The skiff came into the Admiralty docks among a great upset of white pelicans, and a squad of marines hurried the admirals inside with their skins lifted up over their heads. The Admiral’s Gutter got them in the back way, Lindon thinking the whole while, as they walked half-bowed through tunnels of ancient ceramic tile like an old bathhouse, of his predecessor Empire Admiral Juristane, who had vanished, one day, between the Gutter’s entrance and its inner door. No one had ever admitted to the act, which meant, often enough, it was the Emperor’s doing.

They came in to War Plot, where the white lights had been doused to hide the motion of shadows under the doorframes from any eavesdroppers, where the great secret map waited on its pedestal with its scattered balsa miniatures. And Lindon gritted his teeth for the daily battle he fought to retake his own headquarters from the woman who wanted his flag.

She was here already, of course. She always got here first when news came in. Lindon might be Empire Admiral of the Navy, but he was not first in the navy’s esteem, and especially not when the navy smelled war wind.

“Report,” he commanded.

She looked down at him from her seat at the Admiral’s Pulpit. Her mask was the old red color of dead blood and Lindon thought, Khamtiger, khamtiger, what do you eat? Your dogs and your cattle and your two running feet. Once he’d slipped up and referred to her as khamtiger while drinking. Svir had taken him by the hands and captured his eyes and said, “Lindon, do not do her work for her. Do not build her up in your mind. She’s only one woman.”

But he was frightened, anyway, of Ahanna Croftare the Khamtiger, the Man-killer. She had fought in war: she had taken prizes. Lindon, come up through the Storm Corps, had never helmed a ship in battle. He was and always had been a peacetime admiral.

“Rumors out of the north,” Ahanna Croftare said. “From Fifth Fleet.” She had a voice smoked rough by fires, on Kingsbane and Hygiatis and Mollify before. The khamtiger was a beast of myth in Devi-Naga who rode the monsoon and the tsunami, but the khamtiger was also real. Storm-tossed and ragged they came ashore on the waves from wherever the sea had plucked them. And with no territory to hunt, with starvation like a worm in them, they went for the children and the weak.

Lindon took off his sealskin. Rain spattered the shining tiles. “What rumors?”

“Sulane and Scylpetaire left Treatymont. Sailed east. Haven’t been seen since.”

“Did Province Admiral Ormsment report why?”

Those teeth of hers were watching him. That nose of hers was sniffing for his sweat. “She’s aboard Sulane. She left her flag with Welterjoy’s captain. She isn’t planning to come back.”