Anger and frustration finally came to rest amid the other emotions pummeling her. "Then I guess I'd better not ever ask you something like that again! If you won't be honest with me—"

"I am being honest with you!"

"How could—" Kira stopped speaking, puzzled, as a black cloud suddenly appeared where the sun was just beginning to rise in a blaze of red splendor. "What's that?"

"What's what?" Jason asked, looking in the same direction.

"That black cloud. It's right where the sun is rising. It's getting darker! And there are, like, purple swirls in it…and…and dark lightning! How can there be dark lightning?"

"Kira, I don't see any black cloud." His gaze on her grew worried. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine! I…it just went away. Disappeared." She felt a shiver run down her back. "Foresight. Father has told me foresight shows up that way sometimes."

"Foresight?" Jason stared at her. "You have foresight?"

"Ummm…"

"How can you have foresight? That's a Mage thing, isn't it?"

Kira fixed her eyes on him. "Don't tell anyone. The important thing right now is that there's danger coming. Serious danger."

"All hands up!" the first mate hailed from the deck. "The glass is dropping fast! We've got a big storm on the way!"

The moment she heard those words, Kira realized that was what her foresight had warned of. Not just a big storm. A very dangerous storm.

The crew spent the entire morning tying down every loose object on deck and below deck, lashing everything with double and triple lengths of rope and multiple knots. The first mate and the captain examined their work, often shaking their heads and ordering another line, pulled tighter, with more knots. All the time they were working the wind grew in strength, veering around to the east so that The Son of Taris was taking it square on the starboard quarter aft, and the swells on the surface of the sea built in size. Clouds had streamed in, first a high, thin layer, then heavy thunderheads that hung menacingly low in the sky and blocked so much sunlight that by midday it seemed night was coming on.

"Are you frightened, girl?" the first mate asked Kira during a momentary pause in preparations.

"No," Kira said. "Actually, yes."

"Good. You should be. I am. If you've never felt the sea's wrath, girl, you've never learned your place in the world. For all our pride we're nothing measured against an angry sea." She fixed Kira with a look. "But if you let the fear rule you, it will kill you. Remember that."

Kira stared at the increasingly rough waters, wishing that she was without fear, like her mother.