Twelve Fires Fell On The Night The Sea Went Out

Seven warships tore open the sky above our beach and threw twelve fires down at my people. It was the Long Ebb, the one night in nineteen years the sea walks away from the shore of Vael. I had walked out with a lantern to see my mother's grave for the first time in my life. Now the small moon was sinking, and when it set, the sea would come back for everything on the sand. My grandmother, the Tide-Keeper, would not run, so neither would I. And the nearest fire had come down a hundred steps from us.