He shook his head, then stood up slowly, rolling his shoulders as he did so. He was surprisingly graceful for his size, catching his balance easily as he stepped down into his small boat. His own blanket was neatly stowed, folded, and shoved high under the seat out of the damp. Sedric still clutched the damp and wrinkled blanket Carson had tossed at him. He looked at Carson’s boat, at every item in a precise location, and he suddenly felt childish and ashamed. Over in the other boat, a hatchet was probably rusting from its immersion in the bloody bilgewater. Carson had arrived and had seen to every need that he and the dragon had, without a single wasted movement. Sedric hadn’t even remembered to spread his blanket out to dry.

He wondered how Carson saw him. Incompetent? Self-indulgent? Rich and spoiled? I’m not truly any of those things, he thought. I’m just out of my place right now. If we were back in Bingtown, and he came to where I was helping Hest prepare to negotiate a trade, he’d see what I truly am. Carson would be the incompetent and useless one there. Then even that thought seemed self-indulgent and spoiled, a child’s wish to show off for someone he desired to impress. What did it matter what Carson thought of him? When had he begun to care what an ignorant Rain Wild hunter thought of him?

He shook out the smelly blanket and slung it around his shoulders. Within its shelter, he sat hugging himself. And thinking.

NIGHT WAS FULL dark around Tarman. Captain Leftrin walked his decks. The night sky was a black strip sprinkled with glittering stars. To one side of the barge, the river stretched out to an invisible distant shore. On the other side the forest loomed, making the barge small. At the foot of the forest, on a narrow muddy bank, the dragons slept. On the roof of the deckhouse, laid out in neat rows as if they were corpses, the keepers slept. And Leftrin was awake.

Swarge was supposed to be on watch, but he’d sent him off to his bed. The entire crew was asleep. The river was down, Tarman was safely snugged on mud for the night, and his crew deserved a rest. It would be the first full night of sleep any of them had had since the wave hit. They all needed the rest. Everyone needed to sleep.

Even Alise. That was why she had sought her room early. She was exhausted still. He began another slow circuit of the decks. He didn’t need to walk laps around his ship. All was safe and calm now. He could have gone off to his own bunk and slept and left Tarman to watch for himself. No one would fault him for that.