The Lord of the Seas - An Isekai Progression Fantasy [ Currently on Volume 2 ]

The boy clung to the side of the small boat, his knuckles white and the air stinging with the taste of salt and fear. The sea was merciless, its waves tossing the boat about like a plaything, as though eager to swallow it whole.

Salty seawater stung his eyes and blurred the horizon, but he dared not let go.

The Kingdom of Easthaven stretched behind him, barely visible through the curtain of mist, the only home he had ever known now little more than a memory carved in bloodshed and violence.

They said a dragon had come.

They whispered that Easthaven had been torn apart by flame, that a beast of ancient cruelty had descended on their people. Others said it was a Lord from Linemall, a monster whose ambition had laid waste to the kingdom and reigned destruction upon them all in a single night.

But the boy had seen the truth with his own eyes. He had watched not as dragons or their Lords had destroyed his home, but as men—the soldiers of Nozar—marched through the streets with cold, deliberate steps, their armor glinting menacingly under the moonlight.

They had not come as liberators. They had come as executioners, all in the name of their King Daerion.

The boy could still hear the words that echoed through the avenues that day, shouted by soldiers who thought themselves righteous.

"Stand down, and no harm will come. Resist, and we will show no mercy."

Yet the words they spoke did not match their actions.

The boy had seen the first blades rise against men who dared defend their families. He had watched mothers dragged into the open streets, their children torn from their arms and their cries drowned out by the clash of steel. He had seen his own father—a man of no great renown, no shining armor or royal blood to his name—stand in defiance, a fisherman's hands tightening around the hilt of a rusted spear. The boy's father had fought, not for glory, but to protect the family he had held dear to his heart. That was the last image the boy had of his father—blood running from his wounds upon the streets of Easthaven, eyes still burning with defiance even as the light fled them; leaving his son behind in the land of the living.

Now Easthaven itself seemed to sink beneath the weight of its conquerors.

It was no longer Magnus Elarion who sat upon the throne. The man who had done so much for this nation was gone and in his place sat Maelis—his son, once the Admiral of Nozar's fleet—now styled as the successor to his father's throne.

The story they told, the one whispered in courts and passed between trembling lips, was that of a prodigal son who had returned to claim the throne that was his by right. They said Maelis had abandoned his rank in Nozar's navy, relinquished his command of the mightiest fleet in Hiraeth, all to take up the crown that was his birthright.

But the people of Easthaven knew better.

They remembered Maelis' absence. They remembered how he had turned his back on the Elarion name, choosing Nozar over blood, ambition over loyalty. He was no prodigal son, only a traitor garbed in royal cloth.

They called him the Puppet King.

Maelis was nothing more than a marionette, strung up, controlled by the Kingdom of Nozar and the very man who ruled it. The throne did not belong to him.

It belonged to Rosalia Elarion. The boy thought of her now for some reason.

If she were here, would it be different? He had never spoken to her, never stood in her presence, yet she had been a beacon, a symbol of hope and strength even for those like him—the nameless and voiceless, just like her mother had been long ago. The boy remembered sitting in the arena as she bested a man thrice her size, remembered how she had told them all that it would be her pleasure to lead them into a better future.

Now, not a single soul knew where she was or if she was even alive.

Yet Magnus had made one thing clear. His granddaughter would return and when she did, she would set them all free. But if she was lost, then all that remained was a kingdom wearing another's face, its people forced into silence beneath the shadow of Nozar's crown.

The boat pitched again, the waves clawing at its sides.

The boy had never believed the stories Nozar spread across the world.

At the same time, he could not deny that he had also seen the terrible beast with his own eyes. The great shadow that had ripped through the clouds, its wings blotting out the very skies as it let out a roar that shook the air itself. The sound had rattled the very stones of the kingdom, a thunderous cry from something older and crueler than men. And just as quickly as it had appeared, the dragon vanished—gone from the skies of Hiraeth as though it had been a passing storm.

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Could it have been true that the dragon had taken with it the Princess they had all come to love and adore?

Nozar claimed that it was the Dragon Lord who had stolen her away, an abduction to justify their conquest.

Some believed them. Others did not.

In a matter of months, the Kingdom of Easthaven had turned into a battlefield where the Rebellion rose up to stand against the Puppet King's reign. Every single one of these factions told different stories, rallying the people to fight with them.

