It had all been so new to her. She wondered if she had been wanton or only womanly. Had they behaved like animals toward each other, or was this how people who loved each other touched and tasted and devoured each other? She felt as if she’d experienced it all for the first time.

Perhaps she had.

She closed her eyes. Thoughts of Sedric’s fate, of Hest in Bingtown, of her proper friends and her mother’s pride, and of her eventual return to that life threatened her.

“No.” She spoke aloud. “Not tonight.”

She closed her eyes and slept.

HE STOOD BAREFOOT on his deck, looking out over the shore. His shoes were in his hand. “Tarman, what are you about?” he asked his ship quietly.

The response that came was enigmatic. He didn’t hear it. He felt it as much through his bare soles on the deck as he did in his heart. The ship was keeping his own counsel.

He tried again. “Tarman, I know that dream. I thought it was mine. Something you wanted me to see.”

This time there was a shiver of assent in the air. A shiver, and then silence.

“Ship?” he queried.

But nothing responded. And after a time, carrying his shoes, the captain of the Tarman sought his berth.

CARSON HAD ROPED the small boats together. That was humiliating, as if he were riding a horse that someone led, but Sedric appreciated how sensible it was. So instead of protesting it, he had devoted his efforts to seeing that the line between the two stayed slack. He was willing to admit that he was incompetent at keeping a small boat out of the main current and moving upstream in a river. He was not willing to admit that he didn’t have the strength to row his own boat and must be towed back to the barge.

There was a price to pay for that pride, and he was paying it now. Every stroke of the oars had become an effort. His hands had blistered, the blisters had popped and run, and now he gripped raw flesh to bare wood. Carson turned his head and shouted back to him. “Not much farther to go now! Everyone will be glad to see you and the dragon and the boat! Losing it was a significant loss.”