"Now we're going on a boat?" Daine looked incredulously at the timber vessel which bobbed ambivalently in the dock. Just as carelessly, the woman shrugged. The gesture was clear: She was getting on the boat. Whether or not Daine chose to join her was a matter of supreme indifference.

A man sauntered over to them with the rolling gait of a sailor and held out his hand.

"Passage." He drawled. Both women blinked at him.

"I made it agreed already." The kidnapper said in her stilted way. The sailor spat on the ground and folded his arms.

"That so? So I guess I'll be taking your word for it? Just like that?"

"I'm Jeena Min. I'm working for the Shrouded Terns." The woman said tersely, and then she rounded on Daine and snapped, "Tell that to you damn husband. He'll not know it's meaning."

The sailor obviously recognised the word, for he had gone pale. The woman was right, though. Daine had never heard it before in her life. And while she would be the first to admit that she knew very little about the world (being locked up had that effect), she was keenly knowledgable about the people who wished her harm. In the prison she had learned every name, and listened in on every heated argument. She had never heard any of the officials mention the Shrouded Terns. She couldn't even work out if it was a family name or a tribe, or...

"We were only told to find a berth for one of you." The sailor had recovered some of his surliness. "It's not an inn. We have to ration out supplies, shift ballast..."

Daine half expected the kidnapper - Jeena, she reminded herself - to jump at the chance to get rid of her, but (shifting Sarralyn to her other shoulder) the woman muttered, "She don't eat much."

"Even so." The man smiled thinly and sauntered a little closer to Daine, eyeing her travel-stained clothes. "Have you even got coin for safe passage, mistress?"

"I can work for it," she answered quickly. "I can..."

"There's only one thing you'd be good for, and I'll not agree to you doing it on my ship." The sailor interrupted her. Then his face changed into something he probably thought was a leer. "Not without testing the goods, first."

Daine flushed darkly, but before she could retort the woman sighed impatiently and grabbed at the man's shoulder.

"I'll give you two coin to bring her, and another two if you don't come near her for whole journey." She said. The man blinked, caught off balance with his fight half-undone. The assassin leaned a little closer and her eyes narrowed. "You argue now, I give you two black eyes for free."

The sailor gulped, blustered, and finally stalked off. They watched him go, and Daine wondered if the other woman's heart was racing as much as her own. The sense of threat in the air had been as thick as molasses.

"Thank you." She said, with absolutely no warmth in the words. Jeena shrugged.

"He tell other sailors, they come for bribes too, whoops! I have no more money." She glanced sidelong at the girl and smiled, showing teeth. "I will look after baby. You will be busy."

"Thank you." Daine repeated herself in exactly the same flat, icy tone. The woman scoffed a laugh, and headed across the gangplank.

That night she lay on the wet floorboards in front of the kidnapper's closet-sized cabin, and shivered herself into an uneasy sleep. Every passing sailor woke her up, from passing leers to casual boots planted in her ribs when she rolled across the gangway. When she finally wedged herself inside the doorframe, she got little rest, for the dream was a vivid as wakefulness.

The slow cool trickle of salt water was the sheen of soft sheets, and the rocking boat was the soft motion of another human body leaving her bed. It was a month of so later, and the boy woke her in the morning to say, "I'm leaving tomorrow."

Daine stared at him with wide, sleep-hazed eyes. She didn't dare to move for a long time, and she could see that he didn't think she understood. It wasn't that, though. Some part of her thought that if she didn't respond, it would mean this was just a dream. She could sink back into darkness, and when she opened her eyes again everything would be normal. She buried her face back into the soft pillow and inhaled the soft, warm scent of clean linen.

His voice was far too steady. He had rehearsed this. She had to see his expression. She looked up, and this time he refused to meet her gaze.

"I'm going back home. I'm training to be a knight, you know. Father insists. I'm no good at working here... I'm really terrible. And I'm glad. I can't stand this place." A surprisingly adult expression crossed his face for a moment, and then he looked at the girl. "I'm never coming back."

Daine tore her eyes away with genuine pain writhing in her heart. It took a moment before she understood her own emotion, for she was so used to being numb. She had been dreading returning to her normal life, but now that the worst had happened that thought barely registered. Instead, crawling through her heart like an insect, was the disquieting awarness that she was going to miss him.

She swallowed, made her face blank, and got up from the bed. She pulled her clothes on with steady hands, neatened her hair, and made it all the way to the door before she looked back up at him. He was watching her. It was his right to watch his slave, Daine thought with sudden bitterness, but she could hate him for it now. She couldn't despise him for casting her aside, because she was supposed to yearn for freedom, not slavery. But she was allowed to hate the way he stared at her.

His eyes never left her face. His voice was soft and plaintive against the torrent of her silent rage.

"They're throwing a farewell banquet for me tonight. I'll try to get away early. Please be here. I want to say goodbye." He hesitated, and then added, "I've been thinking of you as my friend. If I'm wrong... then you don't need to be here. I'm not ordering you to do anything. I've put my name against yours on the list so no-one else will bother you but... it's not an order." He pulled open the door to let her leave. "I hope you'll be here."