Some time short of dawn, she’d wakened him. ‘We should go back to our own beds,’ she whispered.

He gave a long sigh of resignation. ‘In a minute,’ he lied. He stroked her hair, twined a lock of it around his finger. It tugged gently, pleasantly against her scalp.

‘I had a dream,’ she heard herself say.

‘Did you? So did I. It was nice.’

Alise smiled into the darkness. ‘I dreamed of Kelsingra. It was a strange dream, Leftrin. I think I was a dragon in my dream. Because I saw the city, well, as if it were small and I were looking down on it. I’ve never even imagined seeing a city that way. All the rooftops and spires, the roads set out like veins in a leaf, and the river was the biggest silver road of all. The river was so wide, but the city was still on both sides of it. You know, in my dream, the city looked as if it had been planned to be seen from above. Like a strange form of art…’

She let her voice drift away. In the bed beside her, Leftrin shifted. When he moved, she became more aware of him, of where his body touched hers and how he smelled. She spoke reluctantly, I think we should both go back to our rooms.’

The candle had long since guttered out. Sedric’s small room was black. Leftrin sat up slowly. Cold air touched her where his body had pressed against hers in the narrow bed. She smiled to herself. She’d slept next to a naked man. Actually slept with his arms around her, her cheek against the hair of his chest, her legs tangled with his.

She’d never experienced that before.

In the blackness, she heard him find his trousers and shirt. The canvas trousers made an interesting sound as he drew them up his legs. She heard him shoulder into his shirt. He stooped to find his shoes and picked them up. ‘I’ll walk you to your door,’ he whispered, but, ‘No. Go along. I’ll be fine,’ she told him.

He didn’t ask her why she wanted him to leave. For that, she was grateful. She heard the door open and close, and then she moved. Her nightgown was on the floor. It was cold and damp in places, but she pulled it on over her head. One of her braids, she noted, had come out of its plait. She shook out the other one. By touch, she smoothed the rucked blankets on Sedric’s bed. She found his ‘pillow’ and put it back in place. She felt around on the bedclothes and on the floor, but did not find the locket. She told herself again that she didn’t care. It was a worthless artefact of a life no longer connected to her. She slipped from the room, closing the door behind her.

It was only a short flit to her own room. She closed the door behind her and found her bed. The blankets seemed cold and unused as she crawled under them. Her groin ached, her face and breasts were rasped from his beard and his smell was all over her. She wondered at what she’d done, defiantly decided she didn’t care, but still could not close her eyes. She cared about what she had done. She cared about it more than any decision she’d ever made in her life. She stared up into the darkness, not repenting it but re-enacting every moment in her mind. His hands had touched her so, and he’d made those small sounds of enjoyment, and his beard had brushed her breasts when he had kissed them.

It had all been so new to her. She wondered if she had been wanton or only womanly. Had they behaved like animals towards one another, or was this how people who loved one another 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 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.’

Probably more significant than losing a Bingtown fop, Sedric thought savagely. He knew that Carson didn’t intend to insult him, only point out that they would be triply welcomed. Knowing that didn’t help. In the last day and night, he had seen himself in a different light, and found it very unflattering. Useless to remind himself that in Bingtown business circles, he was a competent clever fellow. He was known in all the better taverns to have a lovely clear tenor for drinking songs, and the wine shops saved their best vintages for him. No one could fault his taste in silk. Given charge of Hest’s itinerary, every voyage under his control went flawlessly.

And none of that mattered here. Once he would not have cared about Carson’s regard at all. He would have been content to wait out each boring day on the barge until he could return to Bingtown and his proper life. Now he found himself hungry to show that he could distinguish himself in places other than the bargaining table. Or the bedroom. The thought loomed again, and this time he faced it. Had Hest truly valued him as a business partner? Or had he kept him at his side solely because he was amusing and pliable in the bedroom?

Off to the side of the boats, the copper dragon lumbered through the shallows. The river was almost down to its former level. She seemed cheery to be moving upriver again. Soon she would rejoin the other dragons and their endless journey would continue. She slogged along, sometimes holding her tail up out of the river’s flow and sometimes letting it trail behind her. She kept a touch on his mind, rather like a small child gripping a handful of her mother’s skirts. He was aware of her without having her intrude too much into his mind. Right now, she had sun on her back, mud under her feet, and she was just starting to feel hungry. Soon they’d have to help her find food, or she’d become fractious. But for now, she had everything she desired from life and was content with it. She was such an immediate creature that she almost charmed him until he realized how amoral she was.

Rather like Hest.

That thought ambushed him, breaking the pattern of his rowing. He stared straight ahead, trying to decide if he had just discovered something or was only indulging his anger at Hest yet again. Then the rope between the two small boats went tight, jolting him back on the seat and causing Carson to look back at him. The hunter allowed the river to push him back alongside Sedric’s boat. ‘You’re tired? If you’re tired, we can pull over to the trees for a time.’ The brown eyes were full of sympathy. He knew that Sedric was unaccustomed to physical labour. That morning, he’d offered to let Sedric just sit in his boat while Carson did all the rowing and towed the other boat behind them.