"But what does that mean?" he begged her. "Is there no way my thoughts can be quieted? I'll go mad. The noise, it's getting… stronger!" And had been since Ynnir had passed it to him, a fever in his blood just as terrible and mortal as the illness that had nearly killed him back in Southmarch, but a fever without heat, something altogether different than any earthly malady. "Please… Saqri… help me."

Something moved in her face. "But there is nothing I can do, manchild. It is like asking me to save you from your blood or your own bones. It is in you now-the Fireflower is you." She turned away to look toward the ocean. "And it is more than that. It is all of my family-all we have learned and all that we are. One half of it is in you. It may kill you." She lifted her hands in a deceptively small gesture, whose meanings rippled out in every direction-Defeat is Ours was one meaning, a strange mixture of resignation, terror, and pride. "And the other half is in me and will certainly die with me." She looked up, and for the first time he thought he saw something like pity in her hard, perfect face. "Take courage, mortal. The ocean has beat at this black shore since the gods lived and fought here, but it has not devoured the land. Someday it will, but that day has not yet come."

Everything she said set off ripples in Barrick's head like stones cast into a pond, each ripple intersecting with a dozen more and filling him with half-glimpsed memories and ideas for which the language of his thoughts had no proper words.

Black shore…

The first ships foundered here, but the second fleet survived.