He looked down at her for a moment, frowning, his mood turning from restive impatience to pensive introspection. Isana had always found her son's ability to focus upon whatever he set his mind on to be somewhat intimidating. He could pour tremendous energy of thought and will into any given task. It must be uncomfortable for him, to say the least, to turn that same focus inward.
He sighed and settled down on the deck beside her stool, resting his shoulders against the bulkhead behind them. He lowered his voice. "If I had..."
"The furycraft, yes," she said quietly. "It hasn't solved the First Lord's problems. Even if you had it, you'd merely be faced with a host of different uncontrollable situations."
Tavi was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "But I could protect you."
"Perhaps," she said quietly. "Perhaps not. Life is not notable for its overabundance of certainty."
Tavi grimaced and nodded. "I just thought I'd feel better if you were inside."
She tied off the thread, willed Rill into a fingernail to sharpen it, and cut it neatly. She slipped the needle through thread still wound on the spool and shook her hand gently as the nail returned to normal, stretching her aching fingers. "If you truly think that's best, perhaps you should try leading us there."
He blinked and tilted his head, looking at her.
She laughed. She couldn't help it. She leaned down and kissed his hair. For all that he was grown so tall, and for all that he had learned and become, she could still see the infant, the toddler, the mischievous child, all rolled into the man he was becoming.
"Consider," she said. "Were Gaius in your position-"
"As if he'd ever be without furycraft," Tavi snorted.
"But if he were," Isana pressed, meeting his eyes. "Consider it. How would his retinue react to him, hmmm? If he stood brooding at the rail and paced about like a hungry thanadent, snarling and giving orders that made little sense."
Tavi scowled at her. He began to speak, stopped, then shrugged. "If I was there with him? I'd be worried."
"Quite," Isana said. "Such a display might soothe his own anxiety-but he would be doing so at a cost to others. Is that the kind of person you want to be?"
Tavi tilted his head again, frowning. He said nothing.
"Now consider: If staying locked in the passenger cabin truly was the wisest course of action, would you rush into it if it seemed that Gaius was determined to stay on deck, despite the futility of the gesture?"
"Probably not."
Isana nodded. "That's because Gaius, for all that he is a manipulative old serpent, is also a leader. He acts. Others follow." She glanced around, and said, "They follow you, too."
Tavi's brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"
"Those with us," she said. "Even many of the sailors. They recognize intelligence, competence, confidence. They regard you-and your evaluation of our situation-with more respect than they would another."
Tavi chewed on his lower lip, and murmured, I'm frightening them."
Isana saw no need to confirm what Tavi had finally realized. "If Gaius thought his people were all safest in the cabin, what do you think he would do?"
Tavi nodded slowly. "He'd go there. Give them a chance to protest. Save their pride. Help their morale. If he thought that was best."
Isana reached into the garment bag on the deck beside her and drew out one of Ehren's sets of trousers-all of which bore tears and ham-handed repairs that were arguably worse than the rips they'd replaced. "Well, then. It might be wise for you to practice. What do you think is the best thing to do?"
Her son shook his head. "That question has been on my mind a lot, lately."
Here it came. She steeled herself against another reflex-flutter of panic. That wasn't what Tavi needed right now. "Oh?"
"It's a lot," he said.
"Yes."
"It's big."
Isana nodded. "Oh, yes."
He whispered. "I'm scared."
Isana closed her eyes. The man's voice spoke with the child's aching fear, and it hurt to hear it, to feel it.
"The thing is," he said quietly, "that I'm not making this choice just for me. If I'm not killed today, or when we get to the capital, or in the fighting after that, or in the trial after the fighting, then... what I do will affect a lot of people."
"That isn't precisely uncommon, over the past few years," she pointed out.
"But this is different. This is more."
"Is it?"
Tavi looked up at her, searching her eyes with his. They looked brilliantly green against the dark brown wood stain of the ship's timbers. "What if I can't handle it?" he said quietly. "What if I'm not capable of it?"
"Tavi, you've never needed-"
"This isn't about furycraft," he said quietly, firmly. "It's about me." He leaned closer, whispering. "Do you think I could do this? Take... take his place?"
Isana's heart pounded. She set the trousers aside. The fear screamed at her to tell her son no. That he could not possibly enter the insanity that passed for government in Alera and survive. That he would bungle whatever he set his hand to, cause pain and grief to untold thousands.
Instead, she took his hand and held it in both of hers.
"I've had nightmares about this since you were an infant," Isana said quietly. "Every time you did something that... attracted the attention of the Crown, every time you threw yourself into harm's way for another, it felt like someone stabbing me with a knife. I was sure that if you kept it up, your father's enemies would see you. Recognize you. Kill you. That's all I could see."
She looked up at his eyes. "But I didn't see what was right in front of me." She clenched his hand hard, and her voice turned fierce. "You have proven, again and again, that you are his son. His son. Never let anyone tell you differently."
He stared at her with wide eyes. Then he nodded once, and his jawline suddenly firmed. "Thank you."
"Great furies, don't thank me for this," she said quietly. "I hate it. I hate everything about it."
"Will you stand with me?" he asked.
She leaned down and clasped him, hugging him as tightly as she could, and whispered, "Hail, Gaius Octavian."
Chapter 25
Tavi stood in the very bow of the ship, where he would be out of the way of any of the sailors laboring to coax every bit of speed from the Slive. The ship leapt forward through the waves, and salt spray occasionally misted over him. He felt Kitai's presence a breath before he heard her bare feet tread quietly on the deck behind him. She stepped up beside him, casually pressing her side against his, and followed his gaze off to the ship's port side.