Kai had tired of it all in her first week of bed rest with nothing to do but watch the sea beat again and again on Kavekana’s sand. Boring, and worse, a reminder of her own atrophy. No doubt the nurses thought the physical therapy they guided her through each day would help, but to Kai it felt like a joke. Raise this arm, lower it, raise it again. No weights, no failure sets, no rage, no fight, no victory. If it hurts, tell me and we’ll stop. The first time she tried not to tell them, they threatened to give her even easier exercises unless she cooperated. Not that she could imagine easier exercises. Perhaps they would devise a system to help raise her arm, some elaborate contraption of counterweights and pulleys.

She set her newspaper aside and watched Mara’s back. Her dress was the kind of blue desert folk said skies were: dry and pale and distant. A curve of calf peeked out beneath her skirt’s drifting hem. Whatever bravery brought Mara here had given out, or else the scenery had crushed her into silence.

“If my mother saw you like this,” Kai said, “she’d have you lacquered and mounted on a ship’s prow.”

“Do they do that? Living ships?”

“I think someone made real ones back in the God Wars, for the siege of Alt Selene. Forget whose side it was, or whether they kept the spirit’s source body on ice for later. Probably not. It was a rough war. So I hear.”

“I feel like that, sometimes. Don’t you?”

“Mounted? Only on a good day.”

She laughed, without sound. Kai could tell by her shoulders’ shake. “No. Like those bowsprit figures, I mean.” When Mara turned from the view, Kai saw she wore a blush of makeup. Interesting. She’d come armored. “Other people trim the sails and turn the wheel and the ships go where they want. The bowsprit woman’s stuck. She’s the ship’s point. Whatever danger they meet, she meets it first. She can’t even mutiny, or leave.”

“Maybe she does,” Kai said. “Maybe she bails, and takes the ship with her. Breaks it on rocks. Dashes it to pieces in a storm.”

“Hell of a choice. Live imprisoned or kill everyone you know breaking free.”

“Is it life if you’re trapped inside it?”

“As long as you’re breathing, that’s life.”

Kai touched her chest through the stiff scratchy gown. “I’m breathing now. I don’t know if I’m alive. Don’t feel alive wearing this thing, anyway.”

“It looks good on you.”

“There hasn’t been a person made that a hospital gown looks good on. They say I’ll have my own clothes back next week, Seconday probably.”

“That long?”