Gaven lay in a swinging bunk below the decks of the Sea Tiger, one arm behind his head, the other wrapped around Rienne. Her head rested on his shoulder, her black hair spilling over his arm and off the edge of the bunk. He savored the quiet-the soft creak of the ropes moving with the galleon and the splashing of the hull cutting the water. Moonlight gleamed on Rienne’s dark skin.
“Jordhan says we’ll be in the Dragonreach soon,” Rienne said. “Then on to Argonnessen.”
“Here’s what I don’t understand. All the ten seas connect to each other, right? So how do you know when you leave one and enter another? What’s the difference between the Lhazaar Sea and the Dragonreach? Or if we kept sailing around Khorvaire, how would we know when we left the Dragonreach and entered the Thunder Sea?”
“It’s not much different than traveling on land,” Gaven said. “How can you tell when you leave Aundair and enter Thrane?”
“Soldiers come and demand your papers?” Rienne lifted her head and smiled at him, shifting to prop herself up on one arm. The movement sent the bunk into gentle swinging.
“You know what I mean. There’s no difference in the land. Sometimes you cross a river, sometimes you go through a mountain pass. But many times the lines are totally arbitrary-the border is set where each nation’s control ended at the close of the Last War.”
“I understand that. But there aren’t any nations in the seas to fight over borders.”
“True, thank the Sovereigns. In that case, it’s more a matter of how sailors define them. The Lhazaar Sea is full of whales, and that’s how the Lhazaars make their living. They don’t go whaling in the Dragonreach, though, because they’d find their harpoons stuck into a dragon turtle. Or bouncing off its shell, more likely.”
“Is that what it is? Different creatures in different seas? So we’ll know we’re in the Dragonreach when we spot our first dragon turtle?”
“Not just that. If you sail east from Lhazaar, you eventually get into the Sea of Rage, and pretty soon you realize you’ve gone too far when you sail into a freak storm or a giant waterspout. The seas are different. They behave differently. Almost like people.”
“Some are more tempestuous than others,” Rienne said. She started tracing a finger along the winding lines of the dragonmark on his chest.
Gaven closed his eyes and enjoyed the touch of her fingers on his skin. In his mind, he could see the movements of her fingers, and the patterns of his dragonmark took shape.
The words of creation. He had been seeing them etched into the land and sea ever since he walked the twisting Sky Caves of Thieren Kor-every part of the world spoke to him of its past and what it might yet become. The Prophecy of the dragons was written upon the world itself. But he had never realized before that it was written on him.
He saw it now, in the fine lines that weaved across his skin, from just under his chin and down his neck to cover his chest and the upper part of his arm. He saw in those lines all that he had been and was becoming-his past and his potential, his beginning and what might well be his end. He saw the thread of Rienne’s fate bound up in his own. A chill shot up his spine, and he shuddered.
“Sorry,” Rienne said. “Did that tickle?”
He looked up at her smile, and those lines of his dragonmark that spoke of her stood out clear and strong in his mind. He reached up and wove his fingers into her hair, then pulled her down to kiss him.
“You’re awfully quiet,” Rienne said, stroking Gaven’s cheek with the back of her hand. They stood at the prow of the Sea Tiger, watching a pod of dolphins riding the bow wave.
“Thinking,” he said.
“Mm. Why not let me in on those thoughts?”
Gaven sighed, then smiled at her. “I’m sorry. I spent so much time alone in Dreadhold that I’m still getting used to having someone to talk to.”
“I understand. But I’m pretty tangled up in your plans right now-I hope you can share them with me.”
“Of course, love.” Gaven kissed her forehead, then turned to look out over the open sea. The last of the Lhazaar islands had already vanished behind them into the haze of the horizon. Somewhere ahead of them in the apparently boundless sea lay the land of dragons. “I’m just trying to figure out what all this means.”
“All this what?”
“The Prophecy and my place in it. Your place in it. What’s happening to the world.”
“That’s why we’re going to Argonnessen, right?”
Gaven nodded. “I feel as though the world is coming to a crucial moment, a…” He looked up at the ring of elemental water that churned in a circle around the Sea Tiger’s aftcabin, helping to propel the ship across the sea. “It’s like the moment when you turn an hourglass over and the sand starts running the other way. I don’t know if I can explain it any better than that. The Time of the Dragon Above has ended, the Storm Dragon made his appearance in history. And the Time of the Dragon Below is coming, with the rise of the Blasphemer. That means this is the Time Between.”
Rienne’s brow crinkled and she looked away. “And what happens in the Time Between?”
“That’s the thing,” Gaven said, leaning against the bulwark. “I know some words of the Prophecy, a hint of their layers of meaning. But I don’t really know what they mean as a whole. When I was in Dreadhold, I dreamed all the time about the Storm Dragon and the Soul Reaver and the events of the Time of the Dragon Above. And I’ve had a few visions about the Blasphemer-terrible visions. The Time Between is a mystery to me.”
“What do you know of the Prophecy about the Time Between?” Rienne asked. Gaven could hear the trepidation in her voice.
“A great deal of blood,” he said. He closed his eyes, remembering the twisting tunnels of the Sky Caves of Thieren Kor. He could almost feel the stone beneath his fingertips. “‘Three drops of blood mark the passing of the Time Between.’ Three events involving bloodshed of some kind. ‘Ten eyes gaze brightly upon the City of the Damned,’ whatever that means. But I don’t know what it’s all about. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do any more.”
“So we’re going to Argonnessen to learn what the dragons say about the Time Between.”
“Right.” He looked back down at the water. The dolphins had abandoned their play, and there was only open ocean as far as he could see. “It’s strange,” he said. “For the better part of thirty years I was haunted by dreams-by nightmares about the fulfillment of the Prophecy. I lived the death of the Soul Reaver countless times, felt the monster’s tentacles clawing at my face and wriggling into my mouth-” He shuddered.
Rienne put a gentle hand on his back.
“Now the dreams are gone,” he said, “and some part of me misses them.”
“Because you were so used to them?”
“Not just that. It also gave me a much better sense of what I was doing-it gave me a purpose, a goal, even something like a plan, though I often felt-”
“Like you were writing the script as you went along?”
“Exactly. But at least I had an idea of where the play was heading. Now I don’t even have that.”
“So that’s what you’re hoping to find in Argonnessen?”
“I suppose it is.” He turned and smiled at her. “But this time without the nightmares.”
Even as the words left his mouth, he remembered a dream that had haunted his sleep on the lightning rail. A blasted canyon, a wound torn into the earth. Dragonfire fueling a great furnace. A blast of fire jetting up to engulf him.
“What is it?” Rienne asked.
“Just a headache,” he said, forcing the smile back on his face. “Too much glare off the water. Let’s go below.”
“Land ho!”
In the aft cabin, Gaven looked up from the charts spread out before him and smiled at Jordhan.
“Well done,” he said. “Your prediction was dead on.”
Jordhan walked to the hatch and peered out at the sailors on deck. “I told you, I know the sea,” he said, “and after all these years I hope I know how to read a chart.”
“As far as they go,” Rienne said, still frowning at the charts. They traced the outline of a large island and two smaller ones to its north, then a longer coast that Jordhan said was the mainland.
