Storm stirred the sand with her cane, smearing the runes and sigils. She didn't deny the future they foretold—she couldn't—but she didn't have the strength to face it just then. Instead, she picked up the long trails of seaweed and flung them into the encroaching waves. The water would purify them, scour them with sand and salt before casting them back onto the land to proclaim another future for those who dared read it.

Painfully, Storm bent down to collect the handful of bright serat shells, purple and luminescent in the fading light, still warm against her palm, the bodies they contained shocked by their death. The serat lived for centuries: to kill them when they were so young was cruel, however, the goddess Brikal had demanded an extravagant sacrifice that night.

Storm now knew why.

Finally satisfied that she'd covered her tracks and no one could divine her work or easily spot the trails of blood, Storm allowed herself a few moments to stare across the water. The moons had yet to rise and clouds blocked the rivers of stars, ominously hiding the sea—if Storm believed in omens, which she did not. Fortunes drawn out of the deaths of small beings, bespelled chalk lines and weeds coaxed from the depths? Yes. Mere physical phenomenon, without the geas of augury? No.

Still, Storm pulled her shawl closer as the night blanked out the ocean, until all she knew of it was the soft splashing of the waves. Even when Ty rose, its red light barely reflected off the water.