‘Jess is here?’

A simple question. If he answered it truthfully, how would Carson react? He looked at him wordlessly. No lie came to him and he didn’t dare tell the truth. He fingered the massive bruise on the side of his face as he tried to decide where to begin. Carson’s deep eyes were fixed on his. A furrow had begun to show between his brows and his mouth was suspicious. Talk. Say something.

‘He wanted to kill Relpda. Cut her up into parts, take the parts to Chalced and sell them.’

For a long moment, Carson was silent. Then he nodded slowly. ‘That sounds like something Jess was capable of doing. Sounds like what he was trying to get Greft to persuade the keepers to do. So what happened?’

‘We fought. I hit him with the hatchet.’

‘And I ate him.’ There was satisfaction in Relpda’s quiet rumble.

The copper distracted Carson completely from what Sedric had said. His head swivelled to face her. ‘You ate him? You ate Jess?’ He was incredulous.

‘It’s what dragons do,’ she replied defensively. Sedric’s own words, coming out of her mouth.

Sedric found himself justifying it. ‘Jess wanted me to help him trick her into keeping still while he killed her. I wouldn’t. So he stabbed her with a spear and then came after me. Carson, he was going to kill her and cut her up and sell her. And he didn’t care if he had to kill me first to do it.’

The hunter’s head swivelled back to regard Sedric incredulously. His eyes wandered over Sedric, his bruised face and battered condition, assigning new meaning to what he saw. Sedric felt his muscles tighten as he faced that gaze, fearing that soon it would turn to judgment and condemnation. Instead, he saw disbelief slowly become admiring amazement.

‘Jess was one of the nastiest fellows I’d ever had to work alongside. He had a reputation for being a dirty fighter, the kind that didn’t stop even after the other fellow was willing to give in. And you stood up to him for your dragon?’ He glanced over at Relpda. Nothing remained of the elk carcass. She’d eaten it all.

‘I had to,’ Sedric said quietly.

‘And you won?’

Sedric just looked at him. ‘I’m not sure I’d describe it as winning.’

The comment surprised a guffaw out of Carson. Then Relpda intruded.

‘And I ate him. Sedric fed him to me.’ She seemed to savour the memory.

‘That isn’t exactly what happened,’ Sedric hastily interposed. ‘I never intended for that to happen. Though I’ll admit that at the time, what I mostly felt was relief. Because I wasn’t sure if anything else would have stopped him.’

‘And Jess is what happened to your face, then?’

Sedric lifted a hand to his jaw. His cheekbone was still tender, and the swollen inside of his cheek kept snagging on his teeth. But he felt almost strangely proud of his injury now. ‘Yes, it was Jess. I’d never been hit in the face like that before.’

Carson gave a brief snort of laughter. ‘Wish I could say that! I’ve caught plenty of fists with my face. Though I’m truly sorry to see it happen to yours.’

Almost timidly, the hunter put out a large hand. The touch of his rough fingers on Sedric’s face was gentle. Sedric was shocked that such a slight brush against his cheek could send such a rush of feeling through him. The fingers pressed gently around his eyes socket and then the line of his cheekbones. He sat very still, wondering if there would be more, wondering how he would react if there was. But Carson dropped his hand and turned his face away, saying hoarsely, ‘Nothing’s broken, I don’t think. You should heal.’ A moment later, he fed another stick to the fire-pot. ‘We should get some sleep soon if we’re going to get up early.’

‘Jess said Leftrin was in on it.’ Sedric blurted the statement out, letting it be its own question.

‘In on what?’

‘Killing dragons and selling off the parts. Teeth, blood, scales. He said that whoever had sent him had said that Leftrin would be willing to help him.’

Carson’s dark gaze grew troubled. ‘And did he?’

‘No. That was part of Jess’ complaint. He seemed to feel Leftrin had cheated him.’

Carson’s expression lightened somewhat. ‘That seems likely to me. I’ve known Leftrin a long time. And over the years, once or twice, he’s been involved in a few things that I found, well, questionable. But slaughtering dragons and selling off their bodies? No. To Chalced? Never. There are a number of reasons why I couldn’t imagine him getting involved with something like that. Tarman being the big one.’ His brow wrinkled as he stared into his fire. ‘Still, it would be interesting to know why Jess thought he would.’

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 suddenly felt childish and ashamed. Over in the other boat, a hatchet was probably rusting from its immersion in the bloody bilge water. 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 to himself. 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 Wilds 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.

He passed Alise’s door. No light shone from under it. Doubtless she was asleep. If she had wanted his company, she would have lingered at the galley table. She hadn’t. She’d vanished immediately after dinner. He’d hoped that she would stay. He faced that fading hope frankly. It would have been the first and only night that they’d been together on board his ship without Sedric’s presence as a reminder of who and what she was. He had hoped to steal this one night from her Bingtown life and possess it as something of their own.

But she’d excused herself from the table and vanished into her own room.

What did that mean?

Probably that she was a lot smarter than he was. Which, he told himself, he’d known all along. What intelligent man would want to share harness with a woman stupider than himself? His Alise was smart, and he knew it. Not just educated but intelligent.