Bolt was visibly angry now. Behind him, Kennit was aware of the gawking of his crew. Never before had the serpents hesitated in obeying Bolt’s orders. Without turning his head, he warned Jola, “The men to their posts.” The mate obeyed, sending them running.

“What do they say?” he demanded of the charm again.

“Use your eyes,” was the whispered retort. “They go to obey her.”

BRASHEN HAD REMAINED ON BOARD PARAGON. IT DID NOT SEEM WISE FOR BOTH of them to leave the ship, and Althea could not bear to be so close to Vivacia and not speak to her. In the boat with her, Haff and Jek bent to their oars. Lop, clutching a mooring line, sat in the bow and stared grimly ahead. Althea sat stiffly in the stern seat. She was freshly washed and hastily attired in the same clothes she had worn when the Paragon had left Bingtown. She resented the weight of the split skirt, but the occasion called for some formality, and these were the best clothes she possessed. Indeed, of all her garments, these were the only ones still remotely presentable. The chill winter wind tugged hopefully at her plaited and pinned hair. She hoped Kennit would not see her attempt at formality as hiding behind feminine garb. He had to take her seriously.

She turned the scroll in her hands and stared at their destination. On the foredeck of her beloved Vivacia, a single figure stood. His dark blue cloak flapped in the wind and he stood hip-shot, all his weight on one leg. It had to be Kennit. Before she had left Paragon’s deck, there had been others with him. She had thought that one young man might be Wintrow. She could not claim to recognize him, but the figure’s dark hair and stance put her in mind of her father. Could it have been him? If it was, where had he gone? Why did Kennit alone await her?

Reflexively, she glanced back at Paragon. She could see Brashen standing anxiously on the foredeck. Clef stood beside him, hands on his hips in unconscious mimicry of his captain. Amber’s hair blew like silk strands in the wind, and her set face made her a second figurehead. Paragon, arms crossed and jaw set, stared sightlessly toward Vivacia. There was a terrible finality in the brace of his muscles. He had not spoken a word to anyone since Vivacia came into sight. When Althea had dared to reach out and touch his muscular shoulder, she had found it set and hard as wood. It was like touching the tensed back of a snarling dog.

“Don’t be afraid,” she had told him softly, but he had made no reply.

A composed Amber sitting on the railing beside her had shaken her head. “He’s not afraid,” she had said in a low voice. “The anger that burns in him destroys every other emotion.” Amber’s hair lifted slightly in the rising wind and she had spoken in a distant voice. “Danger cups us under its hand, and we can do nothing but stand witness to the turning of the world. Here we walk on the balancing line between futures. Humanity always believes it decides the fate of the whole world, and so it does, but never in the moment that it thinks it does. The future of thousands ripples like a serpent through the water, and the destiny of a ship becomes the destination of the world.”

She turned to look at Althea with eyes the color of brandy in firelight. “Can’t you feel it?” she asked her in a whisper. “Look around you. We are on the cusp. We are a coin spinning in the toss, a card fluttering in the flip, a rune chip floating in stirred water. Possibilities swarm like bees. In this day, in a moment, in a breath, the future of the world will shift course by a notch. One way or another, the coin will land ringing, the card will settle to the table, the chip will bob to the surface. The face that shows uppermost will set our days, and children to come will say, ‘That is just the way it has always been.’”

Her voice dwindled away, but Althea had a sense of the wind carrying the words around the world. Her scalp prickled. “Amber? You’re frightening me.”

Amber had turned a slow and beatific smile on her. “Am I? Then you grow wise.”

Althea did not think she could bear the steady gaze of those eyes. Then Amber blinked at her and saw her again. Then she had hopped from the railing to the deck, dusting her bare hands on the seat of her pants before drawing on her gloves. “It’s time for you to go,” she announced. “Come. I’ll help you with your hair.”

“Watch over Paragon for me,” Althea had asked quietly.

“I would like to.” Amber’s long-fingered hand caressed the railing. “But today is a day he must face alone.”

Now, Althea looked back from the ship’s boat and wished Amber had come with her. She tightened her grip on the scroll she held and wondered again if Kennit would be swayed by the carefully penned offer. He had to be! Everything she had heard of this man spoke of a resolute intelligence coupled with great foresight. He had hung out a truce flag of his own, so he was open to negotiation. He would at least hear her out. Even if he loved Vivacia, perhaps especially if he loved Vivacia, he would see that returning her to her family in exchange for vastly profitable trade agreements was in everyone’s best interest. Suddenly, Amber lifted a finger and pointed ahead of Althea. At the same instant, Lop gave a wild cry, echoed by Haff who dropped his oar and came halfway to his feet. Althea swiveled her head to see where Amber pointed and froze where she sat.