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Nicodemus Weal, Warden of Lorn, and—depending on whom you asked—the righteous Halcyon or the demonic Storm Petrel. If he discovered what she was concealing, Leandra might have a motive for patricide. But she doubted Nicodemus would ever discover her secrets, or if he did that he would react in a way that would require violence.
    Second there was her draconic mother, Magistra Francesca DeVega, first Physician of the Clerical Order, Warden of Dral. If the true contents of Leandra’s heart were ever made plain, the one most likely to endanger Leandra would be her mother.
    Just then Leandra’s focus was crowded out by unwelcome memories of fourteen years past. The Goldensward War had brought empire and league to the brink of total war. Leandra and her mother had been in Port Mercy at the time. What had happened next … seeing her mother’s teeth like that … well … only by the thinnest of chances had mother and daughter survived each other. Leandra thought of her mother’s teeth and tried to shut out those memories.
    Then with profound relief, Leandra remembered that her mother was in the South. Two months ago, Leandra had received a report from Dral that Francesca and her followers were in Warth—too far away to murder.
    Odd. An hour previous, she had felt through the godspell that some of her future selves were relieved. Sensing an emotion before its experience was like hearing an echo before the shout.
    Leandra looked away to the standing islands. At the waterline the bay had worn the limestone to pillars upon which the rocky islands balanced. Atop the larger islands stood jungle-covered ruins—walls and rock piles mostly. These were the remains of the ancient Lotus city of Sukrapor, destroyed by a long-ago war with the Sea People’s deities.
    Leandra’s thoughts returned to her possible victims. There were other names she could add, but none seemed very likely to incite her to murder.There was an ancient woman who had taken care of her when she was a child. And there was Thaddeus, a scholar of the Cloud Culture and her long-ago lover … but she had little feeling left for him. In fact, she said a short prayer that, if she had to kill anybody, it would be him.
    This thought made her, again, quirk a smile at the dark water and by extension the idiotic universe.
    A thought occurred to her: She had been considering people presently in Chandralu, but every night ships from all six human kingdoms sailed into port. “Pass the word for Captain Holokai,” she said. Lieutenant Peleki, standing near the mast, echoed her call and the sailors repeated it down the ship. A moment later, Holokai presented himself.
    The captain stood six and a half feet tall. Handsome if slightly too angular features, clean shaven head and face. But it was his complexion that was most remarkable; on his chest and face, he had fair skin that never tanned or burned. Yet his limbs and back were dark, almost gray.
    Presently Holokai wore a lungi, bright red with a white fern pattern, tied in the style of the Sea People. In his right hand, he held a leimako—a stylized paddle, the blade of which was serrated with mako shark teeth. Among the Sea People, the leimako was a weapon restricted to great warriors and leaders. In Holokai’s hands, this particular leimako had unusual properties.
    Holokai tried to regard Leandra with his usual casual smile, but his dark eyes betrayed a concern. He knew something strange had happened on the beach with the smuggler.
    Leandra felt the fist of her emotions loosen in his presence as she had prophetically felt an hour previous—again an echo-before-the-shout emotion.
    Looking at Holokai, Leandra realized that if she were honest with herself, truly honest, she had better add another name to the list of potential victims. “Captain, I have strange questions for you. Come closer.”
    Frowning, Holokai did so. Privacy aboard a fighting