The Season of Renewal
Illár the 10; 2422
Gulf of Anaphe

The midday sun set a slab of oppressive heat on the water, thick and wet with a haze obscuring the horizon. Landon had navigated the channel between Lyre and the mainland many times in his career and had yet to find poorer visibility. Instead of a bright, verdant coastline, the Anaphean peninsula was no more than an amorphous smudge of blue in the distance.

"Impeccable timing, Cap," his First said, turning away from the rail, collar still bearing the bars of a junior Lieutenant. A bloody season in the isles had earned him a field promotion with little time to spare worrying about fitting a new uniform.

He was a fine sailor and deserving of the position, but Landon mourned the circumstances that granted it. His crew were family. He'd lost too many of them since the war began.

"What's our position?"

The Lieutenant straightened imperceptibly, hands clasping at the small of his back. His talent gave him a fresh face, flushed like cherrywood from the sun. "We've laid a line around the shoals and the current is fair. I reckon we're an hour from the reef ledge at our current course and speed."

Not cause for concern, then. "And you called for me because?"

"There's something in the water."

Landon's gut froze. "A creature?" He eased only at the shake of his First's head.

"Something man-made. Wooden." The Lieutenant extended an arm off their starboard beam. "It's a dark patch on the water, bearing two-nine-five."

Flotsam from a wreck, no doubt, though he didn't say so aloud. From the grim line on his First's brow, the lookout must have reported much the same. They'd come across more and more signs of wreckage of late—plenty on the previous night's outgoing tide. Although they'd seen few sea-witches since the Battle of Elona, their absence brought little relief. Other creatures had escaped the locker to take their place. The whole fleet waited with breath held, fearing what rose from the deep in the night. Each piece of flotsam they passed served as both harbinger and reminder: the Rhane could be next.

"Keep a sharp eye on it while I fetch my spyglass. Have your lads ready to come about—I don't want to waste time in deep waters."

His First agreed with a visible shiver, bellowing out the order as Landon retrieved his instruments from where they hung in the main companionway. Feet drummed down the deck. The crew darted for their lines. Sails thumped with the course adjustment, taking the Rhane ever closer to the objects they'd spotted.

Landon blew out a heavy breath. Perhaps this time, they'd find survivors.

By the time he returned to the rail, his crew had taken their places, prepared to slow the Rhane's progress. Most of them had shucked their coats in deference to the heat, leaving only his First and a pair of midshipmen clad in naval blue. Landon approached them with spyglass in hand.

"Thank Ranael we're through escorting that Lyrian merchant. I'd bet good coin he wouldn't have been happy for this diversion," he said, extended the glass and scanning the horizon.

"I'm glad enough to see the backside of him," his First admitted.

"Better to patrol the southern waters than to chase the tail of a man who runs his vessel ragged to put another Royal in his pocket," the coxswain muttered.

"Very well, lads. I got you on this hare, but in times like this, we gain little from speaking ill of our countrymen." Landon squinted, sweeping the empty waters off the Rhane's bow. "Where did you say it was?"

"Just north of Whale Rock, sir."

Landon adjusted his spyglass, freezing when he finally caught sight of what his First's well-honed gaze had found. "They're longboats."

The stone in his gut sharpened. A wreck, indeed—and more of one than they'd found to date. But longboats meant hope, meant—

"Survivors?"

"I can't tell."

"Orders, Captain?"

Landon didn't take his eye off the blurry vessels in his glass in fear he'd lose them. "Round up to a reach, port tack. We'll heave-to as we come alongside."

"Aye, Captain," his officers said in near-unison. Orders soon followed, calling for shortened sail and a course change.

The Rhane picked up speed on her new course, pointing high to take the longboats to leeward. She shifted beneath his feet. Her lines strained and creaked. Landon spared a glance for their angle, brief as can be, before returning his attention to his spyglass.

"How's our course, Cap?" the coxswain called.

"Steady on."

His First reappeared beside him at the rail as the men working before the mast scrambled to prepare their own launches. "Can you get a count, Cap?"

Landon squinted. The sun painted a wicked glare on the horizon, made all the more difficult to bear by the day's haze, and their new course put the longboats right in the blinding swath the sun set on the water. "At least two boats. Possibly three."

His First leaned over the rail, hand shading his brow. "Any sign of the vessel from which they came?"

"None."

"They're damn lucky to have escaped the notice of the creatures."

Landon pulled the spyglass from his eye and rubbed at it, firefish sparking behind his eyelids. Ghostly imprints of the sun's glare pulsed red at the edges of his vision, and he shook his head before trying again. This time, they'd shifted course and drawn close enough for the longboats to reach the edge of the sun's path on the water. Only then did he make out the first sign of life: a man standing in the prow of the lead boat, waving with arms outstretched.

He jerked away from the rail, whipping around to face his crew. "Prepare to launch a rescue, lads, we have survivors!"

"I see them, now." His First's voice rose with excitement. "Three longboats, full to the brim."

The Rhane continued on course as her crew hung and readied rescue boats to launch. Landon's officers divvied themselves between them, issuing orders to their rowers and preparing to drop over the side the moment Rhane's progress slowed enough to allow it. He returned his attention to his spyglass in the meantime, sweeping the miniature forms on each vessel. Many of them joined their compatriot in the lead boat, waving arms and snatches of cloth overhead in a flurry of color that made it difficult for Landon to parse exactly who and what he looked at.

Yet stones sank further in his gut when he considered where they were: mere miles away from Anaphe's inshore coastline. They'd feared the city would come under siege that season. Was this the result?

Rhane's progress slowed and steadied. The figures in each boat sharpened within Landon's spyglass. He picked out the blue coats of navy men, but they weren't alone; men in robes of state sat beside women in traveling gowns and military men with stars on their collars. This was no mere foundered patrol vessel.

This was an evacuation.

"Fángon," he swore, dropping his spyglass from his eye a final time as they drew close enough for him to begin recognizing faces. "Prepare to take passengers aboard. Alert the surgeon and his apprentice. And make our staterooms ready."

"Captain?" his First asked, straining at the rail with his hand over his eyes.

"We're about to become the new home of the Anaphean court, gentlemen. And I assure you, they aren't out for a pleasure cruise."

A heartbeat of dreadful silence fell over the deck before the last of his men darted away to carry out his orders. Landon quit his spyglass and relieved the coxswain on the helm, taking command of his vessel to bring her into position alongside the struggling longboats. As he brought her bow to the wind and gave the order to back her headsails, he sent a prayer to Illen—that whoever he found inside those longboats, the Regent would be among them.

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A/N: Welcome to the first chapter of the Oceana Series! I'm so glad you've made it here. If you're looking for earlier books in the series, you can find them on my profile.

For the rest of you...

Who do you think is inside those longboats?