never said that! He never said he always dreamed of having his own liveship. You lie! You lie!” He shook the man back and forth. Althea heard the snapping of bones. The man screamed, and Paragon suddenly flung him away. His body cartwheeled in the bright sunlight, then bit into the flashing sea abruptly. There was a slap of flesh against water. Then he was gone. The chains on his ankles pulled what was left of him down.

Althea stared dully at the spot where he had vanished. He had done it. Paragon had killed again.

“Oh, ship,” Brashen groaned deep beside her.

Paragon swiveled his head to stare at them blindly. He curled his fists and held them in toward his chest as if that would hide his deed. His voice was that of a frightened and defiant boy as he declared, “I made him tell. Divvytown. We’ll find Kennit in Divvytown. He always liked Divvytown.” He scowled blindly at the silence of the folk gathered on the foredeck. “Well, that was what you wanted, wasn’t it? To find out where Kennit was? That’s all I did. I made him talk.”

“That you did, laddie,” Lavoy observed gruffly. Even he seemed daunted by Paragon’s action. He shook his head slowly. In a quiet voice, pitched only for the humans, he added, “I didn’t believe he’d do it.”

“Yes, you did,” Amber contradicted him flatly. She stared at Lavoy with eyes that seared. “That was why you put the man within Paragon’s reach. So he could take him. Because you wanted him dead, like the other prisoners.” Amber turned her head suddenly, to stare at the Tattooed ones of the crew who stood silently watching. “You were in on it. You knew what he would do, but you did nothing. That’s what he’s brought out in you. The worst of what slavery could have done to you.” Her glance snapped back to the mate. “You’re a monster, Lavoy. Not just for what you did to that man, but for what you’ve wakened in the ship. You’re trying to make him a brute like yourself.”