But the boy did not know what to believe anymore.

Lies, lies, and lies—ALL OF IT WERE LIES!

All he knew was that the people of Easthaven had been forgotten in the midst of it all.

Its people were now nothing but pieces on a board played by kings and conquerors.

Maybe the boy would have given up in the face of such overwhelming despair.

But he could not.

He would not.

Because his father had not just left a little boy to fend for himself, he had also left behind a little baby girl no older than two. His sister stirred in his arm, a tiny whimper barely audible over the howl of the wind. She was so small, her dark hair matted with salt spray, her face pressed into his chest. The babe would not understand any of this—the dragon, the soldiers, the rebellion—but she would feel his trembling, she would feel his fear.

The boy needed to be strong.

He needed to hold his head high even through this storm to show her that they were going to be fine. He needed her to know that he was going to get them through this. So he tightened his grip on the edge of the boat, the wood slick with seawater and his own sweat.

This little fishing vessel had once belonged to his father and with his inheritance came a chance to give his sister a life better than this one, far from the shadow of Nozar's crown. But as the waves crashed higher and higher, as the storm raged around them like some living thing, that hope felt like it was being washed away with the sea.

The boy was all she had. He would not let her remain here, in a kingdom where their lives were in constant danger.

But by setting sail for the open seas and beyond, perhaps the boy had only ensured their demise.

The little boat bucked violently, the mast groaning under the force of the gale. "I'm sorry," the boy whispered, eyes closing as he held his sister closer, clutching her as if his arms alone could keep her from the sea's horrible embrace.

His words were swallowed by the storm. And then, for a moment, there was silence—deep and heavy, like the breath of the world before it exhaled and it felt like the embrace of death itself.

But as the boy's eyes fluttered open once more, he realized that the storm was gone.

The roar of the sea softened, the winds eased, and the black, jagged clouds above parted like a veil being drawn back. In an instant, the waves that had threatened to drag him and his sister beneath stilled into rolling swells, gentle as a mother's lullaby.

His chest heaved, his arms tightening protectively around the small bundle pressed to him.

And then he saw her.

She sat astride a dragon.

The creature's scales gleamed white, polished as marble, each one catching the light of the breaking sun. Eyes as blue as the clear skies, calm and unyielding, pierced through the air with a majesty that made the world itself pause. The very air hummed with magic, not cruel or wild but pure, flowing outward as though the dragon breathed serenity into the chaos. The storm bent to that will and dissolved.

Yet it was not the dragon's beauty that made the boy's tears spill over.

It was the woman seated upon its back.

Her presence struck him with a force greater than any storm could have. She radiated warmth that pierced through his fear, warmth that reached him even as he shivered with exhaustion and salt.

The boy had tried so hard to be strong, to carry the weight of responsibility his father had left behind, to guard his sister and give her a chance at life.

But he was only a boy, and when his eyes met hers, the strength the world had forced upon him finally broke.

The woman reached out her hand. Her gaze was steady, filled with a love that went beyond reason or blood. She had never met the boy. She did not know the child trembling in the hull of a battered fishing boat or the baby girl he held in his arms. Yet her eyes softened as though she had known them all along, as though they had always mattered to her, because truthfully they did.

They did matter to her.

She shook her head gently, tears glistening in her own eyes and her voice broke against the sea air.

"No. I am sorry. I'm so sorry. You're okay. You're going to be okay."

The boy's lips parted, but no words came—only sobs, wracking and unstoppable, tearing out of him as though his grief had been waiting for this single moment to be released. Though the boy had not known it, in reality, he had simply been waiting to hear those words for a very long time: You're going to be okay. They were a promise, a vow that cut through despair and carved a space for hope within him.

Hope that the boy had been searching for since the moment he lost his father.

The dragon lowered its head, and the woman leaned forward, pulling the children into her arms. The boy clutched his sister tight as he was drawn into that embrace, enveloped in warmth that made the world feel safe again.

As the sun broke free of the clouds, golden light poured over the sea, banishing the shadows of the storm.

The boy closed his eyes, tears still streaming, and let himself believe, if only for that moment, that the worst was behind them.

Because Rosalia Elarion—the Princess of Easthaven, the rightful Queen—had finally returned.