The Great Hall of Blackwell Manor wore its age like a comfortable pair of boots with a fresh pair of socks.

The foundations of the hall had been laid nearly three hundred years ago when Phylip Blackwell laid claim to what had become Blackwell Bay as the seat of his power. Prior to his arrival, the Eldritch High Lord who ruled over these isles saw little value in a sheltered harbor. Many of the Eldritch who lived on the isles had strong bodies that were capable of swimming from one island to another, and others, like Phylip’s predecessor, possessed wings to fly wherever they wished so long as the wind was fair.

The Eldritch weren’t savages. According to Phylip’s journals, they had plenty of smaller boats for the landbound clans in their midst. But it wasn’t until Phylip arrived that they learned the value of sailing ships that combined the power of dozens or even hundreds of rowers with vast, billowing sails.

Phylip reshaped the region, building his keep atop a hill overlooking the harbor that sheltered the Black Sail fleet through every winter storm and summer tempest. In Phylip’s era, he had ruled with the authority and autonomy of a king, building a kingdom of misfits and rogues in search of a place they could finally call home.

The heart of that keep still stood, and the stones of the Great Hall remembered those days. Now, as Count Rhys Blackwell sat at the center of the High Table in the same hall that Phylip had built, he felt the weight and age of those stones settling on his shoulders with the same gentle strength of a grandfather’s hand, steadying him against the storm to come.

Voices echoed off the well-worn rafters as men who hadn’t seen each other for several months or even years became reacquainted. Here and there, peals of laughter split the air, and more than a few congratulated each other on the birth of children while others offered condolences for loved ones lost to time and tide.

The hall had been built to hold five hundred, the full crew of the Black Tide, their wives and families. Now, it held only a quarter of that number, nearly all of them direct descendants of Phylip’s legendary crew.

Four of the men sitting at the High Table with Rhys Blackwell were descendants of Phylip’s officers. Baron Mervyn Stormwarden could trace his line all the way back to Mathias Stormtossed, Phylip’s famed navigator, who could turn even the worst luck into a golden opportunity, or at the very least, an adventure worth telling exaggerated tales about.

"You’re a lucky man, Amren," Mervyn told the baron sitting next to him. "Four sons and no daughters to break your heart," the dark-skinned baron said, clapping the younger man sitting next to him on the shoulder. Mervyn had shaved his head years ago rather than displaying a receding hairline, and his size combined with his bold features to give him an intimidating presence even when smiling and jovial.

"You try wrangling four brats and a cranky wife and tell me again how lucky I am," Baron Amren Dalais protested, nearly spilling his wine from the force of Mervyn’s meaty hand landing on his back. "I owe Lord Rhys a tin of pipe leaf for giving me an excuse to flee from home this Midwinter."

Sitting next to Mervyn, Baron Amren Dalais looked both small and pale, despite his skin possessing a healthy golden hue and his lean frame carrying plenty of muscle. His ancestor, Austor The Slug, had sold his share in the Black Tide for a vast stretch of fertile land along the River Senara, opting to provide his descendants a life of comfort and ease away from the harsh winds and cruel fates of the sea, but no one seemed to have told Amren that he was supposed to be enjoying an easy life.

There was always a bit of good-natured rivalry between the lords of the isles and the lords of the mainland, but Amren navigated the dangerous waters with practiced ease and no shortage of gifts from the fertile fields and orchards of his barony.

"Once your lads are grown enough to be helpful, you’ll call it a blessing," another voice chimed in from Rhys’s other side. "And a few years after they’re useful, if you’re lucky, they’ll bring you their own brats to spoil before you send them back to their mothers."

Baron Domenec Hender was the oldest of Rhys Blackwell’s barons, and both his hair and beard had gone white long ago, while his skin had been tanned to leather by long years spent on the decks of his ships, chasing whales and pirates alike. Every year for the past decade, Rhys had asked him if he intended to retire to allow one of his sons to take the helm of his island barony, and every year he’d received the same answer in reply: Domenec would vacate his throne when the sea killed him and not a moment before.

If Dekan The Butcher, Phylip’s trusted physician, could see the sort of man his descendant had become, Rhys didn’t know whether he would be proud to see him still at sea or if he’d fret endlessly about the old man’s recklessness with his health. Rhys imagined it would have been the latter, but from the journals he’d read recently, none of Phylip’s crew had been ordinary men.

He only hoped that their descendants could prove just as extraordinary.

"Oh, shut it, old man," a sharp voice said as the whip-thin, dark-haired man sitting next to Domenec prodded the aging baron with a finger. "The only thing I want to hear about less than your grandchildren is one of your stories that starts with ’back in the day,’" he chided, though the smile beneath his oiled mustache took all of the sting out of his words.

Baron Cir Ricarde was the youngest of Rhys’ Barons, and he’d only succeeded his father three years ago, taking over the upriver barony that held not only one of Blackwell County’s greatest shipyards but the gift that Claire DuGaal had left behind for the man who taught her witchcraft.

Cir was young and unproven, but his ancestor, Andreau the Red Blade, had been one of Phylip’s best swordsmen, and the lands he and his descendants had been entrusted with held more secrets than any save for the still absent Baron Stackpole, who guarded the hidden isles and the records too dangerous to allow the Church to discover.

"A motley crew, full of misfits and mischief makers," Rhys murmured as he looked at his vassals, taking the measure of each man as he braced himself to share the news that would upend their worlds.

Just one more to arrive, he thought, gazing out the windows as if he could see through the darkness to the docks at the base of the hill. A messenger had already brought him word that Baron Stackpole’s ship had been spotted approaching the docks. The time would be upon them soon enough and then...

Then he would see if he could count on his ’crew’ the way Phylip had been able to depend on his.